How T cell assassins reload their weapons to kill and kill again

Cytotoxic T cells are specialist white blood cells that are trained by our immune system to recognize and eliminate threats – including tumor cells and cells infected with invading viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. They are also at the heart of new immunotherapies that promise to transform cancer treatment.

Professor Gillian Griffiths from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, who led the research, said: “T cells are trained assassins that are sent on their deadly missions by the immune system. There are billions of them in our blood, each engaged in a ferocious and unrelenting battle to keep us healthy.

“Once a T cell has found its target, it binds to it and releases its toxic cargo. But what is particularly remarkable is that they are then able to go on to kill and kill again. Only now, thanks to state-of-the-art technologies, have we been able to find out how they reload their weapons.”

Covid Lockdown: children who spent more time in nature fared best

Credit: Ben Wicks on Unsplash

A study has found that children who increased their connection to nature during the first COVID-19 lockdown were likely to have lower levels of behavioral and emotional problems, compared to those whose connection to nature stayed the same or decreased - regardless of their socio-economic status.

The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Sussex, also found that children from affluent families tended to have increased their connection to nature during the pandemic more than their less affluent peers.

Nearly two thirds of parents reported a change in their child’s connection to nature during lockdown, while a third of children whose connection to nature decreased displayed increased problems of wellbeing - either through ‘acting out’ or by increased sadness or anxiety.

The results strengthen the case for nature as a low-cost method of mental health support for children, and suggest that more effort should be made to support children in connecting with nature - both at home and at school.

The researchers’ suggestions for achieving this include: reducing the number of structured extracurricular activities for children to allow for more time outside, provision of gardening projects in schools, and funding for schools, particularly in disadvantaged areas, to implement nature-based learning programs.

Flu season is coming and it could be ugly

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

As COVID-19 restrictions ease, Canada is seeing a resurgence of many respiratory viruses—and many experts predict this year’s flu season could be severe.

Dr. Michael Curry (he/him), clinical associate professor with UBC faculty of medicine’s department of emergency medicine, reveals how this year’s flu season will be different from the last and weighs in on how to reduce your risk of getting sick.

How will this year’s flu season be different from last year?

Last flu season we essentially had no cases of influenza and relatively few cases of other respiratory viruses here in Canada. When someone was sick with a respiratory infection eight or nine months ago, it was very likely they had COVID-19.

This year, the big change I have seen is the re-emergence of our ‘usual suspect’ respiratory infections. Common cold viruses are back and circulating again. While we are still seeing COVID-19 in Canada, we are finding other respiratory viruses on a regular basis as well.

How might this year’s flu season interact with the fourth wave of COVID-19?

With the upsurge in other respiratory viruses, we can expect a resurgence of influenza this year.

A bad flu season can rapidly fill up emergency departments and hospital beds, and as we all know, COVID-19 is already doing a good job at that.

How many people get 'long COVID?'

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch from Pexels

More than half of the 236 million people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 worldwide since December 2019 will experience post-COVID symptoms — more commonly known as “long COVID” — up to six months after recovering, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. The research team said that governments, health care organizations and public health professionals should prepare for the large number of COVID-19 survivors who will need care for a variety of psychological and physical symptoms.

During their illnesses, many patients with COVID-19 experience symptoms, such as tiredness, difficulty breathing, chest pain, sore joints and loss of taste or smell.

Until recently, few studies have evaluated patients’ health after recovering from the coronavirus. To better understand the short- and long-term health effects of the virus, the researchers examined worldwide studies involving unvaccinated patients who recovered from COVID-19. According to the findings, adults, as well as children, can experience several adverse health issues for six months or longer after recovering from COVID-19.

The researchers conducted a systematic review of 57 reports that included data from 250,351 unvaccinated adults and children who were diagnosed with COVID-19 from December 2019 through March 2021. Among those studied, 79% were hospitalized, and most patients (79%) lived in high-income countries. Patients’ median age was 54, and the majority of individuals (56%) were male.

The researchers analyzed patients’ health post-COVID during three intervals at one month (short-term), two to five months (intermediate-term) and six or more months (long-term).

According to the findings, survivors experienced an array of residual health issues associated with COVID-19. Generally, these complications affected a patient’s general well-being, their mobility or organ systems. Overall, one in two survivors experienced long-term COVID manifestations. The rates remained largely constant from one month through six or more months after their initial illness.

Research Team Unlocks Secret Path to a Quantum Future

Artist’s illustration of hydrodynamical behavior from an interacting
ensemble of quantum spin defects in diamond.
(Credit: Norman Yao/Berkeley Lab)

In 1998, researchers including Mark Kubinec of UC Berkeley performed one of the first simple quantum computations using individual molecules. They used pulses of radio waves to flip the spins of two nuclei in a molecule, with each spin’s “up” or “down” orientation storing information in the way that a “0” or “1” state stores information in a classical data bit. In those early days of quantum computers, the combined orientation of the two nuclei – that is, the molecule’s quantum state – could only be preserved for brief periods in specially tuned environments. In other words, the system quickly lost its coherence. Control over quantum coherence is the missing step to building scalable quantum computers.

Now, researchers are developing new pathways to create and protect quantum coherence. Doing so will enable exquisitely sensitive measurement and information processing devices that function at ambient or even extreme conditions. In 2018, Joel Moore, a senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and professor at UC Berkeley, secured funds from the Department of Energy to create and lead an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) – called the Center for Novel Pathways to Quantum Coherence in Materials (NPQC) – to further those efforts. “The EFRCs are an important tool for DOE to enable focused inter-institutional collaborations to make rapid progress on forefront science problems that are beyond the scope of individual investigators,” said Moore.

Resurrecting Quasicrystals

An X-ray tomography visualization shows a top-down view of two quasicrystals as they start to meld together during cooling. Image credit: Shahani Group, University of Michigan

A class of materials that once looked as if it might revolutionize everything from solar cells to frying pans—but fell out of favor in the early 2000s—could be poised for commercial resurrection, findings from a University of Michigan-led research team suggest.

Published in Nature Communications, the study demonstrates a way to make much larger quasicrystals than were possible before, without the defects that plagued past manufacturers and led quasicrystals to be dismissed as an intellectual curiosity.

“One reason why industry gave up on quasicrystals is because they’re full of defects,” said Ashwin Shahani, U-M assistant professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering and a corresponding author on the paper. “But we’re hoping to bring quasicrystals back into the mainstream. And this work hints that it can be done.”

In plant stress response, one protein lures, binds its own killer

Postdoctoral researcher Hye Lin Park works in Gyeong Mee Yoon’s lab. Yoon,
Postdoctoral researcher Hye Lin Park works in Gyeong Mee Yoon’s lab. Yoon, an associate professor of botany and plant pathology studies the plant stress response. (Photo by Gyeong Mee Yoon)Postdoctoral researcher Hye Lin Park works in Gyeong Mee Yoon’s lab. Yoon, an associate professor of botany and plant pathology studies the plant stress response. (Photo by Gyeong Mee Yoon)an associate professor of botany and plant pathology studies the plant stress response.
(Photo by Gyeong Mee Yoon)

Like the plot of a mystery novel, research has found a twist in the way plants cannibalize their own cells to survive under stress.

In response to drought, cold, lack of sunlight and other stress, cellular proteins interact in different ways to help a plant survive. A primary protective act is the destruction and recycling of some of the plant’s own cellular materials into what is needed for others.

A Purdue University-led research team has identified proteins involved in this protective process and discovered how they act upon each other. A better understanding of these mechanisms could lead to ways to help plants withstand severe conditions.

Method recycles batteries faster, with less environmental impact

KTH scientist Xiong Xiao uses ultrasound in combination with acetic acid and citric acid, instead of sulfuric acid, to extract the metals from the batteries.
Photo: Peter Ardell

As the electrification of society increases, so does the amount of used batteries that need to be recycled. Scientists at KTH have developed a new method to recycle valuable metals from used lithium batteries.

Is it possible to extract metals from a lithium battery in half the time it normally takes? Is it possible to use acids that are common in most homes worldwide for the extraction process? The answer is yes. Scientists at KTH have discovered a way.

In a scientific article published by the journal Green Chemistry scientist Xiong Xiao, a postdoc at the Division of Polymeric Materials at KTH, explains how it works using ultrasound.

“We perform the metal extraction in half the time it normally takes and we take out more metal ion than normally reported in scientific literature. In the extraction process we use mild acids such as acetic acid and citric acid instead of sulfuric acid, which is very beneficial from a work environment and sustainable development point of view,” says Xiong Xiao.

Mushroom consumption may lower risk of depression

Image: Pexel

Mushrooms have been making headlines due to their many health advantages. Not only do they lower one’s risk of cancer and premature death, but new research led by Penn State College of Medicine also reveals that these superfoods may benefit a person’s mental health.

Penn State researchers used data on diet and mental health collected from more than 24,000 U.S. adults between 2005 and 2016. They found that people who ate mushrooms had lower odds of having depression.

According to the researchers, mushrooms contain ergothioneine, an antioxidant that may protect against cell and tissue damage in the body. Studies have shown that antioxidants help prevent several mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

“Mushrooms are the highest dietary source of the amino acid ergothioneine — an anti-inflammatory which cannot be synthesized by humans,” said lead researcher Djibril Ba, who recently graduated from the epidemiology doctoral program at the College of Medicine. “Having high levels of this may lower the risk of oxidative stress, which could also reduce the symptoms of depression.”

Serotonin stabilizes social memories

Who wouldn’t like to be better at remembering people you meet, even after a brief introduction?

New research by scientists affiliated with the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford has shown this could be achieved through targeted stimulation of the brain’s serotonin system.

In a study published in Nature, the Stanford team was able to observe for the first time how the mouse brain forms a memory of a new acquaintance and demonstrated the ability to selectively dampen or enhance these social memories with targeted drugs.

Rob Malenka, MD.
Image credit: Stanford Medicine

“We identified neurons that appear to tell a mouse that it's interacting with a new animal with a different smell, a different looking face, distinct posture, etc, and generate a new memory trace for that individual,” said Robert Malenka, MD, the Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford Medicine. “By tuning that neural activity up and down, we were able to change how well animals remembered this new individual later on.”

“Like us, mice live in social groups, and need to be able to quickly remember if another animal is a family member, a former aggressor, a potential mate, and so on,” added Xiaoting Wu, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Malenka’s laboratory and the lead author of the new study. “This finding is really exciting because it represents the very earliest stage of social memory — an ability to remember new individuals that can then be built upon by future experiences.”

The research adds to a growing body of work by the Malenka lab showing how serotonin and other neuromodulatory chemicals control social cognition in the brain, and represents a promising step towards targeted treatments that could one day improve impaired social function in disorders such as autism, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Pandemic linked to rising rates of depressive and anxiety disorders

Cases of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders have increased by more than 25 per cent worldwide, according to a world-first study of the impact of COVID-19 on mental health.

The research, led by researchers from The University of Queensland’s School of Public Health, Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (University of Washington) estimated people living in countries severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic have been most affected, especially women and younger people.

The study is the first to assess global impacts of the pandemic on major depressive and anxiety disorders, quantifying the prevalence and burden of the disorders by age, sex, and location in 204 countries and territories in 2020.

Study leader Dr Damian Santomauro said countries hit hardest by the pandemic in 2020 had the greatest rise in prevalence of the disorders.

“We estimated that cases of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders increased by 28 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively in 2020, with women affected more than men, and younger people affected more than older age groups,” Dr Santomauro said.

“Countries with high COVID-19 infection rates and major reductions in the movement of people – a consequence of measures such as lockdowns and school closures – were found to have the greatest increases in prevalence of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders.”

Anti-cancer drug derived from fungus shows promise in clinical trials

An image of the fungus Cordyceps sinensis. This fungus grows naturally on caterpillars at high altitudes in the Himalayas.

A new industry-academic partnership between the University of Oxford and biopharmaceutical company NuCana as found that chemotherapy drug NUC-7738, derived from a Himalayan fungus, has 40 times greater potency for killing cancer cells than its parent compound.

Oxford University researchers have worked in collaboration with industry leaders NuCana to assess a novel chemotherapy drug derived from a fungus. A study in Clinical Cancer Research has shown that the new drug NUC-7738, developed by NuCana, has a up to 40 times greater potency for killing cancer cells than its parent compound, with limited toxic side effects.

The naturally-occurring nucleoside analogue known as Cordycepin (a.k.a 3’-deoxyadenosine) is found in the Himalayan fungus Cordyceps sinensis and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for hundreds of years to treat cancers and other inflammatory diseases. However, it breaks down quickly in the blood stream, so a minimal amount of cancer-destroying drug is delivered to the tumor. In order to improve its potency and clinically assess its applications as a cancer drug, biopharmaceutical company NuCana has developed Cordycepin into a clinical therapy, using their novel ProTide technology, to create a chemotherapy drug with dramatically improved efficacy.

Material protects against both biological and chemical threats

Programmable crystalline sponge-textile composite for
elimination of biological and chemical threats

 A Northwestern University research team has developed a versatile composite fabric that can deactivate both biological threats, such as the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and chemical threats, such as those used in chemical warfare. A material that is effective against both classes of threats is rare.

The material also is reusable. It can be restored to its original state after the fabric has been exposed to threats by a simple bleach treatment. The promising fabric could be used in face masks and other protective clothing.

“Having a bifunctional material that has the ability to deactivate both chemical and biological toxic agents is crucial since the complexity to integrate multiple materials to do the job is high,” said Northwestern’s Omar Farha, an expert in metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, which is the basis for the technology.

Farha, a professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is a co-corresponding author of the study. He is a member of Northwestern’s International Institute for Nanotechnology.

The MOF/fiber composite builds on an earlier study in which Farha’s team created a nanomaterial that deactivates toxic nerve agents. With some small manipulations, the researchers were able to also incorporate antiviral and antibacterial agents into the material.

2,050-year-old Roman tomb offers insights on ancient concrete resilience

“Understanding the formation and processes of ancient materials can inform researchers of new ways to create durable, sustainable building materials for the future,” says Associate Professor Admir Masic. “The tomb of Caecilia Metella is one of the oldest structures still standing, offering insights that can inspire modern construction.” Seen here are the Tomb of Cecilia Metella and Castrum Caetani ruins in Rome.
Credits:Photo: Livioandronico2013/Wikimedia Commons

Concrete often begins to crack and crumble after a few decades of life — but curiously, that hasn’t been the case with many Roman structures. The structures are still standing, exhibiting remarkable durability despite conditions that would destroy modern concrete.

One particular structure is the large cylindrical tomb of first-century noblewoman Caecilia Metella. New research from MIT scientists and colleagues published in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society shows that the quality of the concrete of her tomb may exceed that of her male contemporaries’ monuments because of the volcanic aggregate the builders chose and the unusual chemical interactions with rain and groundwater that accumulate over two millennia.

Lead co-authors of the study, Admir Masic, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, and Marie Jackson, research associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, teamed up to understand the mineral composition of the ancient concrete structure.

“Understanding the formation and processes of ancient materials can inform researchers of new ways to create durable, sustainable building materials for the future,” says Masic. “The tomb of Caecilia Metella is one of the oldest structures still standing, offering insights that can inspire modern construction.”

Extinction changes rules of body size evolution

A trilobite fossil from the Ordovician period, which lasted from about 485 to 443 million years ago. A new analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries.
(Image credit: Smithsonian)

Scientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising pattern in how life reemerges from cataclysm. Research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows the usual rules of body size evolution change not only during mass extinction, but also during subsequent recovery.

Since the 1980s, evolutionary biologists have debated whether mass extinctions and the recoveries that follow them intensify the selection criteria of normal times – or fundamentally shift the set of traits that mark groups of species for destruction. The new study finds evidence for the latter in a sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years.

Whether and how evolutionary dynamics shift in the wake of global annihilation has “profound implications not only for understanding the origins of the modern biosphere but also for predicting the consequences of the current biodiversity crisis,” the authors write.

“Ultimately, we want to be able to look at the fossil record and use it to predict what will go extinct, and more importantly, what comes back,” said lead author Pedro Monarrez, a postdoctoral scholar in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). “When we look closely at 485 million years of extinctions and recoveries in the world’s oceans, there does appear to be a pattern in what comes back based on body size in some groups.”

The Climate-Driven Mass Extinction No One Had Seen

 

Fossils of the key groups used to unveil the Eocene-Oligocene extinction in Africa with primates on the left, the carnivorous hyaenodont, upper right, rodent, lower right. These fossils are from the Fayum Depression in Egypt. (Credit: Matt Borths)

Sixty-three percent. That’s the proportion of mammal species that vanished from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 30 million years ago, after Earth’s climate shifted from swampy to icy. But we are only finding out about it now.

Compiling decades of work, a new study published this week in the journal Communications Biology reports on a previously undocumented extinction event that followed the transition between the geological periods called the Eocene and Oligocene.

That time period was marked by dramatic climate change. In a reverse image of what is happening today, the Earth grew cooler, ice sheets expanded, sea levels dropped, forests started changing to grasslands, and carbon dioxide became scarce. Nearly two-thirds of the species known in Europe and Asia at that time went extinct.

Oldest theropod dinosaur in the UK discovered

Scientists from the Natural History Museum and the University of Birmingham have described a new species of dinosaur from specimens found in a quarry in Pant-y-ffynnon in southern Wales.

Following on from a new species of ankylosaur, Pendraig milnerae marks the second new species of dinosaur described by Museum scientists in the last few weeks.

The new dinosaur is a theropod, a group which also includes T. rex and modern birds. Pendraig milnerae is the earliest example of a theropod found in the UK so far, living between 200 and 215 million years ago during the Late Triassic period. It likely had a body size around that of a modern-day chicken and would have been a meter long including its tail.

The fragmentary fossils of the species consist of an articulated pelvic girdle, sacrum and posterior dorsal vertebrae, and an associated left femur, and by two referred specimens, comprising an isolated dorsal vertebra and a partial left ischium.

Richard Butler, co-author on the paper and Professor of Paleobiology at the University of Birmingham, said: ‘Dinosaur discoveries are really rare in Wales, and this is only the third dinosaur species known from the country. It’s very exciting to learn more about the dinosaurs that lived here in the UK during the Triassic, right at the dawn of dinosaur evolution.’

Cracking the code of cellular defense

Purdue University will serve as the main site of the new Emergent Mechanisms in Biology of Robustness, Integration and Organization (EMBRIO) Institute. The institute, which will use AI to expand biology and engineering, has received $12.5 million from the National Science Foundation over five years as part of the agency’s Biology Integration Institutes program.
(EMBRIO illustration by Second Bay Studios. Courtesy of Purdue University.)

Imagine the day when any tissue or organ can be repaired or the replacements personalized to the patient.

That’s one of the goals of work being done by David Umulis of Purdue University and a team of scientists using artificial intelligence in biology to see how cells defend themselves from chemical or mechanical attack and/or repair their damage with the help of biochemical and mechanical inputs and reactions.

If this is successful, Umulis says, scientists could have a new way to address human health and longevity.

“If you can touch a network and modify three or four locations at once, the capability to treat diseases or damage will improve as you are signaling all these different biological pathways simultaneously,” he says.

Unlocking new potentials

Umulis uses AI in several of his biomedical engineering projects, including quantifying images and simulating developing cells. He finds that it provides results better, earlier and faster, and can be inexpensive compared with many hours simulating cell features.

But he wants to innovate and push further. The new Emergent Mechanisms in Biology of Robustness, Integration & Organization (EMBRIO) Institute will use AI to expand biology and engineering through exploring how cell signals are integrated to fight off invaders or activated to repair wounds, which are both essential to survive.

Our DNA is becoming the world’s tiniest hard drive

Our genetic code is millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing solutions, which are costly and use immense amounts of energy and space. In fact, we could get rid of hard drives and store all the digital data on the planet within a couple hundred pounds of DNA.

Using DNA as a high-density data storage medium holds the potential to forge breakthroughs in biosensing and biorecording technology and next-generation digital storage, but researchers haven’t been able to overcome inefficiencies that would allow the technology to scale.

Now, researchers at Northwestern University propose a new method for recording information to DNA that takes minutes, rather than hours or days, to complete. The team used a novel enzymatic system to synthesize DNA that records rapidly changing environmental signals directly into DNA sequences, a method the paper’s senior author said could change the way scientists study and record neurons inside the brain.

The research, “Recording Temporal Signals with Minutes Resolution Using Enzymatic DNA Synthesis,” was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The paper’s senior author, Northwestern engineering professor Keith E.J. Tyo, said his lab was interested in leveraging DNA’s natural abilities to create a new solution for storing data.

Threatened rattlesnakes’ inbreeding makes species more resistant to bad mutations

The Eastern massasauga rattlesnake was listed as threatened under the
Endangered Species Act in 2016 because of loss and fragmentation of its wetland habitat.
Photo by James Chiucchi

The first look at a threatened rattlesnake species’ recent genetic history suggests that inbreeding necessitated by limited habitat may not be as detrimental as theory would predict it to be.

In fact, scientists speculate that Eastern massasauga rattlesnakes may have pre-adapted to living in small, isolated populations – where the most dangerous genetic mutations that arose could be easily exposed and purged.

Researchers sequenced the genomes of 90 Eastern massasauga rattlesnakes, which were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2016 because of loss and fragmentation of their wetland habitat. For comparison, the researchers also sequenced 10 genomes of a close relative, the Western massasauga rattlesnake, a common species with no limitations on breeding opportunities and large populations.

The Ohio State University team found that the most potentially damaging gene mutations were less abundant in the Eastern than the Western species. This finding suggests the breeding limitations of small, isolated populations might be accompanied by an evolutionary advantage of being able to elbow out genetic variants that get in the way of survival, said H. Lisle Gibbs, professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State and senior author of the study.