By Charlotte Shane Photo-Illustration: Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty Images In the spring of 2018, my now-husband and I spent a week in Santa Monica, one of my favorite places in the world, and all I remember about the trip is my humiliating farts. Distressed digestion is nothing new to me, a member of the...
Month: <span>March 2022</span>
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What to know about ruptured ovarian cysts
Ovarian cysts are common in females of reproductive age. Most of these are harmless and go away naturally. However, some cysts may rupture and cause symptoms. Sex and gender exist on spectrums. This article will use the terms “male,” “female,” or both to refer to sex assigned at birth. Ovarian cysts are not uncommon. Around...
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How does Parkinson’s disease affect females?
Parkinson’s disease affects the nervous system. The disease damages or kills nerves in the brain, which results in muscle stiffness, tremors, and other symptoms. Females with Parkinson’s disease may report different symptoms and receive a lower quality of care compared with males. Sex and gender exist on spectrums. This article will use the terms “male,”...
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CAR T cells suppress GI solid tumor cells, without toxicity to healthy tissue, in preclinical research
by University of Pennsylvania CDH17 CARTs attack tumor but spare normal tissue. Credit: Penn Medicine Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells can be remarkably effective in treating leukemias and lymphomas, but there are no successful immunotherapies for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and gastrointestinal cancers (GICs) yet. Researchers at Penn Medicine have discovered that CAR-T cells directed to a...
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Study of skin biopsies offers potential as new diagnostic marker for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
by Miguel A. Rubio, Autonomous University of Barcelona Dermis cells, control vs ELA. Credit: UAB/Hospital del Mar Researchers of the Neuroplasticity and Regeneration Group of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and of the Functional Unit for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at the Hospital del Mar have identified the presence of an ALS biomarker in the...
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New cryptococcal meningitis treatment as good as current care with far fewer serious side effects
by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Credit: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine A new short course of treatment for HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis is as effective at preventing deaths as the current longer recommended regimen but causes far fewer serious side effects, according to research in the New England Journal of Medicine. The...
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CAR T cell immunotherapy for solid tumors? First, you have to break the cancers’ sugar shield
by Delthia Ricks, Medical Xpress Modeling of the impact of tumor N-glycans on the targeting by CAR T cells. Left, the N-glycan decoration of tumors 1) repels CAR T cells by impeding immunological synapse formation, which tunes down transcriptional activation and overall effector functions and 2) exacerbates CAR T exhaustion by fostering inhibitory ligand–receptor pair...
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What’s the link between sweat and eczema?
Sweat is a common trigger for people with eczema. It can dry out the skin, and various substances in sweat may irritate skin with eczema and worsen symptoms. In people without eczema, sweat has natural moisturizing properties. However, sweat can irritate and dry out sensitive skin in those with eczema, worsening itching. Sweat can leave...
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Two drugs show promise in rejuvenating lung epithelial progenitor cells damaged by COPD
by Bob Yirka, Medical Xpress Overview of the transcriptomics-guided drug discovery strategy.(A) Schematic outline of the drug screening strategy. (B) Heatmap shows the gene expression pattern of the druggable genes (www.dgidb.org) identified both in CS-exposed mice and patient with COPD databases. (C) Reactome pathway enrichment analysis of genes differentially expressed from patients with COPD (8)...
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The spontaneous emergence of brain-like functional specialization in neural networks
by Thamarasee Jeewandara, Medical Xpress Distinct face and object representations in singly trained CNNs while a dual-task CNN performs well. (A) Three networks with VGG16 architecture (left) were optimized, one on face identity categorization (Face CNN in red), one on object categorization (Object CNN in orange), and one on both tasks simultaneously (dual-task CNN in...