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Final report card on Aichi Biodiversity Targets, set in 2010: 6 of world's 20 goals "partially achieved" by 2020 deadline.

Towards a landmark new global post-2020 biodiversity framework: GBO-5 synthesizes scientific basis for urgent action.

Bright spots include: extinctions prevented by conservation, more land and oceans protected, fish stocks bounce back in well-managed fisheries.

15 September 2020 - Despite encouraging progress in several areas, the natural world is suffering badly and getting worse. Eight transformative changes are, therefore, urgently needed to ensure human wellbeing and save the planet, the UN warns in a major report. 

The report comes as the COVID-19 pandemic challenges people to rethink their relationship with nature, and to consider the profound consequences to their own wellbeing and survival that can result from continued biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems.

The Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 (GBO-5), published by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), offers an authoritative overview of the state of nature. It is a final report card on progress against the 20 global biodiversity targets agreed in 2010 with a 2020 deadline, and offers lessons learned and best practices for getting on track.

"This flagship report underlines that 'humanity stands at a crossroads with regard to the legacy we wish to leave to future generations,'" said CBD Executive Secretary, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema.

"Many good things are happening around the world and these should be celebrated and encouraged. Nevertheless, the rate of biodiversity loss is unprecedented in human history and pressures are intensifying.  Earth's living systems as a whole are being compromised.  And the more humanity exploits nature in unsustainable ways and undermines its contributions to people, the more we undermine our own well-being, security and prosperity."

"As nature degrades," Ms. Mrema continued, "new opportunities emerge for the spread to humans and animals of devastating diseases like this year's coronavirus. The window of time available is short, but the pandemic has also demonstrated that transformative changes are possible when they must be made."

"The decisions and level of action we take now will have profound consequences -- for good or ill -- for all species, including ours."

With respect to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, set in 2010, the analysis based on the 6th set of national reports to the CBD and the latest scientific findings shows that seven of 60 "elements" -- success criteria -- within the 20 targets have been achieved and 38 show progress. In the case of 13 elements, no progress was made, or a move away from the target was indicated, and for two elements the level of progress is unknown. The report concludes that, overall, of the 20 targets, six of them (9, 11, 16, 17, 19 and 20) were partially achieved by the 2020 deadline.

By partially met, GBO5 refers to targets where at least one distinct element has been met. For example, the elements of Target 11 regarding the proportions of lands and seas protected was met, but the elements related to the quality of protected areas were not. Similarly, for Target 19, biodiversity knowledge has improved but it has not been widely shared or applied. For Target 20, official development assistance doubled but resources did not increase from all sources.

The national reports to the CBD (available via http://bit.ly/GBO5Public) offer evidence that the types of transitions needed moving forward are beginning; that virtually all countries are taking steps to protect biodiversity. GBO5 cites several exemplary national actions and programmes, in the absence of which conditions would certainly be worse (extinctions would be higher for example). In addition, for example, deforestation rates continue to fall, eradication of invasive alien species from islands is increasing, awareness of biodiversity appears to be increasing.

"The actions that have been taken need to be significantly scaled up, move from being project driven and become more systemic and broadened," says Ms. Mrema. "Also, the gaps in national ambition and action need to be filled. The information in part III of GBO-5 is about doing this and provides examples of the types of actions that needed going forward."

The report calls for a shift away from "business as usual" across a range of human activities. It outlines eight transitions that recognize the value of biodiversity, the need to restore the ecosystems on which all human activity depends, and the urgency of reducing the negative impacts of such activity:

The land and forests transition: conserving intact ecosystems, restoring ecosystems, combatting and reversing degradation, and employing landscape level spatial planning to avoid, reduce and mitigate land-use change.

The sustainable agriculture transition: redesigning agricultural systems through agroecological and other innovative approaches to enhance productivity while minimizing negative impacts on biodiversity.

The sustainable food systems transition: enabling sustainable and healthy diets with a greater emphasis on a diversity of foods, mostly plant-based, and more moderate consumption of meat and fish, as well as dramatic cuts in the waste involved in food supply and consumption.

The sustainable fisheries and oceans transition: protecting and restoring marine and coastal ecosystems, rebuilding fisheries and managing aquaculture and other uses of the oceans to ensure sustainability, and to enhance food security and livelihoods.

The cities and infrastructure transition: deploying "green infrastructure" and making space for nature within built landscapes to improve the health and quality of life for citizens and to reduce the environmental footprint of cities and infrastructure.

The sustainable freshwater transition: an integrated approach guaranteeing the water flows required by nature and people, improving water quality, protecting critical habitats, controlling invasive species and safeguarding connectivity to allow the recovery of freshwater systems from mountains to coasts.

The sustainable climate action transition: employing nature-based solutions, alongside a rapid phase-out of fossil fuel use, to reduce the scale and impacts of climate change, while providing positive benefits for biodiversity and other sustainable development goals. 

The biodiversity-inclusive One Health transition: managing ecosystems, including agricultural and urban ecosystems, as well as the use of wildlife, through an integrated approach, to promote healthy ecosystems and healthy people.

As nations negotiate a new pact to guide global biodiversity efforts in the 2020s, GBO5 synthesizes abundant evidence of biodiversity's global decline, based on an extensive range of sources, including:

6th National Reports to the CBD from Convention's member Parties

Four previous GBO reports (2001, 2006, 2010, 2015)

Assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), including the landmark Global Assessment (2019) and regional assessments (2018)
Recent research and indicators updated since the IPBES Global Assessment

Reports from other international bodies, including: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and others

Plant Conservation Report (Global Strategy for Plant Conservation targets, 2011-2020)

Two Local Biodiversity Outlooks* (presenting the perspectives and experiences of indigenous peoples and local communities on the current biodiversity crisis, and their contributions to the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020). The second edition of the Local Biodiversity Outlooks will be launched at a separate event on the 16th September 2020 (details below).

GBO-5 underlines the urgent need to act to slow and end further loss, and highlights examples of proven measures available to help achieve the world's agreed vision: "Living in harmony with nature" by 2050.

WWF's Living Planet Report, released on 10 Sept, documenting the precipitous fall in monitored populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish between 1970 and 2016, further underlines the urgency to act.

GBO-5 reports financing for biodiversity (public, private, domestic and international), was up in some countries, roughly constant in others for the past decade, and resources available for biodiversity through international flows and official development assistance roughly doubled.  In all, an estimated annual $78-91 billion is available, but "estimates of biodiversity finance needs are conservatively estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars."

"Moreover, these resources are swamped by support for activities harmful to biodiversity," the report says. "These include $500 billion in fossil fuel and other subsidies that potentially cause environmental harm, $100 billion of which relate to agriculture."

GBO-5 highlights that action on biodiversity is essential to address climate change, long- term food security and health. The time for action on all these issues is now - the global community must seize the opportunity to build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic in order to reduce the risk of future pandemics.

GBO-5 also underlines the importance of biodiversity for achieving the high-level, agreed Sustainable Development Goals established in 2015, and the 2016 Paris Agreement and, at the UN's Nature Summit on 30 September, GBO-5's findings will be taken up by heads of State and Government.

GBO-5 will also have an important impact on CBD's ongoing process to create a set of new global biodiversity targets for 2021-2030, as part of a post-2020 framework for the Convention.

That framework, now under negotiation, will be considered at CBD's 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP-15), Kunming, China - postponed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic from October 2020 to 2021.

Comments

"As we emerge from the immediate impacts of the pandemic, we have an unprecedented opportunity to 'build back better', incorporating the transitions outlined in this Outlook and embodied in an ambitious plan to put the world on track to achieve the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Part of this new agenda must be to tackle the twin global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss in a more coordinated manner, understanding both that climate change threatens to undermine all other efforts to conserve biodiversity; and that nature itself offers some of the most effective solutions to avoid the worst impacts of a warming planet."
- António Guterres, Secretary-General, UN

"Now, we must accelerate and scale-up collaboration for nature-positive outcomes - conserving, restoring and using biodiversity fairly and sustainably. If we do not, biodiversity will continue to buckle under the weight of land- and sea-use change, overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species. This will further damage human health, economies and societies - with particularly detrimental effects on indigenous peoples and local communities. We know what needs to be done, what works and how we can achieve good results. If we build on what has already been achieved, and place biodiversity at the heart of all our policies and decisions - including in COVID-19 recovery packages - we can ensure a better future for our societies and the planet.
- Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UNEP

"We need global, swift and transformative action to halt the decline of our planet's biological diversity and the loss of wild species of fauna and flora across ecosystems. The fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook can arm decision-makers with the facts and knowledge needed to move towards meeting these urgent challenges."
- Ivonne Higuero, Secretary-General, CITES

"Our dependence on nature is more evident today than ever. The GBO-5 is a call for action to reverse biodiversity loss and ensure our health, wellbeing and prosperity. The report highlights the rapid global decline of wetlands that affects water availability, as well as the 40% of the planet's species which live in these ecosystems.  Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands are committed to wetland conservation and wise use as a key element of the post-2020 biodiversity framework."
- Martha Rojas Urrego, Secretary General, Convention on Wetlands

"The 5th Global Biodiversity Outlook, launched just before the first UN Biodiversity Summit, paints a stark message - that we are continuing to lose biodiversity, our essential planetary safety net. We are not on track to meet most of Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and we know that the loss of nature poses grave consequences for us all. However, there are reasons for hope. The report shows that we are on track to have at least 17% of terrestrial protected areas and 10% marine protected areas by the end of 2020 - a remarkable accomplishment from where we were a decade ago. This tells us we can do more, and we must do more, in the coming decade of action."
- Achim Steiner,  Administrator, UNDP

As the Chair of IPBES, I welcome the 5th edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook. IPBES is proud to have contributed to GBO-5, in particular through our Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. GBO-5 includes, among several new sources of evidence, an interesting analysis of the 6 th national reports provided by countries on the state of their biodiversity. Sadly, GBO-5 confirms that none of the 20 Aichi Targets have been fully achieved. GBO-5 calls for transformative change in eight areas and IPBES is currently preparing two directly relevant reports: one on transformative change, and the other on ways to simultaneously achieve the SDGs related to water, food, health, energy, climate and biodiversity. Together I believe that they will form a strong body of knowledge to further inform the work of the CBD in the post-2020 era. It is my great hope that all of the evidence, expertise and options now available to Parties at CBD COP 15 will finally raise the level of awareness about the severe and ongoing reduction of biodiversity and raise both the level of ambition and the resources needed to address this tragedy.
- Ana María Hernández, Chair, Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

"The Global Biodiversity Outlook report underscores that global efforts have failed to address the growing global biodiversity crisis or achieve agreed targets. Urgent action and real commitment are needed to reverse the trends of biodiversity loss and the threat of extinction of as many as one million species, including migratory species of wild animals."
- Amy Fraenkel, Executive Secretary, Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)

"We cannot afford to ignore the findings of this major report. Despite some progress, the loss of nature continues unabated, highlighting not only a failure of our moral duty to preserve Earth’s diversity of life, but also the undermining of the very natural systems that support human health and the global economy. Importantly, the report also tells us that halting and reversing biodiversity loss is entirely possible, by protecting more of the remaining natural spaces, curbing wildlife overexploitation and, crucially, reforming the way we produce and consume food. "World leaders must take decisive action now - not later - to set nature on the path to recovery this decade and secure a nature-positive economy. They will have an important opportunity to raise ambition at the UN Summit on Biodiversity later this month ahead of the UN biodiversity negotiations next year.”

- Marco Lambertini, Director General, WWF International

“It is very important to see a global report highlighting the limited progress made in recent years towards the global biodiversity targets pointing to the need to step up our efforts [collectively and holistically] to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity. The report confirms the findings of various other reports, including FAO’s 2019 report on The State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture. As the adoption of its Strategy on Mainstreaming Biodiversity across Agricultural Sectors shows, we are more committed than ever to work for fair, healthy and sustainable agri-food systems.”

- Qu Dongyu, Director-General, FAO

“The news of our slow progress in achieving the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets set for 2020 should give us pause, coming as it does during the worst global pandemic in nearly 100 years. Reckless land use change is now not only leading to the loss of biological diversity; it is enabling the emergence of new infectious diseases in which alien viruses spread from the wild to humans. The Global Land Outlook 5 is clear about where to focus our attention to live in harmony with nature. But we have one shot – a decade – to make swift progress and with impact. The choices of our action or inaction are as stark as they are clear. Let us choose actions for a greener future where ecosystems thrive.”

- Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary, UN Convention to Combat Desertification

GBO 5: By the Numbers

33% Proportion of people in the most biodiverse countries with high awareness of both the values of biodiversity and the steps required for its conservation and sustainable use.

91 Number of countries applying global standards for integrating environment into national accounting -- roughly double the number from 2006

$500 billion Value of government subsidies that potentially cause environmental harm,

1.7 Number of "Earths" needed to regenerate the biological resources used by humanity from 2011 to 2016

33% Reduction in global deforestation rates comparing the last five years with rates in the decade to 2010.

66% Proportion of marine fish stocks in 2017 fished within biologically sustainable levels, down from 71% in 2010, with great variation among regions, and among stocks.

163 million Number of farms (29% of all worldwide) practicing sustainable intensification, on

453 million hectares of agricultural land (9% of the worldwide total.

260,000 tonnes Weight of the estimated 5.25 trillion plastic particles in the world's oceans

~200 Eradications of invasive mammals on island since 2010, benefitting an estimated 236 native terrestrial species, including 100 highly-threatened bird, mammal and reptile species such as the island fox and Seychelles magpie-robin

60%+ Proportion of world's coral reefs under threat, especially due to overfishing and destructive fishing

43% Area of key biodiversity areas covered by protected areas -- up from 29% in 2000.

28-48 Estimated number of bird and mammal species prevented from going extinct thanks to conservation actions since 1993, when the CBD came into force, including 11 - 25 species since 2010.

1,940 Number of local domesticated animal breeds) considered to be at risk of extinction, out of 7,155, with risk status unknown for another 4,668 breeds

164: Number of countries that explicitly recognize women's rights to own, use, make decisions and use land as collateral on equal terms with men

27 million Hectares of land under restoration activities - only 2% of the estimated potential

12 Number of Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefits Sharing, 87 of them having ABS measures in place and competent national authorities established

69 Number of countries with National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) adopted as whole-of-government policy instruments

40 Number of Parties that involved indigenous and local communities in the preparation of their NBSAP

1.4 billion Number of species occurence records freely accessible through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), a seven-fold increase over the decade

$9.3 billion: Total value of annual international public biodiversity finance for biodiversity -- double the levels of the previous decade -- of which $3.9 billion has biodiversity as a principle focus

More: https://bit.ly/2EW2jmt

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Sept. 15, 2020 -- Initial findings reported by the Arizona COVID-19 Genomics Union (ACGU) suggest that following Arizona's first reported case of COVID-19 in late January, the state experienced no cases that went undetected and was COVID-free until at least 11 distinct incursions occurred between mid-February and early April.

The published results appear in the scientific journal mBio.

Faculty at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, Northern Arizona University (NAU), University of Arizona (UArizona) and Arizona State University (ASU) launched the ACGU in April with the express purpose of tracking the causative agent of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2: how it evolves and how it spreads into, within and out of Arizona.

The ACGU sequenced the SARS-CoV-2 genomes in as many virus-positive patient samples in Arizona as possible, and working with Arizona's public health officials, applied the results toward statewide efforts to test and track patients, as well as provide guidance for Arizona public policy makers.

Quick action by ASU and Maricopa County public health officials, ACGU scientists agree, likely kept the first identified COVID-19 patient in Arizona -- a student who had just returned from Hubei, the Chinese province where the disease originated -- from igniting an outbreak, and prevented Arizona from becoming an early epicenter for the contagion.

"This is a great example of how a rapid and thorough public health response can be successful in preventing the spread of this disease," said ACGU Director Dr. Paul Keim, Regents' Professor of Biological Sciences and Cowden Endowed Chair in Microbiology at NAU and Executive Director of NAU's Pathogen and Microbiome Institute.

"Similar steps could be taken when shaping future efforts to reopen businesses and schools, even though the virus continues to circulate and people remain susceptible," added Keim, who is also a Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of TGen's Pathogen and Microbiome Division.

Dr. Michael Worobey, an ACGU co-founder and the head of University of Arizona's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, agrees.

"It's a combination of the patient doing the right things to isolate himself and be aware that he possibly had this disease, and public health officials doing all the right things. Stopping an incursion of COVID-19 was a victory for the state of Arizona," Dr. Worobey said.

This bought Arizona valuable time for preparedness efforts. The first reported case of "community" transmission occurred in Arizona in early March descended from the Washington state outbreak that was discovered in February. More than 80% of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences from Arizona COVID-19 cases descended from at least 11 separate lineages that were initially circulating widely in Europe, and by travel have since dominated the outbreak throughout the U.S. None of the observed transmission clusters are epidemiologically linked to the original travel-related case in the Arizona, suggesting successful early isolation and quarantine.

The ACGU uses state-of-the-art sequencers, custom computational analysis workflows, and supercomputers to determine the sequence of the virus's RNA genome, which is just under 30,000 bases long. In contrast, there are nearly 3 billion bases in the human genome, which determine traits as simple as eye and hair color, and as complex as an individual's propensity for cancer and other disease.

TGen has so far sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes from nearly 3,000 COVID-19 positive samples for the ACGU, and additional sequencing was performed at ASU and UArizona, from among the more than 200,000 positive cases in Arizona, making it one of the most robust such efforts in the nation. ACGU receives Arizona samples collected by state, county, tribal and private healthcare systems.

ACGU scientists take advantage of small changes or mutations in the virus' genome, which naturally occur over time as the virus reproduces, to track the spread of the virus. By comparing mutations observed in Arizona to those present in strains circulating across the globe, they can determine when and from where the virus has been introduced to Arizona.

Using molecular clock analyses, researchers found that the majority of Arizona sequences are represented by two lineages -- and several sub-lineages -- most of which were likely introduced through domestic travel, but with some evidence for international importation.

"Through the ACGU, we are harnessing expertise in virology, genomics, evolution and bioinformatics from throughout Arizona in order to rapidly distill these genomic data into actionable insights that can complement the state's public health response," Dr. Keim said. "These results demonstrate the power of public health contact tracing and self-isolation following a positive test for stemming the tide of infections moving forward."

Dr. David Engelthaler, Director of TGen North in Flagstaff, which includes the institute's infectious disease branch, said the initial ACGU findings show how each community, each state is writing its own story for what is happing in the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We need to understand all of those plot lines that have led to where we are now," said Dr. Engelthaler, another of the co-founders of the ACGU. "Once this disease was detected in Arizona on Jan. 26, public health immediately jumped in to make sure that all contacts were identified, samples were collected and the patient was watched very closely for the next couple of weeks to make sure there were not any more cases."

In the coming months, he said, it will be necessary to track COVID-19 outbreaks and build epidemiological walls around each case, especially for those most at risk: persons older than 65, those in long-term care facilities, prisons, and those with pre-existing health problems.

"When you don't have eyes on this, when you don't have contact tracing, then it can really easily move from person-to-person," Dr. Engelthaler said. "It's really useful for public policy makers to be making locally-informed decisions."

Dr. Efrem Lim, a virologist who leads the ASU team, said the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence data can give health care providers and public policy makers an edge in fighting the pandemic.

"Tracking the transmission of the virus and its mutations ensures that therapeutics and vaccines being developed are on the right course," said Dr. Lim, an assistant professor at ASU's Biodesign Institute. "We now have a handle on what the SARS-CoV-2 virus in our communities looks like at the sequence level."

DALLAS, September 15, 2020 -- Patients with psoriasis treated with biologic therapy, which are protein-based infusions to suppress inflammation, had a significant reduction in high-risk plaque in heart arteries, over one-year, according to new research published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, an American Heart Association journal.

Chronic inflammation in people with psoriasis is associated with a higher risk of developing coronary artery disease. Biologic therapy medications are proteins that are given by injection or infusion and suppress the inflammation process by blocking the action of cytokines, which are proteins that promote systemic inflammation.

Previous research has shown a clear link between psoriasis and the development of high-risk coronary plaque. This study provides characterization of a lipid-rich necrotic core, a dangerous type of coronary plaque made up of dead cells and cell debris that is prone to rupture. Ruptured plaque can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

"Having inflamed plaque that is prone to rupture increases the risk of heart attack five-fold within ten years," said Nehal N. Mehta, M.D., M.S.C.E., FAHA, study senior author, a Lasker Senior Investigator and chief of the Lab of Inflammation and Cardiometabolic Diseases at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

"This is the first time an imaging study in humans has shown what one year of ongoing, untreated inflammation can do to arteries of the heart and that we can reverse this damage. Untreated inflammation is dangerous. You are just waiting for a heart attack or stroke to happen," Mehta said.

The analysis involved 209 middle-aged patients (ages 37-62) with psoriasis who participated in the Psoriasis Atherosclerosis Cardiometabolic Initiative at the National Institutes of Health, an ongoing observational study. Of these participants, 124 received biologic therapy, and 85 were in the control group, treated only with topical creams and light therapy.

To measure the effects of biologic therapy on arteries of the heart, the researchers performed cardiac computed tomography (CT) scans on all study participants before they started therapy and one year later. The CT results between the two groups were then compared.

At the start of the study, participants with psoriasis had low cardiovascular risk by conventional cardiovascular risk scores, and severe psoriasis was associated with higher body mass index (BMI), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (a measure of systemic inflammation) and higher levels of coronary artery plaque.

After one year of treatment, patients who received biologic therapy were compared to the control group. Researchers found:

Biologic therapy was associated with an 8% reduction in coronary plaque. In contrast, those in the control group experienced slightly increased coronary plaque progression.

Even after adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors and psoriasis severity, patients treated with biologic therapy had reduced coronary plaque.

"There is approximately 6-8% reduction in coronary plaque following therapy with statins. Similarly, our treatment with biologic therapy reduced coronary plaque by the same amount after one year. These findings suggest that biologic therapy to treat psoriasis may be just as beneficial as statin therapy on heart arteries," Mehta said.

This study has implications for people with psoriasis and possibly for people with other chronic inflammatory conditions such as HIV, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, who also have increased risk of heart disease.

"We have never before been able to show healing of an inflamed plaque like this in humans. Biologic therapy reduces systemic inflammation and immune activation, and it has a favorable impact on improving overall vascular health," Mehta said. "Imagine if we can treat both psoriasis and coronary heart disease with one therapy - that is the question to be asked in future studies."

The study's findings should be interpreted with caution because it was limited by a short follow-up period and a relatively small number of patients. Larger, randomized controlled studies are needed to better understand how changes in coronary plaque may lead to a reduction in heart attacks and strokes in people with psoriasis.

DALLAS, Sept. 15, 2020 -- Health care professionals should become more familiar with medications that cause irregular heart rhythms called arrhythmias, according to "Drug- Induced Arrhythmias," a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation.

"Many commonly used medications can cause irregular heartbeats as a side effect," said James E. Tisdale, Pharm.D., FAHA, professor of pharmacy practice at the College of Pharmacy at Purdue University, adjunct professor at the School of Medicine at Indiana University and chair of the writing committee for the American Heart Association's scientific statement. "While the risk is relatively low, it is important for health care professionals to consider that their patient's arrhythmia could be caused or worsened by a medication."

During an arrhythmia, the heart can beat too fast, too slowly or with an irregular rhythm. Arrhythmias can be caused by genetics or numerous conditions, including coronary artery disease, thyroid problems or electrolyte imbalances. This statement reviewed medications that can cause or exacerbate arrhythmias, risk factors for these side effects and prevention, monitoring and treatment options for people who are at risk for or develop arrhythmias.

While the statement was written for health care professionals, patients should know to continue to take their medications as directed and talk with their health care professional about any concerns with their medicines and any risk factors for a medication-induced arrhythmia.

There are several different types of drug-induced arrhythmias. Some medications can cause slower heart rates, and others can cause rapid heart rhythms from the upper chambers (atria) or lower chambers (ventricles) of the heart. When a heart beats too fast, the condition is called tachycardia. When a heart beats too slowly, the condition is called bradycardia. Often there are no symptoms, but some people feel their heart "racing" or "fluttering" or have trouble breathing, faint or become dizzy. If an arrhythmia is left untreated, the heart may not be able to pump enough blood to the body, which can damage the heart, the brain or other organs, and possibly cause the person to faint. Some arrhythmias are life-threatening and require immediate treatment.

Heart rhythm side effects during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin have been used to manage the novel coronavirus disease, noted the writing group. These medications can cause heart rhythm disturbances, and there have been some clinical trials to assess their effectiveness to treat COVID-19, including one National Institutes of Health trial that was halted in June. In June and July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency use and issued a warning against the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 outside of a clinical trial or hospital.

Heart rhythm disorders have been reported as a side effect of hydroxychloroquine alone and in combination with azithromycin among patients with COVID-19. Other medications proposed for managing COVID-19 such as lopinavir/ritonavir also have the potential to interfere with the heart's normal rhythm. Guidance from the American Heart Association for managing arrhythmia risk associated with these medications in patients with COVID-19 was issued earlier this year: Considerations for Drug Interactions on QTc in Exploratory COVID-19 Treatment.

Who's at risk?

People with a history of heart attack, heart disease or previous heart surgery are more likely to develop an irregular heartbeat after exposure to certain medications. Other risk factors for medication-induced arrhythmias include older age, deficiencies of potassium or magnesium, and excessive drinking. Some patients who experience drug-induced arrhythmia may have a genetic predisposition. The most common test used to diagnose an arrhythmia is an electrocardiogram (ECG).

Prevention and monitoring

Taking medications as directed and maintaining normal electrolyte levels, kidney and liver function can help reduce risk. Other strategies for prevention include using the lowest effective dose of arrhythmia-inducing medications, minimizing or avoiding the use of stimulants and avoiding excessive alcohol intake (women: 1 or fewer drinks per day; men: 2 or fewer drinks per day). Understanding and avoiding medication interactions can also help minimize risk.

For certain high-risk medications, patients may need to be hospitalized using a heart monitor while starting the medication. For patients at increased risk of a drug-induced arrhythmia, regular ECG monitoring may also be performed.

Treatment

Treatment usually includes discontinuing the medicine that is causing the arrhythmia, and may also include antiarrhythmic medicines, or placement of a device that can correct an irregular heartbeat. "Medications are extremely important and beneficial for treating a large variety of diseases and chronic health conditions, and patients should not change or stop taking any of their medicines without talking with their health care professional," said Tisdale.

Tisdale added, "Much remains unknown about the underlying mechanisms of arrhythmias associated with specific medications,and further research is needed to better understand risk factors and treatment options. We hope raising awareness will result in clinicians being attentive to risk factors, and avoiding, where possible, medications that can cause or worsen arrhythmias in patients who are at higher risk."

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2020 - The last several years have brought mounting evidence that the molecules inside our cells can self-organize into liquid droplets that merge and separate like oil in water in order to facilitate various cellular activities. Now, a team of biologists at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC) have identified unique roles for the amino acids arginine and lysine in contributing to liquid phase properties and their regulation. Their findings are available today online in Nature Communications.

Known as liquid-liquid phase separation, the process allows some molecules within a cell to cloister themselves into membraneless organelles in order to carry out certain duties without interruption from other molecules. The mechanism can also allow molecules to create multiphase droplets that resemble, say, a drop of honey inside a drop of oil surrounded by water in order to carry out sophisticated jobs.

"This is a really exciting new research area because it uncovers a core biological function that, when gone awry, may be at the root of disease, particularly neurodegeneration as in ALS or Alzheimer's," said principal investigator and Graduate Center, CUNY Biochemistry Professor Shana Elbaum-Garfinkle, whose lab at the CUNY ASRC Structural Biology Initiative conducted the study. "With an understanding of how individual amino acids contribute to phase behavior, we can begin to investigate what's going wrong in liquid phase separation that may interfere with normal biological function and potentially design therapies that can modulate the process."

Researchers have suspected for a while that arginine and lysine -- two of the 20 amino acids that make up all proteins -- were responsible for regulating liquid phase separation, but they weren't certain how each contributed to phase behavior and to creating the differing viscosities that cloister molecules into separate communities.

"Arginine and lysine are very similar amino acids in terms of both being positively charged, but they differ in terms of binding capability. We were really curious to understand what effect this difference would have on the material properties, such as viscosity or fluidity, of the droplets they form," said Rachel Fisher, the paper's first author and a postdoc in Elbaum-Garfinkle's lab. "We also wanted to know how these differences manifest themselves when the arginine and lysine systems are combined. Will the droplets coexist? When we saw they did, we then wanted to understand how we could modulate this multi-phase behavior."

To answer their questions, Elbaum-Garfinkle's team used a technique called microrheology -- whereby tiny tracers are used to probe material structures -- to track and investigate the properties of arginine and lysine droplets. They found that arginine-rich droplets were over 100 times more viscous than lysine-rich droplets, comparable to the difference between a thick syrup or ketchup and oil. The viscosity differences are significant enough that if lysine and arginine polymers are combined, they don't mix. Instead, they create multi-phase droplets that sit within one another like Dutch nesting dolls. Additionally, arginine has such strong binding properties that under some conditions it can compete with lysine and replace or dissolve lysine droplets. The researchers further identified ways to tune the balance between competition and coexistence of the two phases. The results present a novel mechanism for designing, controlling or intervening in molecular liquid phases.

Scientists have long believed that ocean viruses always quickly kill algae, but Rutgers-led research shows they live in harmony with algae and viruses provide a "coup de grace" only when blooms of algae are already stressed and dying.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, will likely change how scientists view viral infections of algae, also known as phytoplankton - especially the impact of viruses on ecosystem processes like algal bloom formation (and decline) and the cycling of carbon and other chemicals on Earth.

"It's only when the infected algal cells become stressed, such as when they run out of nutrients, that the viruses turn deadly," said lead author Benjamin Knowles, a former post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick who is now at UCLA. He was also a post-doctoral fellow at Rutgers' Institute of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. "We feel that this entirely new model of infection is widespread in the oceans and stands to fundamentally alter how we view host-virus interactions and the impact of viruses on ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling since it goes against the long-accepted classic model of viruses always being lethal and killing cells."

Biogeochemical cycling refers to essential nutrients like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, iron and water circulating through organisms and the environment. The coccolithophore algae Emiliania huxleyi was the focus of the study as a model for other algae-virus systems and is a central driver of this process.

The scientists studied virus-algae interactions in the lab and in controlled, mini-blooms in coastal waters of Norway. They focused on viral infection of a form of algae that is responsible for generating much of the oxygen and carbon cycling on Earth. A group of ocean viruses called coccolithoviruses routinely infect and kill E. huxleyi over 1,000 square miles, which is viewable from space via Earth-observing satellites.

The viruses eventually rupture algal cells, contributing to the global food web by making energy and organic matter available to other organisms. But infected cells don't die right away, the scientists discovered. Instead, infected cells multiply and bloom across dozens of miles of ocean waters and die in a coordinated manner. These dynamics have been routinely observed in previous studies but couldn't be explained by the rate at which algal hosts and viruses encounter each other in nature.

"The algae and viruses have a quasi-symbiotic type of relationship, allowing both algal cells and viruses to replicate happily for a while," said senior author Kay D. Bidle, a professor and microbial oceanographer in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick and the Institute of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. "We feel that these newly discovered dynamics also apply to other virus-algal interactions across the oceans and are fundamental to how infection works. By combining experimental, theoretical and environmental approaches, our work presents a template to diagnose this type of infection in other systems."

The algae-virus dynamics have important implications for the outcome of infections and the flow of carbon and may lead to scenarios where carbon dioxide is sequestered, or stored, in the deep ocean rather than retained in the upper ocean, Bidle said. Further research is needed to fully understand the extent of these dynamics and their impacts on ecosystems and the cycling of carbon in the oceans.

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, Fondazione Santa Lucia IRCCS, and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome have shown that pharmacological (drug) correction of the content of extracellular vesicles released within dystrophic muscles can restore their ability to regenerate muscle and prevent muscle scarring (fibrosis). The study, published in EMBO Reports, reveals a promising new therapeutic approach for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), an incurable muscle-wasting condition, and has far-reaching implications for the field of regenerative medicine.

"Our study shows that extracellular vesicles are bioactive mediators that can transfer the benefits of medicine--in this case, HDAC inhibitors (HDACi)--to treat DMD," says Pier Lorenzo Puri, M.D., professor in the Development, Aging and Regeneration Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys and co-corresponding author of the study. "We discovered the promise of this treatment almost 20 years ago and did all of the preclinical work, which led to a current clinical trial for boys with DMD. However, the therapeutic potential of HDACi has been so far limited by its systemic adverse effects."

In the current clinical trial, boys with DMD are treated with HDACi at suboptimal doses due to the risk of adverse side effects. The scientists are hopeful that extracellular vesicles might provide a cell-free, non-immunogenic, transplantable tool for local delivery of bioactive particles that transfer HDACi to dystrophic muscles, thereby overcoming the undesirable secondary effects caused by chronic use at high doses.

"We believe this novel approach of using pharmacologically corrected extracellular vesicles may be used to safely deliver drugs such as HDACi directly to dystrophic muscles to obtain the beneficial action that would otherwise only be achieved at higher, toxic doses," says Puri.

Extracellular vesicles are bioactive particles, meaning they have an effect in the body. They have recently attracted significant attention from the biomedical community because of their therapeutic potential. These particles contain information in the form of DNA, RNA or proteins and are exchanged from one cell to another. Alterations in the content of these particles leads to faulty communication between cells in dystrophic muscles and changes their behavior. In this study, the scientists discovered that these content alterations can be corrected to restore the physiological communication between the cells of dystrophic muscles.

Communication breakdown

Prior research from Puri's team showed that as DMD progresses, special muscle-healing cells called fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs) become corrupted and start to promote muscle wasting and fibrosis. The team suspected that altered communication between FAPs and muscle stem cells--perhaps via extracellular vesicles--might be part of the problem.

To answer this question, Martina Sandonà, Ph.D., first author of the study, and her colleagues conducted a series of experiments using muscle biopsies from boys with DMD who are enrolled in the clinical trial testing experimental HDACi treatment as well as a mouse model of DMD. The scientists were able to show that as DMD progresses, cellular communication via extracellular vesicles is progressively altered over time, which impairs the regeneration potential of DMD muscles. Importantly, the researchers demonstrated that correcting the content of the extracellular vesicles with an HDAC inhibitor activates muscle stem cells and promotes regeneration while reducing fibrosis and inflammation.

"Our findings can likely be extended to other conditions and diseases, as pharmacologically 'lifted' extracellular vesicles could be exploited as a general therapeutic tool in regenerative medicine," says Valentina Saccone, Ph.D., group leader at Fondazione Santa Lucia IRCCS, tenured assistant professor at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and co-corresponding author of the study. "These particles might also be used as an adjuvant approach for other treatments, such as gene or cell therapies."

A ray of hope

Treatment advances can't come soon enough for people with DMD and their loved ones. The genetic condition is caused by a lack of dystrophin, a protein that strengthens muscles, and causes progressive muscle degeneration. DMD primarily affects boys, with symptoms often appearing between the ages of 3 and 5. With recent medical advances, children with DMD now often survive beyond their teenage years into their early 30s, but effective treatments are still needed.

"For children and adults living with DMD and their families, research provides a ray of hope for a better future," says Filippo Buccella, founder of Parent Project Italy, which has provided continual support to Puri's team for the last 20 years. "This study uncovers a promising new therapeutic approach for DMD and brings us one step closer to treatments that may help children maintain muscle strength for as long as possible and live long, fulfilling lives."

"The more options we have to treat DMD, the better, as it's likely that drugs with different mechanisms of action could be more effective in combination," says Sharon Hesterlee, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief research officer of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. "Dr. Puri's work represents a unique approach that could prove complementary."

An international team of astronomers detected phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus. They studied the origin of phosphine, but no inorganic processes, including supply from volcanos and atmospheric photochemistry can explain the detected amount of phosphine. The phosphine is believed to originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, but the team does not completely reject the possibility of biological origin. This discovery is crucial to examine the validity of phosphine as a biomarker.

"When we got the first hints of phosphine in Venus's spectrum, it was a shock!", says team leader Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the UK, who first spotted signs of phosphine in observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), operated by the East Asian Observatory, in Hawai?i. Confirming their discovery required the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, a more sensitive telescope. The reason why she was so shocked is that phosphine can be produced by microbes on the Earth [1] , although the research team does not think that they found life on Venus.

How do you find life on a planet from quite far away? One way is to study its atmosphere and find a biomarker that can be evidence of the presence of living forms. If a molecule in the atmosphere is mainly produced by living organisms and the contribution from abiotic origins is negligibly small, it can be a good biomarker.

The international team led by Greaves, including Hideo Sagawa at Kyoto Sangyo University, studied the signal of phosphine in the radio spectra and found that the amount of the molecule is about 20 parts per billion in the atmospheric molecules. This is quite a small amount, but enough to astonish the researchers. This is because researchers have supposed that most of the phosphorus, if it existed in the first place, would bind with oxygen atoms because the Venusian atmosphere has a huge amount of oxygen atoms, although most of them are in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2).

The team carefully examined the possible origins of the phosphine: production by chemical reaction in the atmosphere driven by strong sunlight or lightning, supply from volcanic activity, and delivery by meteorites. The team found that all of these known processes failed to produce the observed amount of phosphine. The amount of phosphine molecules produced by those processes is 10,000 times smaller than the amount detected with the radio telescopes.

The researchers supposed that phosphine is produced by unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, but they also considered the possibility of biological origin. On Earth, some microbes produce and egest phosphine. If similar living organisms were in the Venusian atmosphere, they could produce the detected amount of phosphine.

"Although we concluded that known chemical processes cannot produce enough phosphine, there remains the possibility that some hitherto unknown abiotic process exists on Venus," says Sagawa. "We have a lot of homework to do before reaching an exotic conclusion, including re-observation of Venus to verify the present result itself."

Venus is Earth's twin, in terms of size. However, the atmospheres of the two planets are quite different. Venus has a very think atmosphere and the devastating greenhouse effect raises the surface temperature as high as 460 degrees Celsius. Some researchers argue that the upper atmosphere is much milder and possibly habitable, but the extremely dry and deadly acidic atmosphere would make it difficult for a life form similar to the ones on Earth to survive on Venus.

Further observations with large telescopes on the Earth, including ALMA, and ultimately on-site observations and a sample return of the Venusian atmosphere by space probes will provide crucial information to understand the mysterious origin of the phosphine.

Thanks to the sniffling noses, coughs, and colds that accompany the colder months of the year, we are all too familiar with the seasonal patterns of some respiratory viruses. A new review published in Frontiers in Public Health suggests that COVID-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, will likely follow suit and become seasonal in countries with temperate climates, but only when herd immunity is attained. Until that time, COVID-19 will continue to circulate across the seasons. These conclusions highlight the absolute importance of public health measures needed just now to control the virus.

Senior author of the study Dr. Hassan Zaraket, of the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, warns that "COVID-19 is here to stay and it will continue to cause outbreaks year-round until herd immunity is achieved. Therefore, the public will need to learn to live with it and continue practicing the best prevention measures, including wearing of masks, physical distancing, hand hygiene and avoidance of gatherings."

Collaborating author Dr. Hadi Yassine, of Qatar University in Doha, affirms and states that there could be multiple waves of COVID-19 before herd immunity is achieved.

We know that many respiratory viruses follow seasonal patterns, especially in temperate regions. For instance, influenza and several types of coronaviruses that cause common cold are known to peak in winter in temperate regions but circulate year-round in tropical regions. The authors reviewed these seasonal viruses, examining the viral and host factors that control their seasonality as well as the latest knowledge on the stability and transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers explain that virus survival in the air and on surfaces, people's susceptibility to infections and human behaviors, such as indoor crowding, differ across the seasons due to changes in temperature and humidity. These factors influence transmission of respiratory viruses at different times of the year.

However, in comparison to other respiratory viruses such as the flu, COVID-19 has a higher rate of transmission (R0), at least partly due to circulation in a largely immunologically naïve population.

This means that unlike the flu and other respiratory viruses, the factors governing seasonality of viruses cannot yet halt the spread of COVID-19 in the summer months. But, once herd immunity is attained through natural infections and vaccinations, the R0 should drop substantially, making the virus more susceptible to seasonal factors.

Such seasonality has been reported for other coronaviruses, including those that emerged more recently such as NL63 and HKU1, which follow the same circulation pattern like influenza.

"This remains a novel virus and despite the fast-growing body of science about it there are still things that are unknown. Whether our predictions hold true or not remains to be seen in the future. But we think it's highly likely, given what we know so far, COVID-19 will eventually become seasonal, like other coronaviruses," adds Zaraket.

Dr. Yassine states that "the highest global COVID-19 infection rate per capita was recorded in the Gulf states, regardless of the hot summer season. Although this is majorly attributed to the rapid virus spread in closed communities, it affirms the need for rigorous control measures to limit virus spread, until herd immunity is achieved".

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (SEPTEMBER 15, 2020). Researchers at the University of Calgary have developed and validated a clinical prediction scale that can be used to determine which patients are more likely to experience inadequate pain control following elective spine surgery. Armed with this knowledge, spine surgeons can ensure that patients obtain appropriate patient education and individualized clinical care with the goal of improved postoperative pain management.

Detailed findings of this study can be found in a new article, "Development and validation of a clinical prediction score for poor postoperative pain control following elective spine surgery," by Michael M. H. Yang, MD, MSc, MBiotech, and colleagues, published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.

Background

As the world population ages, greater numbers of people are experiencing spinal degeneration and consequent pain and/or lack of mobility. This is just one reason for the steady increase in the number of spine surgeries over the last few decades. Rapid advances in diagnostic and surgical technologies, and improvements in intraoperative techniques have also led to the increase. Unfortunately, inadequate pain control in the days following spine surgery remains common. The authors state that "30%-64% of patients continue to report poorly controlled pain after spine surgery." Surgery is a valid treatment for many diseases and disorders of the spine, but patient outcomes can be hindered or sidetracked by a painful convalescence. Better prediction of which patients will experience poor postoperative pain control may aid the spine surgeon in designing individual patient care plans to help alleviate the pain.

Present Study

The authors conducted a retrospective cohort study of data from 1300 adult patients who were enrolled in the prospective Canadian Spine Outcomes and Research Network (CSORN) registry between August 28, 2014, and October 4, 2017. These patients had undergone elective spine surgery and required hospitalization for at least 24 hours postoperatively. The most common disorder was spinal stenosis (39%), and the most common complaint was radiculopathy (42%). The patient's postoperative level of pain was measured using an 11-point numerical scale (ranging from 0 = no pain to 10 = worst pain). Pain was assessed in the hospital while the patient was at rest; a pain level greater than 4 was considered poor pain control. During the first 24 hours following surgery, 57% of patients experienced poor pain control.

In the study, patients were randomly assigned to one of two cohort groups: 1) 910 patients to the model development cohort to develop the prediction score for poor postoperative pain control, and 2) 390 patients to the validation cohort to test whether the new scoring system fulfilled its purpose.

Data were examined to determine what patient variables are associated with poor pain control. Beginning with 25 variables, the authors were able to narrow these to seven variables that were independently predictive of poor postoperative pain control: younger age of patient, female sex, higher preoperative neck or back pain score, preoperative daily use of opioid medication, surgery on three of more spinal motion segments, surgery involving fusion, and a higher depression score on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. The authors assigned clinical scores to each of these seven predictors, with patients receiving a total clinical score between 0 and 13. This Calgary Postoperative Pain After Spine Surgery (CAPPS) score was consolidated first into an eight-tier risk classification and later collapsed into a three-tier classification of low risk (scores 0-4), high risk (scores 5-8), and extreme risk (scores 9-13) groups.

The performance of the CAPPS prediction scoring system was assessed by assigning prediction scores to the 390 patients in the validation cohort and then comparing these patients' predicted pain control with their reported pain control. The authors found that "predicted probabilities derived from both the eight-tier and three-tier CAPPS score closely matched the incidence of poor pain control observed in the validation cohort" (see figure). Using the three-tier system, the low-, high-, and extreme-risk patient groups had 32%, 63%, and 85% predicted probabilities of experiencing inadequately controlled pain, respectively. These percentages are similar to the observed incidences of 37%, 62%, and 81%, respectively, for the same three groups of patients.

Female sex and younger age of the patient are not modifiable variables. However, the authors discuss other variables that may be adjusted or accommodated for with the goal of better postoperative pain relief. The authors conclude that the CAPPS predictive score "can be used to facilitate preoperative patient education and the development of personalized clinical care pathways to improve postoperative acute pain outcomes."

When asked about the findings of this study, Dr. Michael Yang and Dr. Steven Casha responded, "Our results show that more than half of the patients experience poorly control pain after spine surgery. Identifying patients at increased risk during discussions about management and before surgery, will allow physicians to develop specific treatment strategies for each patient, to improve postoperative pain, and to facilitate patient recovery."

Ann Arbor, September 14, 2020 - New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows that gun laws in neighboring states have an effect on gun death rates in adjoining states. In findings published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, weaker firearm laws in neighboring states correlated with more firearm deaths within a state. This is useful information for state policymakers who sometimes have to justify and defend the need for firearm laws in their state.

"Although stronger state gun policies were associated with decreased firearm deaths, the presence of permissive neighboring states undermined this protective effect," said lead investigator Bisakha Sen, PhD, Blue Cross Blue Shield Endowed Chair in Health Economics, Department of Health Care Organization and Policy in the UAB School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL, USA. "Specifically, higher policy differences across states were associated with increased rates of total firearm deaths, suicides, and homicides, although results were statistically stronger for suicide than homicide."

The study examined 578,022 firearm deaths during the 2000 to 2017 study period. The total number of firearm-related deaths by state was extracted from the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including deaths from all intent, homicide, and suicide.

The investigators identified four categories of laws that had the potential to impact interstate movement of firearms and firearm-related mortality: background checks, dealer regulations, buyer regulations, and gun trafficking laws. They further assessed the total number of laws a state had within each category.

"A higher count of a state's firearm laws was associated with fewer total firearm deaths, female firearm deaths, male firearm deaths, firearm homicide, and firearm suicide," explained Ye Liu, MD, first author on the study and a doctoral student in the Department of Health Care Organization and Policy at UAB, who developed the empirical framework under Dr. Sen's guidance. "Having adjacent states with fewer laws appeared to increase firearm deaths of the state."

Dr. Sen's team reports that failing to account for weaker firearm laws in neighboring states made it falsely appear that the own states' laws were about 20 percent less effective in reducing firearm deaths than they actually were.

Dr. Sen's team further reports that for each increase of 1 in the between-state law or policy differences, indicating more lax policies in a neighboring state, the incidence rate increased 2.5 percent for firearm homicide, 1.6 percent for total firearm-related deaths, 1.7 percent for female firearm deaths, 1.6 percent for male firearm deaths, and 0.6 percent for firearm suicide.

"This study adds to the growing literature emphasizing the role played by neighboring states' firearm regulations in addition to own-state firearm regulations in firearm deaths," Dr. Sen noted. "Failing to account for neighboring states with weaker laws can, in some instances, make a state's own regulations appear less effective in reducing firearm deaths. The study suggests that without cooperative legislative actions in neighboring states, efforts in one state to strengthen firearm legislation and prevent firearm deaths may be undermined. Federal gun regulations may be particularly useful because they affect all states."

This study also emphasizes the importance of state leaders "reaching across the state border" and trying to foster cooperative legislative actions with neighboring states, as well as the importance of federal gun-policy legislation.

"I think the main message of this study is that in order to solve a nationwide problem we need to think of a nationwide or at least a regional-level (i.e., multistate) approach, like we may also need for the COVID-19 pandemic," added Dr. Liu. "An 'each state on its own' approach is ultimately inadequate to address one of the biggest public health challenges in this country."

Tsukuba, Japan - Researchers led by the University of Tsukuba studied the vibrational modes of an intrinsically disordered protein to understand its anomalously strong response at low frequencies. This work may lead to improvements in our knowledge of materials that lack long-range order, which may influence industrial glass manufacturing.

Glassy materials have many surprising properties. Not quite a solid or a liquid, glasses are made of atoms that are frozen in a disordered, non-crystalline state. Over a century ago, physicist Peter Debye proposed a formula for understanding the possible vibrational modes of solids. While mostly successful, this theory does not explain the surprisingly universal vibrations that can be excited in disordered materials--like glass--by electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz range. This deviation has been seen often enough to gets its own name, the "boson peak," but its origin remains unclear.

Now, researchers at the University of Tsukuba have conducted a series of experiments to investigate the physics behind the boson peak using the protein lysozyme.
"This protein has an intrinsically disordered and fractal structure," first author of the study Professor Tatsuya Mori says. "We believe that it makes sense to consider the entire system as a single supramolecule."

Fractals, which are mathematical structures that exhibit self-similarity over a wide range of scales, are common in nature. Think of trees: they appear similar whether you zoom out to look at the branches, as well as when you come close to inspect the twigs. Fractals have the surprising ability to be described by a non-integer number of dimensions. That is, an object with a fractal dimension of 1.5 is halfway between a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional object, which means that its mass increases with its size to the 1.5 power.

On the basis of the results of terahertz spectroscopy, the mass fractal dimension of the lysozyme molecules was found to be around 2.75. This value was also determined to be related to the absorption coefficient of the material.

"The findings suggest that the fractal properties originate from the self-similarity of the structure of the amino acids of the lysozyme proteins," Professor Mori says. "This research may hold the key to resolving a long-standing puzzle regarding disordered and fractal materials, which can lead to more efficient production of glass or fractal structures."

EUGENE, Ore. - Sept. 15, 2020 - High school students who endure gender harassment in schools that don't respond well enter college and adulthood with potential mental health challenges, according to a University of Oregon study.

The study, published last month in PLOS ONE, found that 97 percent of women and 96 percent of men from a pool of 535 undergraduate college students had endured at least one instance of gender harassment during high school.

Experiences of gender harassment, especially for those who encountered it repeatedly, were associated with clinically relevant levels of trauma-related symptoms in college.

"We found that the more gender harassment and institutional betrayal teens encounter in high school, the more mental, physical and emotional challenges they experience in college," said lead author Monika N. Lind, a UO psychology doctoral student. "Our findings suggest that gender harassment and institutional betrayal may hurt young people, and educators and researchers should pay more attention to these issues."

The study, the three-member UO team noted, served to launch academic research into the responses of high schools to gender harassment, beyond media reports of institutional betrayal by schools since the #MeToo movement began.

Gender harassment, a type of sexual harassment, is characterized by sexist remarks, sexually crude or offensive behavior and the enforcement of traditional gender roles.

Institutional betrayal, a label coined previously by the study's co-author UO psychologist Jennifer Freyd, is the failure of an institution, such as a school, to protect people who depend on it. A high school mishandling a case of gender harassment reported by a student is an example of institutional betrayal.

Participants - 363 females, 168 males, three non-binary and one who did not report gender - initially were not aware of the study's focus.

They completed a 20-item gender harassment questionnaire about their high school experiences and a 12-item questionnaire about their schools' actions or inactions. Trauma symptoms were assessed with a 40-item checklist that explores common posttraumatic symptoms such as headaches, memory problems, anxiety attacks, nightmares, sexual problems and insomnia.

An analysis that considered gender, race, age, gender harassment, institutional betrayal, and the interaction of gender harassment and institutional betrayal significantly predicted trauma-related symptoms, but, Lind said, a subtle surprise emerged.

"We expected to find an interaction effect showing that the relationship between gender harassment and trauma-related symptoms depends on institutional betrayal, such that people who experience high gender harassment have different levels of symptoms depending on how much institutional betrayal they experience," she said. "Instead we found that gender harassment and institutional betrayal are independently related to trauma-related symptoms."

That issue, Lind said, needs to be further explored. It's possible, she said, that the pool of students wasn't large enough or that the measures used were not robust enough. Another factor may be that the study focused more on institutional betrayal than impacts of institutional courage.

"This is like measuring mood and only letting respondents report negative to neutral mood - you're missing a bunch of variability that might be captured if you extended the scale to go from negative to positive," she said. "Expanding the scale to capture institutional courage might increase the likelihood of identifying a meaningful interaction."

How schools might respond to the issues identified in the study should begin with listening to students, Lind said. Asking about problems and listening to responses is an example of institutional courage. Interventions that do not do so often fail.

"Schools should engage in self-study, including interviews, focus groups and anonymous surveys of students, and they should take students' reports and suggestions seriously," Lind said. "When you're trying to intervene in adolescence, you'll do better if you demonstrate respect for teens' autonomy and social status."

Researchers have not focused on such issues in high schools, where students are emerging into early adulthood from the physical, neurological and psychological changes occurring in adolescence, said Freyd, a pioneer in academic research on issues of sexual harassment, institutional betrayal and institutional courage.

"Until now, all of the education-focused institutional betrayal research has considered the experiences of undergraduate and graduate-level college students, as well as those of faculty members," she said. "There also has been work on these issues in the military and workplaces, but we don't know a lot about gender harassment or institutional betrayal in adolescence."

DENVER/September 14, 2020 – A genetic mutation might be the reason dogs with hypothyroidism are less likely to develop T-zone lymphoma (TZL). That’s the finding from Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at Colorado State University who tried to identify genetic risk factors for TZL using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and subsequent targeted sequencing. They recently published their results in the journal BMC Genomics.

“Golden retrievers are predisposed to so many cancers,” said Dr. Julia Labadie, Morris Animal Foundation epidemiologist, who conducted the study as part of her doctoral work. “Any piece of the puzzle we can solve to help us understand why, can really help this breed. Of course, golden retrievers aren’t the only dogs getting this cancer, so what we learn has implications for all dogs at risk for TZL.”

The published study is a follow up to a 2019 publication from the same team that examined associations of environment and health history among golden retrievers with TZL. The team found that both hypothyroidism and omega-3 supplementation are associated with decreased risk of TZL and suggested a genetic predisposition for TZL.

“This gives us one more piece of information which we can add to future studies to ultimately help us understand why dogs get this and other cancers,” said Dr. Janet Patterson-Kane, Morris Animal Foundation Chief Scientific Officer. “With continued research, we are making progress toward the development of preventive measures, earlier diagnosis and successful treatments.”

The team used a subset of banked blood samples from the original study to look more closely for a genetic explanation for their initial findings. The samples used were from 95 dogs that were positive for TZL, 142 from dogs that possessed T-zone like cells that may have been precancerous, and 101 from a control group of dogs that were at least 9 years old and did not have the disease.

Researchers extracted DNA from each sample and genotyped them to identify areas in the dogs’ chromosomes that were associated with having or not having the disease. One region of interest was found in chromosome 8, which has an association with thyroid hormone regulation. While variation in the genes associated with thyroid function has not yet been confirmed, identifying the region containing thyroid hormone genes in the genetic risk factor study as well as hypothyroidism in the environmental risk factor study strongly suggests that this area of the dog’s genome is an important clue to the underlying causes of T-zone lymphoma.

“This study illustrates the value of combined genetic and environmental risk factor analysis, because identifying hypothyroidism in the environmental study, as well as a genetic region that governs thyroid function in the genetic study, highlights the importance of this part of the dog genome in this disease,” said Dr. Anne Avery, Professor, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at Colorado State University. “The relevant genes may be the thyroid function genes themselves, or other genes in the region, but the strong evidence from the combined studies about the importance of this genetic region means that we can be confident that further focus on this area will be fruitful.”

The CSU team also found four variants on chromosome 14 that were associated with an increased risk of TZL. These same variants were previously found to be associated with risk for mast cell tumors among golden retrievers, which could suggest a shared mechanism underlying development of the two cancers. This unrelated study from the Broad Institute used similar genotyping methods. The CSU team didn’t find that dogs with the chromosomal variants were likely to have both tumors, though.

T-zone lymphoma is a slowly progressive form of the cancer that usually develops in older dogs, comprising about 12% of canine lymphoma cases. It is far more prevalent in golden retrievers than any other breed, with golden retrievers representing over 40% of all reported cases.

Most of the golden retrievers in this study’s control group were drawn from Morris Animal Foundation’s Canine Lifetime Health Project. This is a registry of dogs whose owners are interested in participating in clinical trials and other studies to improve canine health. Many of the dogs entered into the registry during the recruitment phase of Morris Animal Foundation’s Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, but were too old to participate in the Study at the time of their enrollment.

About Morris Animal Foundation

Morris Animal Foundation’s mission is to bridge science and resources to advance the health of animals. Founded by a veterinarian in 1948, we fund and conduct critical health studies for the benefit of all animals. Learn more at morrisanimalfoundation.org.

Journal

BMC Genomics

DOI

10.1186/s12864-020-06872-9

Anxiety and depression are often linked and assumed to be closely related, but now research has shown for the first time that depression and anxiety have different biochemical associations with inflammation and lipid (fat) metabolism. This indicates that different, more targeted treatments may be possible to treat anxiety and depression. This work is presented at the ECNP Congress.

Depression and anxiety share several symptoms, have common risk factors, and often they are treated with the same drugs. Over 50% of patients with depression (Major Depressive Disorder) also have a history of anxiety. Nevertheless, psychiatrists classify them as different disorders, although until now it has been difficult to identify biochemical evidence for this.

Scientists from the Netherlands Study of Anxiety and Depression (NESDA) used blood samples from 304 people with current depression, 548 with anxiety, 531 with both depression and anxiety, 807 with remitted disorders, and 634 healthy controls. Using a nuclear magnetic resonance detector they tested for associations between 40 metabolites found in blood and symptoms of depression, and symptoms of anxiety (such as panic, pathological worry, etc.).

"We have two main findings", said Hilde de Kluiver, of Amsterdam UMC, "firstly we found that the depressed group showed evidence of greater inflammation which was not seen in the anxious group. We also found that the depressed group had very different amounts and types of lipid in their blood. For example, depressed people had high levels of triglycerides, but lower levels of omega-3-fatty acids. In contrast, those people who had anxiety disorder had a lipid composition very similar to the healthy control group.

We also found that those metabolites associated with depression were also associated with the severity of the depression: in other words, if you had more of a lipid associated with depression, your depression tended to be worse".

In recent years, depression has been associated with disturbances in the body's immune system and metabolism, and previous researchers have shown that depressed people tend to have different biochemical markers to those of healthy people. However, no such analysis of such a wide set of markers has been undertaken for anxiety. This work shows, for the first time, that the immune system and lipid metabolism changes in depressed people but not in anxious people.

The researchers hope that these findings will lead to better treatments. "Our group is now planning to test whether depressed people with altered inflammation might respond to treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs", said Hilde de Kluiver.

Commenting, Dr Philippe Nuss (Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Paris) said "This is an important finding for several reasons. First it identifies easy-to-measure blood biomarkers characterising a subtype of depression whose underlying mechanism is specific and will probably need an appropriate treatment. It also emphasises the fact that mental disorders should be seen in a whole body perspective where major regulatory physiological systems such as immunity and lipid metabolism are involved. In addition, both immunity and lipids are strongly involved in brain metabolism. It is thus not surprising that Ms de Kluiver's work shows that the severity of depression is greater in patients with more impaired biomarkers".

Dr Nuss was not involved in this work, this is an independent comment.