Tech

An increase in overall hospitalizations was reported for older adults in the week following exposure to a tropical cyclone, according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University's Earth Institute and colleagues at Colorado State University and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

The researchers used data over 16 years on 70 million Medicare hospitalizations for those 65 years and older and a comprehensive database of county-level local winds associated with tropical cyclones to examine how tropical cyclone wind exposures affect hospitalizations from 13 mutually exclusive, clinically meaningful causes, along with over 100 sub-causes. This study is the first comprehensive investigation of the impact of hurricanes and other tropical cyclones on all major causes and sub-causes of hospitalizations. The findings are published in Nature Communications.

Over 16,000 additional hospitalizations were associated with tropical cyclones over a ten-year average exposure. Analyses showed a 14 percent average rise in respiratory diseases in the week after exposure. The day after tropical cyclones with hurricane-force winds respiratory disease hospitalizations doubled. Also reported was an average 4 percent rise in infectious and parasitic diseases and 9 percent uptick in injuries. Hospitalizations from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) surged 45 percent the week following tropical cyclone exposure compared to weeks without exposure.

This rise in hospitalizations was driven primarily by increases in emergency hospitalizations. The researchers point out that there may have been cases where exposure to the cyclones prevented normal medical care, compelling people to go to the hospital to access services that they might otherwise get outside a hospital setting without the storm. For example, if those with respiratory issues experienced loss of power--often a result from tropical cyclone winds--they may have turned to hospitals if they needed power for medical equipment that a hospital could furnish.

However, for certain causes, such as certain cancers, the authors also reported decreases in hospitalizations. These decreases were driven by non-emergency hospitalizations, indicating that people possibly cancelled scheduled hospitalizations because of the storm, which may have longer-term impacts on health.

"We know that hurricanes and other tropical cyclones have devastating effects on society, particularly on the poorest and most vulnerable" said Robbie M. Parks, PhD, Earth Institute post-doctoral fellow at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and first author. "But until now only limited previous studies have calculated their impacts on health outcomes. Current weather trends also indicate that we can expect tropical cyclone exposure to remain a danger to human health and wellbeing, and could cause devastation to many more communities, now and into the future. There is no doubt that extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, are a great threat to human health in the U.S. and many other places in the world--now and with climate change in the future. Our study is a major first step in understanding how tropical cyclone exposure impacts many different adverse health outcomes."

The researchers anticipate that adequate forecasting of tropical cyclones might help, for example, in the planning of setting up shelters to provide electricity and common medications and creating easy ways for vulnerable people with certain chronic conditions to find and use those resources outside of the hospital.

One of the main impediments for research in this field has been the difficulty in readily accessing data for exposure assessment. This research was greatly facilitated by the work of G. Brooke Anderson, PhD, associate professor at Colorado State University, who curated an open-source dataset to easily assess exposure to tropical cyclones for epidemiologic studies. The authors coupled the exposure data with comprehensive hospitalization data among Medicare enrollees. "The development of environmental health data research platforms that provide a one-point access to data, like the one we used for this study, can be a very powerful tool allowing research in directions that were not possible before," said Francesca Dominici, PhD, professor of biostatistics at the Harvard Chan School and co-author.

"While serious gaps in knowledge remain, we gained valuable insights into the timing of hospitalizations relative to exposure and how cause-specific hospitalizations can be impacted by tropical cyclones," said Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, ScD, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman School, and senior author. "These important discoveries will be key for preparedness planning, including hospital and physician preparedness. Our study is just a first step in this process."

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have developed a tool to monitor communications within the brain in a way never before possible, and it has already offered an explanation for why Alzheimer's drugs have limited effectiveness and why patients get much worse after going off of them.

The researchers expect their new method will have tremendous impact on our understanding of depression, sleep disorders, autism, neurological diseases and major psychiatric conditions. It will speed scientific research into the workings of the brain, they say, and facilitate the development of new treatments.

"We can now 'see' how brain cells communicate in sharp detail in both the healthy and diseased brains," said lead researcher J. Julius Zhu, PhD, of UVA's Department of Pharmacology.

Unexpected Transmissions

The new method developed by Zhu and his collaborators lets scientists examine transmissions inside the brain at both the microscopic level and the far, far smaller nanoscopic level. It combines a biological "sensor" with two different forms of cutting-edge imaging.

The approach can quantify "neuromodulatory" transmissions, which are associated with major brain disorders, including addiction, Alzheimer's, depressive disorders and schizophrenia. They're also linked to autism, epilepsy, eating disorders and sleep disorders.

Neuromodulatory transmissions are the "slower" transmissions in the brain. They're typically thought to involve lots of neurons in large regions. That's in contrast to the much faster transmissions that happen neuron-to-neuron.

But Zhu's new tool has already shown it's not that simple.

In Alzheimer's disease, Zhu and his colleagues discovered a surprising degree of "fine control and precision" in the supposedly shotgun neuromodulatory transmissions. Widely used Alzheimer's drugs known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors may inhibit this precise communication, the scientists report. That may explain the limited effectiveness of the drugs, they say.

The researchers went on to identify potential changes in the brain that could be brought about by long-term use of the drugs, which could explain why patients often get much worse when they stop taking them. "The new method points out Alzheimer's defects in the unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, defining the precise targets for medicine," Zhu said.

Alzheimer's, the researchers say, is just the tip of the iceberg. The new system has "broad applicability" across the spectrum of neurological and psychiatric diseases and disorders, they report. In the years to come, the scientists predict, it will help doctors understand neurological illnesses and psychiatric problems, screen drugs for potential treatments, identify disease-causing genes and develop better, more personalized medicine tailored for specific patient needs.

"If we see problems," Zhu said, "we will be ready to treat them."

(LOS ANGELES) - Recent advances in technology have opened many possibilities for using wearable and implantable sensors to monitor various indicators of patient health. Wearable pressure sensors are designed to respond to very small changes in bodily pressure, so that physical functions such as pulse rate, blood pressure, breathing rates and even subtle changes in vocal cord vibrations can be monitored in real time with a high degree of sensitivity.

Such responses occur when a substance in the sensor "gates," or allows selected pressure signals to pass to a transistor, which then conducts and amplifies these signals for detection. A recent type of transistor, organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), has exhibited superior signal amplification capabilities at lower voltages and power consumption. However, there has been little exploration of OECTs for use in pressure sensors because they are usually paired with liquid gating substances, which do not respond well to external pressure.

A collaborative team from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) has found ways to solve this problem in order to develop soft OECTs for wearable pressure sensors. They first experimented with a solid type of gating substance - a charged, gelatinous substance called an ionic hydrogel. Due to the physical characteristics of this gel, they were successfully able to demonstrate improved pressure sensing when they used it together with OECTs.

The team then took this finding a step further by fabricating ionic hydrogels with tiny pyramidal microstructures which helped to increase the pressure sensitivity that could be measured. "The deformity of the hydrogel microstructures in response to applied pressure increases the capacitance change at the gate electrodes," explained Yangzhi Zhu, Ph.D., part of the TIBI team. "This enhances the ability to detect very subtle pressure signals."

The team also found that the microstructured hydrogel allowed them to obtain higher pressure sensitivity that could be adjusted by changing the applied gate voltage. Furthermore, this optimized sensor could operate at low operation voltage and low power consumption. These features combine to make a high-performing pressure sensor that is economical, long-lasting and energy efficient - clear advantages for devices that are intended to collect long-term, real-time data.

"Low cost, low power consumption and high sensitivity are inherent advantages of OECTs. This is the first demonstration of the use of OECTs for pressure sensing applications by using a soft hydrogel as a gating medium," said Shiming Zhang, Ph.D., TIBI's affiliated faculty member who is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and The University of Hong Kong. "It opens new opportunities for OECTs towards future in vivo pressure sensing applications."

"Having an energy-efficient, long-lasting pressure sensing device is a real asset for patients who need long-term monitoring, and it facilitates the ability to self-monitor at home," said Ali Khademhosseini, Ph.D., TIBI's director and CEO. "The advances gained here in pressure sensor development are one of many examples of the work that we do to enhance patient health."

Visual sensation begins at the retina, which is the neural tissue located at the back of eyeballs. It has been known that the retina detects light using photoreceptors which are light-sensitive nerve cells.In case of retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, those light sensing neurons are gradually damaged, leading to a profound vision loss. At this moment, no cure is available for the abovementioned ailments. But, microelectronic retinal prostheses can create artificial vision by electrically stimulating remaining retinal neurons although the prosthetic vision is still far removed from normal vision.

To further improve the quality of prosthetic artificial vision, Dr. Maesoon Im's group of the Brain Science Institute at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) applied computational neuroscience and information theory to neural signals of the retina. The retina, which has remarkably complex neural circuits, is known to compress visual neural signals. For example, the retina converts light into neural signals using over 100 million photoreceptor cells. Then, the vision is formed at the brain using visual information that is conveyed from over 1 million retinal ganglion cells. The KIST research team revealed that high signal heterogeneity from different retinal ganglion cells is a key element for efficient transmission of visual information. However, random signal patterns that maximize the heterogeneity are not used; it is thought to be due to some level of redundancy for correcting any potential error during the information transmission from the retina to the brain. These findings have been recently published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. This study is expected to be of high practical value in the field of prosthetic vision.

The KIST research team applied computational neuroscience and information theory to neural signals recorded from rabbit retinal neurons in order to quantify the transmission of visual information. At the same time, they observed that heterogeneity is slightly reduced, and some redundancy is allowed in order to prevent errors in the process of information transmission.

The KIST team compared neural signals arising in retinal ganglion cells of the rabbit retinas in response to light and electric stimulations, each representing neural responses of the healthy retina and the diseased retina activated by reitnal prostheses, respectively. Among the properties of neural signals, the researchers focused specifically on their heterogeneity, and found that cell-to-cell neural signal heterogeneity is altered by electric stimulation in some type of retinal ganglion cells, which are output neurons of the retina. This suggest that neural information of artificial vision is different across retinal ganglion cell types which are channels of retinal broadcasting to the brain. Particularly, in some cell types, neural signals arising in diverse neurons were highly similar in response to electric stimulation, which were much different from their heterogeneous responses to normal visual stimulation. This reduction in neural signal diversity leads to a severe decrease in the amount of transmitted information for artificial vision which may cause difficulties interpreting the artificially-delivered visual information by the prosthetic users.

KIST's Dr. Joon Ho Kang explained, "This means that it is difficult to successfully replace highly complex visual information simply by stimulating neurons. Probably, microelectronic retinal implants need to produce unique neural signals in different retinal neurons for high heterogeneity of whole retinal neural signals." Last year, in experiments using mice that have progressive retinal degeneration, Dr. Im's group demonstrated that the consistency of the neural signals transmitted by individual retinal ganglion cells is gradually reduced as the disease advances. The neural signal consistency is belived to be important for stable visual percepts. Dr. Im stated, "Combined with our last year's findings regarding reduced consistency in the degenerate retinas, it seems that near-normal artificial vision may be achieved if different retinal ganglion cells consistently transmit diverse neural signals." Further clarifying the significance of the study, he continued, "This study demonstrates that, in order to control brain function in prosthetic vision and other various applications, it is insufficient to simply create any neural signals. Rather, given the remarkable complexity of neural networks, we need to develop more efficient stimulation strategies that would reproduce more sophisticated features of neural signals such as neuron-to-neuron signal heterogeneity."

North Carolina State University engineers continue to improve the efficiency of a flexible device worn on the wrist that harvests heat energy from the human body to monitor health.

In a paper published in npj Flexible Electronics, the NC State researchers report significant enhancements in preventing heat leakage in the flexible body heat harvester they first reported in 2017 and updated in 2020. The harvesters use heat energy from the human body to power wearable technologies - think of smart watches that measure your heart rate, blood oxygen, glucose and other health parameters - that never need to have their batteries recharged. The technology relies on the same principles governing rigid thermoelectric harvesters that convert heat to electrical energy.

Flexible harvesters that conform to the human body are highly desired for use with wearable technologies. Mehmet Ozturk, an NC State professor of electrical and computer engineering and the corresponding author of the paper, mentioned superior skin contact with flexible devices, as well as the ergonomic and comfort considerations to the device wearer, as the core reasons behind building flexible thermoelectric generators, or TEGs.

The performance and efficiency of flexible harvesters, however, historically trail well behind rigid devices, which have been superior in their ability to convert body heat into usable energy.

The NC State proof-of-concept TEG originally reported in 2017 employed semiconductor elements that were connected electrically in series using liquid-metal interconnects made of EGaIn - a non-toxic alloy of gallium and indium. EGaIn provided both metal-like electrical conductivity and stretchability. The entire device was embedded in a stretchable silicone elastomer.

The upgraded device reported in 2020 employed the same architecture but significantly improved the thermal engineering of the previous version, while increasing the density of the semiconductor elements responsible for converting heat into electricity. One of the improvements was a high thermal conductivity silicone elastomer - essentially a type of rubber - that encapsulated the EGaIn interconnects.

The newest iteration adds aerogel flakes to the silicone elastomer to reduce the elastomer's thermal conductivity. Experimental results showed that this innovation reduced the heat leakage through the elastomer by half.

"The addition of aerogel stops the heat from leaking between the device's thermoelectric 'legs,'" Ozturk said. "The higher the heat leakage, the lower the temperature that develops across the device, which translates to lower output power.

"The flexible device reported in this paper is performing an order of magnitude better than the device we reported in 2017 and continues to approach the performance of rigid devices," Ozturk added.

Ozturk said that one of the strengths of the NC State-patented technology is that it employs the very same semiconductor elements used in rigid devices perfected after decades of research. The approach also provides a low-cost opportunity to existing rigid thermoelectric module manufacturers to enter the flexible thermoelectric market.

He added that his lab will continue to focus on improving the efficiency of these flexible devices.

To avoid a substantial increase in water scarcity, biomass plantations for energy production need sustainable water management, a new study shows. Bioenergy is frequently considered one of the options to reduce greenhouse gases for achieving the Paris climate goals, especially if combined with capturing the CO2 from biomass power plants and storing it underground. Yet growing large-scale bioenergy plantations worldwide does not just require land, but also considerable amounts of freshwater for irrigation - which can be at odds with respecting Earth's Planetary Boundaries. Scientists now calculated in their to date most detailed computer simulations how much additional water stress could result for people worldwide in a scenario of conventional irrigation and one of sustainable freshwater use.

"Irrigation of future biomass plantations for energy production without sustainable water management, combined with population growth, could double both the global area and the number of people experiencing severe water stress by the end of the century, according to our computer simulations," says lead author Fabian Stenzel from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) who developed the research idea in the Young Scientists Summer Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). "However, sustainable water management could almost halve the additional water stress compared to another analyzed scenario of strong climate change unmitigated by bioenergy production."

++Both political regulation and on-farm improvements needed++

"Sustainable water management means both political regulation - such as pricing or water allocation schemes - to reduce the amounts of water taken from rivers as well as on-farm improvements to make more efficient use of the water," says co-author Sylvia Tramberend from IIASA. This could include cisterns for rainwater collection or mulching to reduce evaporation. "Moreover, sustainable water management includes the preservation of reliable river flows to ensure undisturbed ecosystems in and alongside rivers. Up- and downstream river management may in fact require international cooperation calling for more transboundary river management as well as between different water users - that's the challenge ahead for integrated water resource management."

Largely unmitigated global warming together with population growth would increase the number of people under water stress by about 80% in the simulations. Enhanced use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage could limit climate change: When plants grow, they take up CO2 from the air and build it into their trunks, twigs and leaves. If this biomass is burned in power plants and the CO2 is captured from the exhausts and stored underground (carbon capture and storage, in short CCS), this can eventually help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere - scientists call this 'negative emissions'.

In many scenarios, these are seen as necessary for meeting ambitious climate mitigation targets if direct emission reductions proceed too slowly, and to balance any remaining greenhouse gas emissions that are difficult or impossible to reduce, for instance potentially in aviation, certain types of industry or in livestock production.

++Water scarcity remains a huge challenge++

"According to existing scenarios, biomass plantations could increase by up to 6 million square kilometers if global warming is to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the more ambitious of the two temperature targets of the Paris Agreement," says co-author Dieter Gerten from PIK. "We use these scenario inputs to run simulations in our high-resolution global vegetation and water balance model to explore the freshwater implications. While substantial irrigation implied in a bioenergy plus CCS scenario including population growth suggests a 100% increase in the number of people facing water stress, combining it with sustainable water management brings the number down to 60%. This, of course, is still an increase, so challenging tradeoffs are on the table."

Regions that already suffer from water stress today would be most affected in the climate change scenario, like the Mediterranean, the Middle East, northeastern China, South-East and southern West Africa. In the bioenergy plus CCS scenario without sustainable water management, high water stress extends to some otherwise unaffected regions, like the East of Brazil and large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Here, large biomass plantation areas in need of irrigation are assumed in the scenario analyzed.

++Sustainable Development Goals and Planetary Boundaries must be taken into account++

Climate mitigation is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the world has agreed to achieve. The water-energy-environment nexus studied in this research highlights that pathways to sustainability must consider all affected SDGs.

"The numbers show that either way, sustainable water management is a challenge urgently to be addressed," says co-author Wolfgang Lucht, head of PIK's Earth System Analysis research department. „This new study confirms that measures currently considered to stabilize our climate, in this case bioenergy plus CCS, must take into account a number of further dimensions of our Earth system - water cycles are one of them. Risks and tradeoffs have to be carefully considered before launching large-scale policies that establish biomass markets and infrastructure. The concept of Planetary Boundaries considers the whole Earth system, including but not limited to climate. Particularly the integrity of our biosphere must be acknowledged to protect a safe operating space for humanity."

DALLAS, March 8, 2021 -- Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests triggered by opioid overdose are a significant cause of death among adults 25 to 64, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association, the nation's largest voluntary health organization focused on heart and brain health for all. The statement published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation.

In the U.S., opioid use disorder affects an estimated 2 million people each year and costs more than $78 billion in health care expenses. The opioid epidemic, which spans more than three decades, accounted for approximately 128 deaths a day in 2018, mostly among adults ages 25 to 55. And, more than 15% of the opioid overdose emergency medical service cases in 2016 included cardiac arrest.

Opioid-associated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest differs from other forms of cardiac arrest in terms of how it abnormally changes body functions and the different ways it presents. Opioids include prescription medications, as well as nonmedical and synthetic opioids restricted to hospitals such as heroin and fentanyl, respectively. In the case of opioid use disorder, they are frequently mixed with alcohol or other toxic substances, which increases the risk of overdose.

Cameron Dezfulian, M.D., FAHA, lead author and vice chair of the scientific statement writing group, said, "This evidence-based review is valuable to help improve prevention and treatment of opioid-associated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, which primarily affects people in the prime of adult life. And, there are important scientific elements to be aware of since this type of cardiac arrest is fundamentally different from adult out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests, which have been more often studied."

The scientific statement defines the unique features of opioid-associated cardiac arrest, explains how body functions are affected and provides guidance on treatment options.

Dezfulian, who is senior faculty in pediatric critical care medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and medical director of the Adult Congenital Heart ICU at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, explains that in opioid-associated cardiac arrest, hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) happens before the heart stops and has important implications for brain injury. Without oxygen, the brain is damaged within minutes even before the heart stops. These findings point to the need for further research to understand and appropriately treat these complications that result from opioid-associated cardiac arrest, especially potential brain injury and possible use of treatments that can protect the brain.

Naloxone, an urgent first treatment for overdose, can rapidly and effectively reverse respiratory depression or hypoventilation caused by opioids. Emergency medical services responders, trained laypeople and the general public (with the support of 911 emergency dispatcher instructions) can administer naloxone to prevent cardiac arrest. Traditional CPR including airway and rescue breathing support can also be effective.

Yet people who experience opioid-associated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest are more likely to be alone at home or in a private setting -- away from someone who would witness the early signs of cardiac arrest and act. There is also evidence of underreporting due to the stigma associated with opioid poisoning and the potential for criminal charges to others in possession of opioids.

"Optimizing outcomes after cardiac arrest associated with opioid overdose requires recognition of distress by another person -- the lay public or emergency dispatchers, prompt emergency response, and treatment with naloxone or CPR ventilation coupled with compressions," said Dezfulian. Prompt naloxone use can prevent progression from respiratory to cardiac arrest; increasing access to this life-saving drug is one way to prevent opioid-associated cardiac arrests.

Because opioids often remain in the body for several days, when it comes to attempting to predict outcomes, patience is critical. The statement recommends delaying decisions about stopping life-saving efforts until there has been time for the medications to clear from the patient's system, specifically until:

at least 72 hours after the return of spontaneous circulation and normothermia (normal body temperature);
toxic substances and their metabolites have cleared; and
ICU-administered sedatives and analgesics have cleared.
Education may be another critical component in the fight against opioid overdose and opioid-associated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

"Targeted educational campaigns providing opioid use disorder education and prevention information, naloxone distribution and conventional CPR training, including rescue breathing, to those likely to have or witness an opioid overdose could help prevent and improve treatment of opioid-associated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest," Dezfulian said. "Along with broader public education, legal reforms and policies aimed at preventing opioid-associated cardiac arrest can save lives and should include resources for medication treatment in order to improve recovery for a generally young otherwise healthy segment of our population."

SPOKANE, Wash. - New clues as to why night shift workers are at increased risk of developing certain types of cancer are presented in a new study conducted at Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane.

Published online in the Journal of Pineal Research, the study involved a controlled laboratory experiment that used healthy volunteers who were on simulated night shift or day shift schedules. Findings from the study suggest that night shifts disrupt natural 24-hour rhythms in the activity of certain cancer-related genes, making night shift workers more vulnerable to damage to their DNA while at the same time causing the body's DNA repair mechanisms to be mistimed to deal with that damage.

Though more research still needs to be done, these discoveries could someday be used to help prevent and treat cancer in night shift workers.

"There has been mounting evidence that cancer is more prevalent in night shift workers, which led the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify night shift work as a probable carcinogenic," said co-corresponding author Shobhan Gaddameedhi, an associate professor formerly with the WSU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and now with North Carolina State University's Biological Sciences Department and Center for Human Health and the Environment. "However, it has been unclear why night shift work elevates cancer risk, which our study sought to address."

Studying the rhythms in cancer-related genes

As part of a partnership between the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center and the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Gaddameedhi and other WSU scientists worked with bioinformatics experts at PNNL to study the potential involvement of the biological clock, the body's built-in mechanism that keeps us on a 24-hour night and day cycle. Though there is a central biological clock in the brain, nearly every cell in the body also has its own built-in clock. This cellular clock involves genes known as clock genes that are rhythmic in their expression, meaning their activity levels vary with the time of day or night. The researchers hypothesized that the expression of genes associated with cancer might be rhythmic, too, and that night shift work might disrupt the rhythmicity of these genes.

To test this, they conducted a simulated shift work experiment that had 14 participants spend seven days inside the sleep laboratory at WSU Health Sciences Spokane. Half of them completed a three-day simulated night shift schedule, while the other half were on a three-day simulated day shift schedule. After completing their simulated shifts, all participants were kept in a constant routine protocol that is used to study humans' internally generated biological rhythms independent of any external influences. As part of the protocol, they were kept awake for 24 hours in a semi-reclined posture under constant light exposure and room temperature and were given identical snacks every hour. Every three hours a blood sample was drawn.

Analyses of white blood cells taken from the blood samples showed that the rhythms of many of the cancer-related genes were different in the night shift condition compared to the day shift condition. Notably, genes related to DNA repair that showed distinct rhythms in the day shift condition lost their rhythmicity in the night shift condition.

The researchers then looked at what the consequences of the changes in the expression of cancer-related genes might be. They found that white blood cells isolated from the blood of night shift participants showed more evidence of DNA damage than those of day shift participants. What's more, after the researchers exposed isolated white blood cells to ionizing radiation at two different times of day, cells that were radiated in the evening showed increased DNA damage in the night shift condition as compared to the day shift condition. This meant that white blood cells from night shift participants were more vulnerable to external damage from radiation, a known risk factor for DNA damage and cancer.

"Taken together, these findings suggest that night shift schedules throw off the timing of expression of cancer-related genes in a way that reduces the effectiveness of the body's DNA repair processes when they are most needed," said co-corresponding author Jason McDermott, a computational scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Biological Sciences Division.

Potential for improved prevention, treatment

The researchers' next step is to conduct the same experiment with real-world shift workers who have been consistently on day or night shifts for many years to determine whether in night workers the unrepaired DNA damage builds up over time, which could ultimately increase the risk of cancer. If what happens in real-world shift workers is consistent with the current findings, this work could eventually be used to develop prevention strategies and drugs that could address the mistiming of DNA repair processes. It could also be the basis for strategies to optimize the timing of cancer therapy so that treatment is administered when effectiveness is greatest and side effects are minimal, a procedure called chronotherapy that would need to be fine-tuned to the internal rhythms of night workers.

"Night shift workers face considerable health disparities, ranging from increased risks of metabolic and cardiovascular disease to mental health disorders and cancer," said co-senior author Hans Van Dongen, a professor in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and director of the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center. "It is high time that we find diagnosis and treatment solutions for this underserved group of essential workers so that the medical community can address their unique health challenges."

In addition to Van Dongen, Gaddameedhi, and McDermott, study authors included Bala Koritala, Kenneth Porter, Osama Arshad, Rajendra Gajula, Hugh Mitchell, Tarana Arman, Mugimane Manjanatha, and Justin Teeguarden.

Native to the southeastern United States, a weedy grass has spread northward to Canada and also made its way to Australia and Japan. Andropogon virginicus grows densely packed and up to seven feet tall, disrupting growth patterns of other plants and competing for resources. When burned, it grows back stronger. There is no way to effectively remove the weed once it has invaded. But there might be a way to use it to human advantage.

An international team of researchers has found that A. virginicus extracts appear to be effective against several human diseases, including diabetes and cancer. The results were published on Dec. 31, 2020, in a special issue of Plants, titled "Biological Activities of Plant Extracts."

"A. virginicus is an invasive weed that seriously threatens agricultural production and economics worldwide," said paper author Tran Dang Xuan, associate professor in the Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering Program in the Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering at Hiroshima University. "However, no solution efficiently utilizing and tackling this plant has been found yet. In this paper, we highlight the potential application of A. virginicus extracts in future medicinal production and therapeutics of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and blood cancer, which can deal with both crop protection and human health concerns."

Researchers found high levels of flavonoids in the samples they extracted from the weed. These plant chemicals have significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, according to Xuan. When tested against a variety of cell lines, the extracted plant chemicals bonded to free radicals, preventing damage to the cells. At skin level, this helps prevent age spots by inhibiting a protein called tyrosinase. Among other, deeper healthful actions, this bonding also helps prevent knock-on cellular actions that can lead to type 2 diabetes.

The team also specifically applied the extracted chemicals to a line of chronic myelogenous leukemia, a rare blood cancer. The extract appeared to kill off the cancer cells.

Xuan said the researchers plan to establish a comprehensive process to isolate and purify the compounds responsible for known biological properties, as well as work to identify new uses. They will further test the therapeutical effects of the compounds, with the eventual goal of preparing functional pharmaceuticals for human use.

"Although A. virginicus has been considered a harmful invasive species without economic value, its extracts are promising sources of antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-tyrosinase, and antitumor agents," Xuan said.

Hydrogen has been hailed as the 'fuel of the future' owing to several reasons. First, compared to the conventionally used hydrocarbons, hydrogen exhibits higher energy yield. Second, the commercial use of hydrogen fuel, which yields only water as a byproduct product, would help mitigate the imminent global warming crisis by reducing the use of exhaustible and polluting fossil fuels. Thus, ongoing research has been focusing on efficient and environment-friendly ways to produce of hydrogen fuel.

Solar hydrogen production through photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting reaction is an attractive "green" method of hydrogen fuel production, owing to its potential for high conversion efficiency, low operating temperatures, and cost-effectiveness. However, efficient separation of hydrogen gas from a mixture of gases (called "syngas") under different environmental conditions, has proven to be a challenge. A recent paper published in the journal Separation and Purification Technology seeks to address this challenge. In this study, a group of researchers from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, led by Professor Yuji Iwamoto, in collaboration with researchers in France, successfully characterized a novel membrane that allows highly selective separation of hydrogen gas generated from the PEC reaction. Prof. Iwamoto says, "Membrane separation is attractive as a low-cost hydrogen gas purification technology. However, current techniques face several challenges, for example, water-induced swelling with polymer membranes and lower hydrogen permeance with metal, polymer, and supported liquid membranes. "

The researchers first developed an organic-inorganic hybrid polymeric membrane, primarily consisting of a polymer called "polycarbosilane" (PCS) formed on an aluminium oxide (Al2O3)-based porous support. Prof. Iwamoto further explains, "By using high-molecular-weight PCSs with a melting point above 200°C, we showed that a superhydrophobic PCS membrane could be deposited on a mesoporous γ-Al2O3-modified macroporous α-Al2O3 tubular support. "

After successfully developing the PCS membrane, the researchers tested it under PEC reaction conditions. As hypothesized, the PCS membrane showed high hydrophobicity. Moreover, under the flow of a simulated highly humid gas mixture at 50°C, the PCS membrane exhibited excellent hydrogen selectivity. Further analysis revealed that the preferential hydrogen permeation through the PCS membrane was governed by the "solid state diffusion" mechanism. Overall, irrespective of the ambient environmental conditions provided, the PCS membrane exhibited efficient hydrogen gas separation.

With the development and characterization of this new PCS membrane, it is inevitable that its commercial adoption will not just facilitate the use of hydrogen fuel for energy needs but also curb the use of non-renewable fossil fuels. Prof. Iwamoto concludes, "With this technological development, we expect great progress in environmental-friendly and sustainable hydrogen production ."

Let's hope that the use of PCS membrane is a step towards a hydrogen-based society!

Mental health issues such as burnout and psychological distress are matters for concern among young adults, and are even more pertinent in today's uncertain global climate. A recent paper by Yale-NUS College alumna Ms Joanna Chue (Class of 2019) and Assistant Professor of Social Sciences (Psychology) Cheung Hoi Shan identified five components of resilience that are applicable in Singapore's cultural context, and demonstrated that college students possessing a higher degree of resilience were less susceptible to burnout and psychological distress. By identifying learnable components of resilience, the paper points to concrete, actionable ways that young adults can learn this vital characteristic, resulting in better mental health outcomes.

Published in Current Psychology in February 2021, the paper reported the results of two interrelated studies. The first established the validity of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), an internationally recognised measure of resilience, in the Singaporean context, and identified the five factors that constitute resilience among Singaporean students. While there are other measures of resilience, such as the local Singapore Youth Resilience Scale (SYRESS), the CD-RISC is more widely used internationally. Establishing the CD-RISC's validity in the Singaporean context is a valuable result that enables its use by future researchers to make meaningful comparisons between resilience in Singapore and elsewhere.

"It was important to ascertain the validity of the CD-RISC to ensure that when administered to college students, it could accurately measure the construct of resilience in context," said Ms Chue, first author of the study. "Validating the scale would then allow for its use, for example, in quantifying the impact of relevant programmes and interventions in strengthening mental resilience."

The study also identified five factors that make up resilience in the Singaporean context: approach coping in adversity (a desire to actively seek ways to solve a problem, rather than avoiding it); self-belief and trust in one's abilities; effort and purpose (being motivated by a sense of purpose and a desire to work hard to attain one's goals); having good interpersonal and internal resources (including secure relationships, knowing where to find help in difficult times, and traits such as a sense of humour and a disposition to recognise one's past successes and achievements); and spirituality (attributing happenings in life, including adversity, to a higher force such as God or fate).

"The five factors of resilience affirmed that mental resilience comprises both character traits and skills, the latter of which are learnt and honed over time. It's heartening to know that we are all still works-in-progress, and can be equipped with skills to grow and adapt to the stressful situations we face," Ms Chue added.

The second study linked resilience to lower levels of academic burnout in Singaporean college students, which was subsequently linked to lower psychological distress. By helping to regulate burnout, resilience contributed to better mental health overall. This insight points to an actionable way forward for professionals who work with young adults: instead of attempting to change the environment to lower the incidence of burnout--which, while important, is a daunting task--they can focus instead on cultivating resilience through training programmes and interventions. Not only is this a more practical way forward, it would also serve young adults well by equipping them with useful skills to deal with other stressful situations that they may face later on in life.

Asst Prof Cheung noted, "As resilience is a broad term, it was important for us to identify specific traits or skills that constitute resilience, so that we can develop in-house training programmes to enhance those skills among our students. After a discussion with colleagues from the Yale-NUS Wellness and Counselling Centres, we found that the skills related to resilience as identified in this study were indeed very trainable. These skills include increasing students' confidence in harnessing their strengths to overcome challenges, teaching students active problem-solving skills, and the effective use of external support sources (such as peer support) that would enhance their resilience in the face of adversity."

Ms Chue and Asst Prof Cheung pursued these new studies as a continuation of the findings in Ms Chue's capstone project, where final-year Yale-NUS students embark on a year-long in-depth research study in their chosen major and field of study. At Yale-NUS, students have extraordinary opportunities to work closely with faculty to conduct original research, enabling them to increase their competitive edge as they consider graduate studies or other professional opportunities.

PHILADELPHIA--Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health issues have been on the rise across the nation, but many struggle to access the care they need. Collaborative care--a proven approach for improving psychiatric care--combats this issue by integrating mental health professionals into the primary care setting. Penn Medicine's collaborative care program, Penn Integrated Care (PIC), utilizes a centralized resource center to facilitate intake, triage, and referral management for all patients with mental health needs. A new study, published today in the Annals of Family Medicine, suggests that this approach is effective and efficient for meeting the needs of a diverse group of patients with the full range of mental health conditions seen in primary care.

"Collaborative care is a proven model for connecting both physical and mental health, which is what modern healthcare is all about. Without a formalized process for following up with patients and providing supportive guidance, individuals in need of mental health care may fall through the cracks or receive suboptimal care," said corresponding author Courtney Benjamin Wolk, PhD, an assistant professor of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In January 2018, Penn's department of Psychiatry and the Primary Care Service Line launched PIC to increase access to and engagement with mental health care to improve mental and physical health outcomes. In the PIC model, which builds upon other collaborative care programs, the collaborative care team consists of the patient, primary care provider (PCP), a mental health provider, consulting psychiatrist, and the mental health intake coordinators in the Resource Center.

Penn Medicine, a large and diverse health system, encouraged primary care practitioners to refer patients with any mental health symptom or condition for further evaluation, as opposed to only those patients with mild to moderate issues, as is the case in typical collaborative care models. The Resource Center assesses patients by phone, referring them to the appropriate level of care using decision-support software, and facilitating engagement in community-based specialty care. Previous analyses and research demonstrates the benefit of collaborative care for patients with depression or anxiety, however this is the first large study illustrating the benefits of adding a resource center to the model.

"The benefit of this collaborative care model with a resource center is two-fold. First, while other care models support mild-to-moderate mental health conditions, PCPs face the full spectrum of conditions and are often challenged to access appropriate care for more severe conditions--the PIC approach ensures these patients who need more specialized care are supported as well," Wolk said. "Second, the Resource Center alleviates the mental health professionals in the practices from becoming overwhelmed with assessment and referral activities given their limited time. This allows the mental health providers to use their time to see and treat patients, after they are evaluated through the Resource center."

Primary care providers in eight practices participating in PIC referred patients with any unmet mental health needs to the program. In first 12 months, 6,124 patients were referred. These individuals reported symptoms consistent with a range of conditions from mild to moderate depression and anxiety to serious mental illness including psychosis and acute suicidal ideation. Of those who then enrolled in PIC, the average length of treatment was 7.2 encounters over 78.1 days. Nearly 33 percent of patients with depression and almost 40 percent of patients with anxiety experienced symptom remission, over the first year of PIC. In the subsequent years since the launch of PIC, even more patients have experienced remission.

The researchers gathered feedback on PIC from stakeholders, including health system leaders, PCPs, mental health personnel, and patients, and all viewed the program favorably. Stakeholders found that PIC took the onus of navigating community mental health treatment off the shoulders of providers and patients, and created a streamlined referral process that enabled more patients to access needed care. Furthermore, stakeholders reported during qualitative interviews that they found PIC to be an efficient and cost-effective way to coordinate and risk-stratify primary care patients' mental health needs when compared to services as usual.

Of the eight practices which initially implemented PIC in 2018, all eight continue to implement the program, demonstrating 100 percent sustainment. Additionally, due to the program's success, expansion is in progress--PIC has recently expanded to three new primary care practices, and 10-15 are expected in the next year.

"The results from the first year of PIC reinforce that collaborative care brings high-quality mental health care to patients in a way that is convenient, efficient, and effective. As we continue to expand our program across primary care at Penn Medicine, we hope other health systems and physician organizations look to collaborative care to meet their patients' mental health needs," said Matthew Press, MD, Physician Executive of Penn Primary Care.

Researchers at the UAB have designed minimalist biostructures that imitate natural enzymes, capable of carrying out two differentiated and reversibly regulated activities thanks to a unique combination of structural and functional properties. The strategy used opens the door to the creation of "intelligent" nanomaterials with tailor-made combinations of catalytic functions.

There is an increasing interest in synthetic systems that can execute bioinspired chemical reactions without requiring the complex structures that characterise enzymes in their components. One of the most explored approaches is the self-assembly of peptides - molecules smaller than proteins - due to their biocompatibility and how their structural and functional properties can be controlled.

Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (IBB-UAB) recently designed one of the smallest mimetic enzyme structure ever. These peptides are made up of 7 to 9 amino acids which spontaneously self-assemble to form stable amyloid fibres and solid hydrogels, innocuous to cells.

Peptides are formed with only two types of water soluble amino acids (tyrosine and histidine), a binary code containing all the information needed to form nanostructures. In addition, they are reversible and can carry out two differentiated and unrelated catalytic activities.

Researchers managed to create a system that is simpler and can better control the enzymatic activity, and for the first time, a structure in which the very same amino acids providing catalytic activity also contribute to shaping the macromolecular architecture. In previous studies, these capacities were segregated in different regions of the molecule, which resulted in longer peptides and/or peptides with a single function.

"The quid of the question is that the catalytic activity of fibres and hydrogels can be achieved only when the peptides self-assemble", explains Salvador Ventura, coordinator of the study. "The strategy we used sets down the bases for the creation of "intelligent" nanostructures materials, with tailor-made combinations of catalytic functions for a number of practical applications".

Unique properties

Until now, the majority of minimalist peptides designed lacked one of the most important capacities of natural enzymes: the ability to reversibly regulate their activity. In this study, researchers managed to control the assembly capacity, and this allows alternating active and inactive forms with simple changes in pH.

In addition, the new peptides have properties that natural enzymes do not have, since these only conduct catalytic activities. Now, the peptides incorporate two different types of activities (hydrolitic and electrocatalytic) which can be conducted simultaneously or alternately. In any other case, this would require two structurally different artificial enzymes which would be hundreds of times larger and more expensive.

Another characteristic of these new artificial enzymes that researchers point out is the spontaneity of self-assembly, which implies that there is no need for additional chemical reagents or the application of heat, which could turn out to be toxic or have drastic effects on its structure.

Greater efficiency and economy

Hydrogels and amyloid-like fibres allow generating solid and more efficient and economic microreactors, in which the final product of the reaction can be easily separated from the artificial enzyme.

"The macromolecular structures we have managed to create may have important applications in microfluidics, and also in drug delivery, since they can encapsulate the drug in its assembled state and free it in a specific manner, once the correct cell context is achieved, simply by disassembling", Salvador Ventura highlights.

Salvador Ventura is head of the Protein Folding and Conformational Diseases group at the IBB. "We began the nanotechnological lines of research only three years ago, but our knowledge on the molecular mechanism of protein assembly into amyloid structures has helped us develop new functional, synthetic nanomaterials with properties that cannot be achieved with natural peptides or proteins", he states.

Several processes in the human body are regulated by biochemical reactions involving hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Although it can act as a 'secondary messenger', relaying or amplifying certain signals between cells, H2O2 is generally toxic because of its oxidant character. The latter means that it converts (oxidizes) biochemical molecules like proteins and DNA. The oxidizing property of H2O2 is of potential therapeutic relevance for cancer, though: deliberately causing tumor cells to increase their H2O2 concentration would be a way to destroy them. In light of this, but also for monitoring pathologies associated with H2O2 overproduction, it is crucial to have a means to reliably quantify hydrogen peroxide concentrations in the extracellular environment. Now, Leonardo Puppulin from Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University and colleagues have developed a sensor for measuring concentrations of H2O2 in the vicinity of cell membranes, with nanometer-resolution.

The biosensor consists of a gold nanoparticle with organic molecules attached to it. The whole cluster is designed so that it anchors easily to the outside of a cell's membrane, which is exactly where the hydrogen peroxide molecules to be detected are. As attachment molecules, the scientists used a compound called 4MPBE, known to have a strong Raman scattering response: when irradiated by a laser, the molecules consume some of the laser light's energy. By measuring the frequency change of the laser light, and plotting the signal strength as a function of this change, a unique spectrum is obtained -- a signature of the 4MPBE molecules. When a 4MPBE molecule reacts with a H2O2 molecule, its Raman spectrum changes. Based on this principle, by comparing Raman spectra, Puppulin and colleagues were able to obtain an estimate of the H2O2 concentration near the biosensor.

After developing a calibration procedure for their nanosensor -- relating the H2O2 concentration to a change in Raman spectrum in a quantitative way is not straightforward -- the scientists were able to produce a concentration map with a resolution of about 700 nm for lung cancer cell samples. Finally, they also succeeded in extending their technique to obtain measurements of the H2O2 concentration variation across cell membranes.

Puppulin and colleagues conclude that their "novel approach may be useful for the study of actual H2O2 concentrations involved in cell proliferation or death, which are fundamental to fully elucidate physiological processes and to design new therapeutic strategies."

[Background]

Surface-enhance Raman spectroscopy

The biosensor developed by Leonardo Puppulin from Kanazawa University and colleagues is based on a method called surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The principle derives from Raman spectroscopy, in which differences between the incoming and the outcoming frequencies of laser light irradiated onto a sample are analyzed. The spectrum obtained by plotting the signal strength as a function of frequency difference is characteristic for the sample, which can in principle be a single molecule. Typically, however, the signal coming from one molecule is too weak to detect, but the effect can be enhanced when the molecule is absorbed on a rough metal surface. Puppulin and colleagues applied the technique to (indirectly) detect hydrogen peroxide; their Raman-responsive molecule is a compound called 4MPBE, which is modified when exposed to hydrogen peroxide.

The sensor network MUCCnet (Munich Urban Carbon Column network) consists of five high-precision optical instruments that analyze the sun's light spectra. They measure the concentration of the gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO). Since each gas has its own unique spectral "fingerprint", concentrations of these gases can be determined in the columns of air between the instruments and the sun.

"By measuring a vertical column of the atmosphere, local disturbances, such as the disproportionate influence of neighboring stacks, can be removed. Therefore, this type of greenhouse gas balancing is considered particularly robust and accurate," says Prof. Jia Chen.

Measurements at five locations in and around Munich

One of MUCCnet's measurement devices is located on the main campus of TUM and measures inner-city concentrations. Four other devices are located at the Munich city borders in all four cardinal directions (north: Oberschleissheim, east: Feldkirchen, south: Taufkirchen and west: Graefelfing).

Chen explains the principle in simple terms: "We set up one sensor upwind from the city and the second downwind. So any increase in gases between the first sensor and the second must have been generated from inside the city." To cover as many wind directions as possible, there is a sensor in each cardinal direction. With the input of the sensor data and meteorological parameters, high-performance computers can create a spatially resolved emission map of the city.

Using measured data to improve the calculated emission figures

Under the Paris Climate Agreement, atmospheric measurements are not required to meet emissions targets. "Instead, the emissions numbers we hear in the news are based on calculations," explains Prof. Chen.

Among other things, this makes it impossible to detect so far unknown sources - such as leaks in gas pipelines. Therefore, Prof. Jia Chen's team and project leader Florian Dietrich created MUCCnet to measure emissions with high precision, which can reduce inaccuracies in calculations.

Corona lockdown as a natural experiment for the measurement data series

The current Corona crisis provides a useful natural experiment for researchers because as a result of the two German lockdowns in spring 2020 as well as winter 2020/21 and severe air traffic curtailment, there have been changes in urban greenhouse gas emissions, which can be used to validate measurements as well as atmospheric transport models.

Unfortunately, the lifetime of CO2 is very long (several hundred years) and measurement results show that even such a drastic global event as this pandemic has not stopped the annual increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

Measurement data can be accessed online

Since the start of 2021, the researchers have operated a website (http://atmosphere.ei.tum.de) which not only makes measurement data available to everyone, but also explains the devices used and the principles employed to gain the data. Interested parties can find absolute values of greenhouse gas concentrations on the portal and can, for example, draw comparisons between stations at different locations.

"Since climate change is a global problem, the Munich network should only be the first step," says Prof. Chen. In the future, Chen's team plans to use measurements from existing greenhouse gas satellites to expand the methods and models developed in Munich worldwide and thus make a decisive contribution to understanding and solving the climate problem.