Rachel Pessah-Pollack, MD March 15, 2023 EDITORIAL COLLABORATION MEDSCAPE With #Ozempic and #ozempicweightloss continuing to trend on social media, along with the mainstream media focusing on celebrities who rely on Ozempic (semaglutide) for weight loss, the daily requests for this new medication have been increasing. Rachel Pessah-Pollack, MD Accompanying these requests are concerns and questions about potential...
Month: <span>April 2023</span>
Post
Implantable device, smaller than a grain of rice, shown to shrink pancreatic tumors
by Houston Methodist Houston Methodist Research Institute nanomedicine researchers used an implantable nanofluidic device smaller than a grain of rice to deliver immunotherapy directly into a pancreatic tumor. Credit: Houston Methodist Houston Methodist nanomedicine researchers have found a way to tame pancreatic cancer—one of the most aggressive and difficult to treat cancers—by delivering immunotherapy directly into...
Post
New drug may treat rare diseases that make exposure to sunlight painful
by Amy Norton It sounds like the stuff of a vampire novel, but for people with a group of rare genetic disorders, exposure to sunlight can cause excruciating pain. Now, an experimental medication is showing promise for helping them better tolerate the light of day. In an early clinical trial, researchers tested the drug for patients with...
Post
New tool to study hepatitis B could open the door to a cure
by Rockefeller University The RNA launch system. Credit: Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg6265 Hepatitis C and hepatitis B viruses both attack the liver, eventually causing deadly cirrhosis or cancer. But while antivirals can cure 95% of HCV infections, its cousin HBV has long eluded effective therapeutics. As a result, nearly 1 million people die from HBV every year....
Post
Connecting the Dots: How Network Medicine can Identify, Prevent and Treat Disease
By Antonia Du Bois, MSc Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc. The human interactome represents a vastly complex and daunting mesh of communication networks across cells and organs. The number of protein-coding genes stretches to around 25,000, and the number of functionally critical relationships is expected to surpass 100,000. Image Credit: optimarc/Shutterstock.com Out of this complexity...
Post
T-cell vaccine for COVID-19 may last longer than current vaccines
by Pennsylvania State University The RAVEN (Rapidly Adaptive Viral rEspoNse) antigen-presenting cell targeting (APCt)-CoV2-T vaccine induces specific T-cell responses in C57BL/6J and K18-hACE2/BL6 mice. (A) Schematic overview of the in silico RAVEN predicted T-cell hotspots encoded in the APCt-CoV2-T-cell vaccine. A T-cell hotspot represents a region with several predicted major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I (H2-Kb,...
Post
How a virus causes chromosomal breakage, leading to cancer
by University of California – San Diego An artistic rendering depicts the Epstein-Barr virus, which has infected more than 90% of the world’s population. Credit: Mobitec The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is easily spread through bodily fluids, primarily saliva, such as kissing, shared drinks or using the same eating utensils. Not surprisingly then, EBV is also among...
Post
Study shows vitamin D may have key role in fighting off COVID-19 pneumonia
by Main Line Health Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Clinical data increasingly has shown that patients with low vitamin D levels have a greater chance of COVID-19 infection—and severe disease and death. Now, research led by scientists from Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR), part of Main Line Health, points to an explanation for the link...
Post
Rescuing corneal cells from death with the help of mitochondria
by Laval University Endogenous mitochondrial mass in FECD cells influences mitochondrial internalization. (A) Mitochondrial mass markers (mitotracker) were used to label exogenous internalized (green) and endogenous mitochondria (red). (B) Both mitotracker signals were plotted, each dot representing a single cell. The mitochondrial mass appeared to be distributed according to two distinct clusters that could be arbitrarily...
Post
machineMD and Varjo revolutionize the diagnosis of brain disorders with a VR-based eye-tracking solution
MACHINEMD RELEASES, RELEASES – FEATURED Varjo, the leader in professional-grade VR/XR hardware and software, announced its partnership with machineMD, a Swiss medical device company, for the development of neos™, an innovative diagnostic device that will perform comprehensive eye exams that doctors use in the diagnosis of brain disorders. neos™ will be integrated with the Varjo Aero headset and enable...