Culture

Without timely reversal, opioid overdose causes respiratory depression that may deteriorate into apnea, leading to brain injury and even death. Naloxone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose, can quickly restore normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped as a result of overdose with heroin or prescription opioid pain medications.

One of the major challenges in decreasing lethal opioid overdose is ensuring that naloxone reaches those in need at short notice. For opioid overdose, as for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), layperson response is a key link in the "chain of survival", the complex relationship between bystanders, emergency services, and hospitals. Locating a nearby volunteer with naloxone presents various challenges that may be addressed by means of collective mobilization.

In a paper published today in The Lancet's EClinicalMedicine journal, researchers from Bar-Ilan University and Drexel University report the results of the first observational cohort study of community members equipped with naloxone and a smartphone application to signal and respond to opioid overdoses. The cohort was comprised of individuals who lived and/or worked in a neighborhood with high incidence of opioid overdose in the US city of Philadelphia. After tracking the group for more than a year, the researchers showed that laypersons, including people who use opioids, can effectively signal and respond to overdose incident to administer nasal naloxone in advance of emergency medical service (EMS) arrival.

Volunteers were trained in recognizing opioid overdose, the use of intranasal naloxone, and use of a dedicated smartphone app to signal and/or respond to a suspected overdose alert. The app was activated by volunteers witnessing an overdose to signal other nearby volunteers. The researchers looked for three possible scenarios when volunteers received an alert: those who received the alert and chose to respond and help, those who explicitly declined to respond, or those who missed/ignored the alert. The witnessing volunteer was connected to speak with 9-1-1 dispatch through a semi-automated telephone call. The primary outcome was layperson-initiated overdose reversal before the arrival of EMS/first responders.

"We observed 202 layperson-initiated overdose true alerts with a rate of layperson naloxone administration of 36?6% (74/202) and found that naloxone-based reversal was initiated over five minutes prior to EMS arrival in 59?6% of these cases," said Prof. David Schwartz, of Bar-Ilan University's Graduate School of Business Administration. "We observed layperson support behaviors, including contacting EMS and remaining with the victim until recovery, that are consistent with American Heart Association guidelines and that strengthen the chain of survival that begins in the community," added Schwartz, who led the study with Dr. Stephen Lankenau, of Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health.

Equipping laypersons with naloxone and an emergency response community app to signal suspected opioid overdose and alert other nearby volunteers to provide naloxone can result in naloxone administration prior to EMS arrival and overdose reversal, potentially reducing mortality in opioid overdose. The findings support further study of smartphone-based naloxone intervention to strengthen the chain of survival starting at the community level.

There are striking parallels for emergency healthcare delivery between opioid overdose in the community and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Studies have shown that CPR and early defibrillation by a layperson, in advance of EMS, contributes to positive outcomes after OHCA. "It is time to recognize that opioid use disorder patients can benefit from similar forms of community support that we advance for OHCA." write the authors. Locating a nearby volunteer with naloxone presents some unique challenges but is not inherently different than locating a nearby defibrillator. Creating and studying smartphone-based emergency response communities for naloxone provision can help address this important challenge.

Dog brains, just as human brains, process speech hierarchically: intonations at lower, word meanings at higher stages, according to a new study by Hungarian researchers at the Department of Ethology, Faculty of Science, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) using functional MRI on awake dogs. The study, which reveals exciting speech processing similarities between us and a speechless species, will be published in Scientific Reports.

Humans keep talking to dogs whose sensitivity to human communicative signs is well known. Both the words what we say and the intonation how we say them carry information for them. For example, when we tell 'sit' many dogs can sit down. Similarly, when we praise dogs with a high toned voice, they may notice the positive intent. We know very little, however, on what is going on in their brains during these.

In this study, Hungarian researchers measured awake, cooperative dogs' brain activity via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Dogs listened to known, praise words (clever, well done, that's it) and unknown, neutral words (such, as if, yet) both in praising and neutral intonation.

"Exploring speech processing similarities and differences between dog and human brains can help a lot in understanding the steps that led to the emergence of speech during evolution. Human brains process speech hierarchically: first, intonations at lower-, next, word meanings at higher stages. Some years ago, we discovered that dog brains, just as human brains, separate intonation and word meaning. But is the hierarchy also similar? To find it out, we used a special technique this time: we measured how dog brain activity decreases to repeatedly played stimuli. During brain scanning, sometimes we repeated words, sometimes intonations. Stronger decrease in a given brain region to certain repetitions shows the region's involvement" - Anna Gábor, postdoctoral researcher at the MTA-ELTE 'Lendület' Neuroethology of Communication Research Group, lead author of the study explains.

The results show that dog brains, just like human brains, process speech hierarchically: intonation at lower stages (mostly in subcortical regions), while known words at higher stages (in cortical regions). Interestingly, older dogs distinguished words less than younger dogs.

"Although speech processing in humans is unique in many aspects, this study revealed exciting similarities between us and a speechless species. The similarity does not imply, however, that this hierarchy evolved for speech processing" - says Attila Andics, principal investigator of the MTA-ELTE 'Lendület' Neuroethology of Communication Research Group. "Instead, the hierarchy following intonation and word meaning processing reported here and also in humans may reflect a more general, not speech-specific processing principle. Simpler, emotionally loaded cues (such as intonation) are typically analysed at lower stages; while more complex, learnt cues (such as word meaning) are analysed at higher stages in multiple species. What our results really shed light on is that human speech processing may also follow this more basic, more general hierarchy."

NEW YORK, NY (Aug. 3, 2020) -- One of the immune system's oldest branches, called complement, may be influencing the severity of COVID disease, according to a new study from researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Among other findings linking complement to COVID, the researchers found that people with age-related macular degeneration -- a disorder caused by overactive complement -- are at greater risk of developing severe complications and dying from COVID.

The connection with complement suggests that existing drugs that inhibit the complement system could help treat patients with severe disease.

The study was published on Aug. 3 in Nature Medicine.

The authors also found evidence that clotting activity is linked to COVID severity and that mutations in certain complement and coagulation genes are associated with hospitalization of COVID patients.

"Together these results provide important insights into the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and paint a picture for the role of complement and coagulation pathways in determining clinical outcomes of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2," says Sagi Shapira, PhD, MPH, who led the study with Nicholas Tatonetti, PhD, both professors at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Findings Stem from Study of Coronavirus Mimicry

The idea to investigate the role of coagulation and complement in COVID began with a sweeping survey of viral mimicry across all viruses on earth -- over 7,000 in all.

"Viruses have proteins that can mimic certain host proteins to trick the host's cells into aiding the virus with completing its life cycle," Shapira says. "Beyond the fundamental biological questions that we were interested in addressing, based on our previous work and the work of others, we suspected that identifying those mimics could provide clues about how viruses cause disease."

Coronaviruses, the survey found, are masters of mimicry, particularly with proteins involved in coagulation and proteins that make up complement, one of the oldest branches of the human immune system.

Complement proteins work a bit like antibodies and help eliminate pathogens by sticking to viruses and bacteria and marking them for destruction. Complement can also increase coagulation and inflammation in the body. "Unchecked, these systems can also be quite detrimental," says Shapira.

"The new coronavirus -- by mimicking complement or coagulation proteins -- might drive both systems into a hyperactive state."

Macular Degeneration Associated with Greater COVID Mortality

If complement and coagulation influence severity of COVID, people with pre-existing hyperactive complement or coagulation disorders should be more susceptible to the virus.

That led Shapira and Tatonetti to look at COVID patients with macular degeneration, an eye disease caused by overactive complement, as well as common coagulation disorders like thrombosis and hemorrhage.

Among 11,000 COVID patients who came to Columbia University Irving Medical Center with suspected COVID-19, the researchers found that over 25% of those with age-related macular degeneration died, compared to the average mortality rate of 8.5%, and roughly 20% required intubation. The greater mortality and intubation rates could not be explained by differences in the age or sex of the patients.

"Complement is also more active in obesity and diabetes," Shapira says, "and may help explain, at least in part, why people with those conditions also have a greater mortality risk from COVID."

People with a history of coagulation disorders also were at increased risk of dying from COVID infection.

Coagulation and Complement Pathways Activated

The researchers then examined how gene activity differed in people infected with the coronavirus.

That analysis revealed a signature in COVID-infected patients indicating that the virus engages and induces robust activation of the body's complement and coagulation systems.

"We found that complement is one of the most differentially expressed pathways in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients," Tatonetti says. "As part of the immune system, you would expect to see complement activated, but it seems over and above what you'd see in other infections like the flu."

Some Coagulation and Complement Genes are Associated with Hospitalization

More evidence linking severe COVID with coagulation and complement comes from a genetic analysis of thousands of COVID patients from the U.K. Biobank, which contains medical records and genetic data on half a million people.

The authors found that variants of several genes that influence complement or coagulation activity are associated with more severe COVID symptoms that required hospitalization.

"These variants are not necessarily going to determine someone's outcome," Shapira says. "But this finding is another line of evidence that complement and coagulation pathways participate in the morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19."

Targeting Coagulation and Complement

Physicians treating COVID patients have noticed coagulation issues since the beginning of the pandemic, and several clinical trials are underway to determine the best way to use existing anti-coagulation treatments.

Complement inhibitors are currently used in relatively rare diseases, but at least one clinical trial is testing the idea with COVID patients.

"I think our findings provide a stronger foundation for the idea that coagulation and complement play a role in COVID," Tatonetti says, "and will hopefully inspire others to evaluate this hypothesis and see if it's something that can be useful for fighting the ongoing pandemic."

COLUMBUS, Ohio - In a reversal of trends, American baby boomers scored lower on a test of cognitive functioning than did members of previous generations, according to a new nationwide study.

Findings showed that average cognition scores of adults aged 50 and older increased from generation to generation, beginning with the greatest generation (born 1890-1923) and peaking among war babies (born 1942-1947).

Scores began to decline in the early baby boomers (born 1948-1953) and decreased further in the mid baby boomers (born 1954-1959).

While the prevalence of dementia has declined recently in the United States, these results suggest those trends may reverse in the coming decades, according to study author Hui Zheng, professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

"It is shocking to see this decline in cognitive functioning among baby boomers after generations of increases in test scores," Zheng said.

"But what was most surprising to me is that this decline is seen in all groups: men and women, across all races and ethnicities and across all education, income and wealth levels."

Results showed lower cognitive functioning in baby boomers was linked to less wealth, along with higher levels of loneliness, depression, inactivity and obesity, and less likelihood of being married.

The study was published online recently in the Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences.

Zheng analyzed data on 30,191 Americans who participated in the 1996 to 2014 Health and Retirement Survey, conducted by the University of Michigan. People over 51 years old were surveyed every two years.

As part of the study, participants completed a cognitive test in which they had to recall words they had heard earlier, count down from 100 by 7s, name objects they were shown and perform other tasks.

Other research has shown that overall rates of mortality and illness have increased in baby boomers, but generally found that the highly educated and wealthiest were mostly spared.

"That's why it was so surprising to me to see cognitive declines in all groups in this study," Zheng said. "The declines were only slightly lower among the wealthiest and most highly educated."

Zheng also compared cognition scores within each age group across generations so that scores are not skewed by older people who tend to have poorer cognition. Even in this analysis, the baby boomers came out on bottom.

"Baby boomers already start having lower cognition scores than earlier generations at age 50 to 54," he said.

The question, then, is what has happened to baby boomers? Zheng looked for clues across the lifetimes of those in the study.

Increasing cognition scores in previous generations could be tied to beneficial childhood conditions - conditions that were similar for baby boomers, Zheng said.

Baby boomers' childhood health was as good as or better than previous generations and they came from families that had higher socioeconomic status. They also had higher levels of education and better occupations.

"The decline in cognitive functioning that we're seeing does not come from poorer childhood conditions," Zheng said.

The biggest factors linked to lower cognition scores among baby boomers in the study were lower wealth, higher levels of self-reported loneliness and depression, lack of physical activity and obesity.

Living without a spouse, being married more than once in their lives, having psychiatric problems and cardiovascular risk factors including strokes, hypertension, heart disease and diabetes were also associated with lower cognitive functioning among people in this generation.

"If it weren't for their better childhood health, move favorable family background, more years of education and higher likelihood of having a white-collar occupation, baby boomers would have even worse cognitive functioning," Zheng said.

There were not enough late baby boomers (born in 1960 or later) to include in this study, but Zheng said he believes they will fare no better. The same might be true for following generations unless we find a solution for the problems found here, he said.

While many of the problems linked to lower cognitive functioning are symptoms of modern life, like less connection with friends and family and growing economic inequality, other problems found in this study are unique to the United States, Zheng said. One example would be the lack of universal access and high cost of health care.

"Part of the story here are the problems of modern life, but it is also about life in the U.S.," he said.

One of the biggest concerns is that cognitive functioning when people are in their 50s and 60s is related to their likelihood of having dementia when they are older.

"With the aging population in the United States, we were already likely to see an increase in the number of people with dementia," Zheng said.

"But this study suggests it may be worse than we expected for decades to come."

The loss of a sense of smell is known to be one of the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease (PD) and can even appear years before the characteristic tremors and loss of motor function are seen. Some scientists believe that olfactory dysfunction may not just be a sign of broader neural damage, but rather may have a more direct linkage to the generation of the disorder itself. In support of this idea, deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein that form Lewy bodies can be found in olfactory areas, as well as in dying dopamine neurons whose loss triggers PD, and mutations in the gene encoding alpha-synuclein produce PD.

In the central nervous system, the sensory neurons that line the nasal epithelium are particularly susceptible to neuroinflammatory attack due to their accessibility to toxic agents inhaled from the environment. Indeed, the olfactory system is directly exposed to a barrage of environmental toxins arising from bacteria, viruses, mold, dust, pollen and chemicals. These toxins lead to local inflammatory responses inside the nose where olfactory neurons send their sensitive endings, and inflammation can spread to promote activation of inflammatory cells called microglia deeper in the brain.

Since mounting evidence indicates that neuroinflammation contributes to the development and progression of PD and other degenerative diseases, scientists have proposed that the initial impact of environmental toxins inhaled through the nose may induce inflammation in the brain, triggering the production of Lewy bodies that can then be spread to other brain regions. However, the relationship linking olfactory dysfunction and PD development remains unclear.

Ning Quan, Ph.D., a neuroscientist from Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine and a faculty member of the FAU Brain Institute (I-BRAIN), is among a team of researchers with new findings that add weight to this theory and identify a critical signaling molecule that may be key to the domino effect kicked off by nasal inflammation.

Results of the study, published in the journal Brain Pathology, showed that application of an irritating component of a bacterium's cell wall induces inflammation in the areas exactly where the olfactory neurons project, called the olfactory bulb. Moreover, these areas show the hallmark signs of PD, depositions of alpha-synuclein, the core components of Lewy bodies. PD is characterized by progressive motor and non-motor symptoms linked to alpha-synuclein pathology and the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal system. Toxic aggregates of alpha-synuclein can arise from either overexpression of the protein, changes in protein modifications, and from hereditary mutations.

Quan and collaborators from China's Xuzhou Medical University, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, and First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, demonstrate that inflammation induced in the nasal epithelium leads to overexpression of toxic forms of alpha-synuclein both in the olfactory system and in the dopamine neurons, which then degenerate and trigger Parkinson's-like behaviors in mice. Using a mouse model developed by Quan, the researchers demonstrate that these effects require activation of a single receptor protein for the inflammatory signal, interleukin 1 beta.

"Data from our study show that the bacterial trigger does not move across the blood-brain barrier," said Quan. "Rather, a sequential inflammatory activation of the olfactory mucosa triggers a subsequent expression of inflammatory molecules within the brain, propagating the inflammation."

According to the Parkinson's Foundation, approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with PD each year. More than 10 million people worldwide are living with PD. Incidence of PD increases with age, however, an estimated 4 percent of people with PD are diagnosed before age 50. People with PD may experience tremor, bradykinesia, limb rigidity, gait and balance problems as well as cognitive impairment.

"Parkinson's disease is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder," said Randy Blakely, Ph.D., executive director of FAU's I-BRAIN. "Currently, there is no cure for the disease and current medications have significant side-effects. These new findings may ultimately lead to potential therapies that could shut down the origins and progression of this debilitating disease."

Tsukuba, Japan - Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder that is characterized by excess deposition of connective tissue in the skin, lungs, kidneys and vessels, resulting in lung, heart and kidney dysfunction. In a new study, researchers from the University of Tsukuba revealed that patients with long stretches of repeat DNA sequences, also called microsatellite repeat polymorphism, in the gene for Friend leukemia integration 1 transcription factor (FLI1) are more likely to develop systemic sclerosis.

Systemic sclerosis is an intractable disease, and as of now immunosuppressive therapies are one of the few options to limit its progression. To date, a number of genes have been identified as potential contributors to the development of systemic sclerosis through genome-wide association studies (GWAS), whereby genetic variants in different individuals are compared to see if they are associated with the disease. However, genes identified through GWAS are shared between various autoimmune diseases and therefore do not seem to directly account for the molecular mechanisms leading to the deposits of connective tissue in the pattern seen in systemic sclerosis.

"We wanted to specifically go after FLI1 that has been shown to be produced to a lesser extent in the lesional skin of systemic sclerosis patients. We thought that downregulation of FLI1 may be a trigger for systemic sclerosis," says corresponding author of the study Professor Naoyuki Tsuchiya. "Interestingly, the gene encoding for FLI1 contains a microsatellite region, and it is known that extended repeats of microsatellites result in reduced FLI1 expression. We hypothesized that patients with systemic sclerosis may also have these extended DNA repeats in the FLI1 gene."

To achieve their goal, the researchers collected DNA of 639 systemic sclerosis patients and 851 healthy patients and specifically looked at the length of repeats of the DNA bases GA (guanine adenine) that make the microsatellite region in the FLI1 gene. The researchers investigated the DNA to determine the number of GA repeats beyond which the likelihood to develop systemic sclerosis significantly increases, and found that this value is 22. On the basis of this finding, the researchers defined a FLI1 gene with more than 22 repeats as an L (long) allele and with fewer than 21 as an S (short) allele.

"Our results show an association between GA repeats over 22 in the FLI1 gene and systemic sclerosis," says lead author of the study Keita Yamashita. "We next wanted to have a closer look at the clinical characteristics of systemic sclerosis patients with FLI1 L alleles".

The researchers found that FLI1 L alleles were significantly increased in patients with a modified Rodnan total skin thickness score (mRSS) over 10 compared with those with a score under 10. The mRSS is a measure of skin thickness and is frequently used to quantify the extent of connective tissue deposition in the skin of systemic sclerosis patients. The researchers next found that FLI1 mRNA levels were decreased in systemic sclerosis patients compared with healthy controls, and further reduced in healthy controls with FLI1 L alleles compared with healthy controls with FLI1 S alleles, showing that long GA repeats may be disruptive to the production of FLI1.

"These are striking results that show how extended repeat alleles of FLI1 GA microsatellites may affect the expression of FLI1 and the development of systemic sclerosis. Our results provide a novel insight into the pathogenesis of systemic sclerosis, as well as into the relevance of microsatellite polymorphisms in human diseases," says Professor Tsuchiya.

Demand for integrated energy storage devices is growing rapidly as people rely more and more on portable and wireless electronics, and the global need grows for clean energy sources such as solar and wind energies.

This is creating an exponential need for advanced energy storage technologies - reliable and maintenance-free batteries and supercapacitors (SC) with high power density capability as storage devices. Supercapacitors are prominent candidates to meet this need due to their environmentally friendly and long cyclability characteristics.

Researchers from the Integrated Nano Systems Lab (INSys Lab), in the Centre for Clean Energy Technology, have been working on a pathway to improve the performance of supercapacitors, and meet that demand for increased storage capacity.

Dr Mojtaba Amjadipour and Professor Francesca Iacopi (School of Data and Electrical Engineering) and Dr Dawei Su (School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences) describe their cutting-edge work in the July 2020 issue of the journal Batteries and Supercaps. The prominence given to Graphitic-Based Solid-State Supercapacitors: Enabling Redox Reaction by In Situ Electrochemical Treatment - designated a Very Important Paper with front coverage placement - signifies just how innovative their research is in developing alternate ways to extend storage capacity.

Dr Iacopi said the multi-disciplinary approach within the team was beneficial in discovering what she says is a simple process.

"This research has originated from our curiosity of exploring the operation limits of the cells, leading us to unforeseen beneficial results. The control of this process would not have been possible without understanding the fundamental reasons for the observed improvement, using our team's complementary expertise."

Traditionally, supercapacitors are fabricated with liquid electrolytes, which cannot be miniaturised and can be prone to leakage, prompting research into gel-based and solid-state electrolytes. Tailoring these electrolytes in combination with carbon-based electrode materials such as graphene, graphene oxide, and carbon nanotubes is of paramount importance for an enhanced energy storage performance.

Graphene or graphitic carbon directly fabricated on silicon surfaces offers significant potential for on-chip supercapacitors that can be embedded into integrated systems. The research insights indicate a simple path to significantly enhance the performance of supercapacitors using gel-based electrolytes, which are key to the fabrication of quasi-solid-(gel) supercapacitors.

"This approach offers a new path to develop further miniaturized on-chip energy storage systems, which are compatible with silicon electronics and can support the power demand to operate integrated smart systems," Dr Iacopi said.

"Staphylococcus aureus" - also known as "golden staph" - has the ability to develop in highly variable environmental conditions (on the skin, in the nose, on sterile surfaces, and so forth). Its great adaptability depends especially on a protein (an RNA helicase) involved in the degradation of RNA messengers that have become useless. In their attempts to have a better understanding of how this helicase works, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) discovered that it contributes to another physiological process, without any apparent link to the first: the synthesis of the fatty acids that are the essential constituents of the bacterial membrane. This advance, to be published in the journal PLoS Genetics, offers an interesting insight since fatty acid synthesis is precisely one of the targets favoured by numerous laboratories to fight this pathogen that is difficult to treat due to its resistance to antibiotics.

Golden staph (Staphylococcus aureus) is an opportunistic pathogenic bacterium that is capable of adapting to highly variable environments. It can be found in the nostrils of 25 to 30% of the population, although this is generally not a problem. However, the bacterium can take advantage of a drop in immunity or a surgical operation to trigger a real infection. And the problem with golden staph is its ability to develop resistance to antibiotic drugs, which often makes it difficult - sometimes impossible - to treat.

"My laboratory studies a protein, RNA helicase, which plays an important role in golden staph's ability to adapt to very different environments," begins Patrick Linder, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine in UNIGE's Faculty of Medicine. "When the environment changes, the bacterium has to be able to synthesise new proteins that are more suitable and stop the production of others that are no longer useful. The helicase we're interested in - called CshA - is involved in the degradation of the RNA, those molecules derived from the DNA and used in protein synthesis."

Cold-sensitive bacteria

Oddly enough, when the helicase is absent (due, for example, to a genetic mutation), the researchers found that the cultured bacteria could no longer form colonies if the temperature dropped below a certain threshold (around 25°C).

The Geneva-based biologists undertook a series of experiments designed to improve our understanding of the link between golden staph's sensitivity to cold, the degradation of the RNA and the adaptation capacity. They discovered that the same helicase is probably also required in another physiological process, namely the synthesis of fatty acids, which are the constituents of bacterial membranes.

"Using cultured golden staph stripped of helicases, we succeeded in isolating 82 gene mutations (appearing spontaneously in many different bacteria), which meant that their holders regained the ability to form colonies at 25°C," continues Vanessa Khemici, a researcher in Patrick Linder's laboratory and the article's first author. "We identified almost all the affected genes, and no less than two thirds of them are involved in the fatty acid synthesis."

The findings also helped the researchers understand that the lack of the helicase has the effect of deregulating the fatty acid synthesis and decreasing the flexibility of the membrane when the temperature drops. This prevents the membrane from fulfilling its functions properly and the bacterium from growing. In a second step, each of the 82 mutations succeeded in its own way in restoring the initial balance by acting on the different genetic levers involved in fatty acid synthesis.

Scientific controversy

"A section of the scientific community supports the idea that a future treatment against staphylococcus will involve a drug capable of inhibiting fatty acid synthesis," notes Professor Linder, "but there is a controversy about it because some studies contradict this point of view."

The results of the Geneva scientists do not provide a clear-cut answer or make it possible to directly develop a drug against these bacteria. Nevertheless, they fit into this context and provide a better understanding of golden staph's fundamental mechanisms. The discovery of this unprecedented link between the fluidity of the membrane and adaptation to environmental change represents an important step in the fight against the bacterium. It is undoubtedly for these reasons that the journal decided to publish an overview in parallel with the article.

A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have discovered the parameters that determine the efficiency of a class of low-cost catalysts called spinel oxides - a discovery that breaks a bottleneck in the extraction of hydrogen from water through electrolysis, the process of splitting water with electricity.

A major challenge of this process lies in the energy loss as the chemical reactions involved in water electrolysis take place, driving up the cost to produce hydrogen through this method. Catalysts are therefore necessary to speed up these chemical reactions.

Spinel oxides, which are typically made of cheap transition metals, have garnered interest in recent years as a stable, low-cost catalyst that could overcome this challenge, but the design of high-performing spinel oxides has been hampered by the lack of understanding of how they work.

Now, NTU Singapore's Associate Professor Jason Xu Zhichuan and his team have made two important advances. They have unravelled, at the atomic scale, how spinel oxides work to speed up water electrolysis. Primed with that new understanding, the team then used machine learning to select new spinel oxides with increased catalytic activity, making water electrolysis more efficient.

These findings bring the team a step closer to making water splitting a suitable approach for large-scale manufacture of hydrogen gas, which has been highlighted by the Energy Market Authority as one possible low-carbon alternative for reducing Singapore's carbon footprint as it targets to halve its peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is in line with global trends - the European Union, for instance, recently unveiled its "hydrogen strategy" as an important part of the solution to meet the 2050 climate neutrality goal of the European Green Deal.

Associate Professor Xu of the NTU School of Materials Sciences and Engineering said: "To improve the performance of spinel oxides, we need a deeper understanding of how they work as catalysts to make water electrolysis more efficient. Now, by identifying the parameters that make spinel oxides good catalysts for this process, we can create new, better spinel oxides based on these parameters, bringing us one step closer to a hydrogen-powered economy."

The findings were published in scientific journal Nature Catalysis in July.

A step closer to a hydrogen-fuelled economy

Extracting hydrogen from water electrolysis, when powered by renewable energy sources such as wind or solar energy, is an attractive approach to produce hydrogen fuel, which has the potential to replace fossil fuels used in power plants, transport, and the process of bunkering.

Hydrogen is also attractive as a viable alternative to traditional energy storage options such as lithium ion batteries, which gradually lose their charge over time.

The water electrolysis process takes place in an electrolyser, where two main chemical reactions take place as water is split: one results in hydrogen production, while the other leads to oxygen production, and the two gases are kept separate by a membrane.

Assoc Prof Xu, who is also part of NTU's Energy Research Institute, said the main bottleneck lies in the chemical reaction that leads to oxygen generation from the other side known as the oxygen revolution reaction.

He said: "The oxygen evolution reaction is critical to the efficiency of devices that split water to produce hydrogen fuel, but it is also a sluggish chemical reaction that lowers the overall energy conversion efficiency. This is why we need catalysts such as metal oxides to speed things up."

While precious metal oxides have proven to be state-of-the-art catalysts that reduce energy consumption and enhance energy conversion efficiency, their scarcity, high cost and poor durability have limited their application at large scale.

Spinel oxides, with their low cost and availability in abundance, could become a viable alternative if they were designed with the right parameters, such as the type of transition metal in the spinel oxide, to increase catalytic activity, said Assoc Prof Xu.

Based on key parameters that the team had identified, the team trained a machine learning model with a dataset of over 300 spinel oxides in order to screen and predict the efficiency of any spinel oxide catalyst in a matter of seconds.

Using this method, the team found that a new oxide comprising manganese and aluminium was predicted to show superior catalytic activity. This was validated experimentally.

Assoc Prof Xu said: "While the ability to design highly efficient catalysts greatly pushes forward the technique of water electrolysis in hydrogen production, there are two other major bottlenecks we have to look at before widespread adoption of this technique is possible. Firstly, we have to improve the membrane in such alkaline electrolysers to support long-term hydrogen production.

"When that's done, then we can work with our engineering colleagues to see how we can put all of these upgrades into an electrolyser that can function on an industrial level."

Tsukuba, Japan - Bacteria have the ability to adapt to their environment to survive the host's immune defense. One such survival strategy includes the formation of a biofilm that prevents the immune system or antibiotics from reaching the bacteria. In a new study, researchers from the University of Tsukuba revealed that modulations to biofilm structure as a result of temperature changes are regulated by the production of a novel extracellular protein called BsaA in the bacterium C. perfringens produces.

C. perfringens lives in various environments, soil and the intestines of animals, and can cause food poisoning, gas gangrene and antibiotics-associated diarrhea. It is anaerobic bacterium that is not able to grow outside a host due to the presence of oxygen. While it is common knowledge that it can turn into spores to evade environmental attacks, it was not until recently that C. perfringens was shown to also have the ability to form biofilms. In these biofilms, a community of C. perfringens bacteria cover themselves in a dense matrix of so-called extracellular polymeric substances (EPS)--which contain proteins, nucleic acids, and sugar molecules--thus protecting themselves from external hazards. To date, it has remained unclear how C. perfringens is using biofilms to survive in oxygen-rich environments.

"We have previously shown that temperature is an environmental cue that influences C. perfringens biofilm morphology," says corresponding author of the study Professor Nobuhiko Nomura. "Although at higher temperatures, such as 37°C, the bacteria attach to surfaces and pack densely in an adherent biofilm, at lower temperatures they build a thicker, pellicle-like biofilm. We wanted to know how they are able to modulate the structure of their biofilm in response to temperature changes."

To achieve their goal, the researchers constructed a library of 1,360 mutant (gene knockout) cells in C. perfringens to see which proteins are required to form a pellicle-like biofilm at 25°C. Throughout their screening, they noticed the presence of a new protein called BsaA that is produced inside the bacteria and transported to the exterior. Without BsaA, the bacteria formed either a fragile pellicle biofilm or an adherent biofilm only. The researchers then showed that multiple BsaA proteins assemble at a polymer outside the cells to enable the formation of a stable biofilm. When exposed to the antibiotic penicillin G or oxygen, C. perfringens lacking BsaA had a significantly decreased survival rate compared with normal C. perfringens.

"Our results show that BsaA is necessary for pellicle-like biofilm formation at 25°C and conferral of tolerance to antibiotics," says lead author of the study Professor Nozomu Obana. "We know that biofilms contain heterogeneous cell populations, which leads to multicellular behaviors. We therefore wanted to know whether cellular heterogeneity affects the production of BsaA and thus the formation of a pellicle-like biofilm".

The researchers found that the protein SipW controls the polymerization of BsaA to a biofilm, and used this to study biofilm formation. By constructing C. perfringens that produced a fluorescent protein when SipW is produced, thus allowing these cells to be tracked by fluorescent microscopy, the researchers were able to show that not all bacteria produced SipW. Additionally, they found that the population of SipW-producing bacteria started to drop significantly when the temperature was increased from 25°C to 37°C. Intriguingly, at 25°C, cells that did not produce SipW were located next to the surface the bacteria were sitting on, and were covered by SipW-producing cells. Heterogeneous production of SipW, and thus BsaA, might therefore ensure that those cells that have a higher tolerance to external hazards protect the bacterial subpopulation at risk.

"At 25°C, C. perfringens are more likely to be exposed to external stresses. Our results provide an explanation for how a community of C. perfringens ensures that it stays protected when the temperature changes. Our study aids understanding of biofilm properties and provides insights into the development of new antibacterial strategies," says Professor Nomura.

The virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, presents at least six strains. Despite its mutations, the virus shows little variability, and this is good news for the researchers working on a viable vaccine.

These are the results of the most extensive study ever carried out on SARS-CoV-2 sequencing. Researchers at the University of Bologna drew from the analysis of 48,635 coronavirus genomes, which were isolated by researchers in labs all over the world. This study was published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. It was then possible for researchers to map the spread and the mutations of the virus during its journey to all continents.

The first results are encouraging. The coronavirus presents little variability, approximately seven mutations per sample. Common influenza has a variability rate that is more than double.

"The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is presumably already optimized to affect human beings, and this explains its low evolutionary change", explains Federico Giorgi, a researcher at Unibo and coordinator of the study. "This means that the treatments we are developing, including a vaccine, might be effective against all the virus strains".

Currently, there are six strains of coronavirus. The original one is the L strain, that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019. Its first mutation - the S strain - appeared at the beginning of 2020, while, since mid-January 2020, we have had strains V and G. To date strain G is the most widespread: it mutated into strains GR and GH at the end of February 2020.

"Strain G and its related strains GR and GH are by far the most widespread, representing 74% of all gene sequences we analysed", says Giorgi. "They present four mutations, two of which are able to change the sequence of the RNA polymerase and Spike proteins of the virus. This characteristic probably facilitates the spread of the virus".

If we look at the coronavirus map, we can see that strains G and GR are the most frequent across Europe and Italy. According to the available data, GH strain seems close to non-existence in Italy, while it occurs more frequently in France and Germany. This seems to confirm the effectiveness of last months' containment methods.

In North America, the most widespread strain is GH, while in South America we find the GR strain more frequently. In Asia, where the Wuhan L strain initially appeared, the spread of strains G, GH and GR is increasing. These strains landed in Asia only at the beginning of March, more than a month after their spread in Europe.

Globally, strains G, GH and GR are constantly increasing. Strain S can be found in some restricted areas in the US and Spain. The L and V strains are gradually disappearing.

Besides these six main coronavirus strains, researchers identified some infrequent mutations, that, at the moment, are not worrying but should nevertheless be monitored.

"Rare genomic mutations are less than 1% of all sequenced genomes", confirms Giorgi. "However, it is fundamental that we study and analyse them so that we can identify their function and monitor their spread. All countries should contribute to the cause by giving access to data about the virus genome sequences".

A major comprehensive study on Herpomycetales and Laboulbeniales, two orders of unique ectoparasitic fungi associated with insects and other arthropods (class Laboulbeniomycetes) in Belgium and the Netherlands was published in the open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal MycoKeys.

Having surveyed arthropod fauna using pitfall traps and an illuminated white screen at night, and with the help of a network of entomologists, Dr. Danny Haelewaters (Purdue University, University of South Bohemia and Ghent University) and Dr. André De Kesel (Botanic Garden Meise) provide identification details about a total of 140 fungal species. The list includes nine species that are reported for the first time for either of the two countries and two newly described species.

Interestingly, one of the novel fungi was described during the 2020 global quarantine period, imposed to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. This prompted the researchers to dedicate the newly discovered species to this extraordinary time. In the annals of science, the species will be going by the name of Laboulbenia quarantenae.

Laboulbenia quarantenae grows externally on the body of ground beetles belonging to the species Bembidion biguttatum and is thus far only found at the Botanic Garden Meise in Belgium. This new fungus is considered to be very rare compared to Laboulbenia vulgaris, another, well-documented species that is more commonly found on the same host. So far, there has been no evidence that L. quarantenae parasitizes other host species.

Herpomycetales and Laboulbeniales--unlike common mushrooms--do not form branching thread-like hyphae, nor a mycelium. Rather, they grow a single three-dimensional thallus of a few thousand cells sticking out of the body of the host organism. While some species of Laboulbeniales, like Laboulbenia quarantenae, are superficially attached to their host, others are more invasive, such as Hesperomyces halyziae, the second fungus newly described in this study. These fungi produce a haustorium, which is a hyphal outgrowth used to penetrate the tissues of their arthropod hosts, so that they can reach to the primary body cavity and the circulatory fluid in there. By doing so, it is thought that the parasites can both increase surface area for nutrient uptake and tighten their grip on their host.

In their study, the scientists hypothesize that, because of their invasive nature, these haustorial parasites maintain close interactions with their hosts in a process referred to as an "evolutionary arms race". This means that whenever the host evolves a defence mechanism against the fungus, the parasite promptly evolves in its own turn, and adapts accordingly. Eventually, specialization leads to the evolution of new species.

The present study compiles all available data from Belgium and the Netherlands and serves as an appropriate starting point for an updated checklist of thallus-forming fungi in the class Laboulbeniomycetes found across Europe. Such a checklist is an ongoing project meant to summarize decades of research and will undoubtedly continue to uncover significant fungal diversity. The last update of this piece of knowledge dates back to 1991.

Research results

An early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, a type of developmental disorder was found to be effective from routine health checkups of infants at 18 months of age.

Overview

Health checkups are provided at no cost to all children at 18 months and 3 years of age in Japan. Doctors at Shinshu University School of Medicine designed a study to utilize the 18-month health checkup as an opportunity to screen for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), because early detection of ASD can lead to better prognosis for children with ASD.

Infants born between the year 2009 to 2012 in Okaya city, located in Nagano prefecture, participated in the study to investigate the incidence and risk factors of ASD organized by Shinshu University School of Medicine, Department of Child and Adolescent Developmental Psychiatry and Department of Psychiatry; Associate Professor Daimei Sasayama, Professor Hideo Honda, Professor Shinsuke Washizuka, and Professor Tetsuo Nomiyama of the Department of Preventative Medicine and Public Health.

1067 children, or 85% of the children born in Okaya city during the 3-year period received the 18-month health checkup. With the help of Shinano Medical and Welfare Center, 3.1% of the children examined were later diagnosed to have ASD by the time they became of school age (6 years old by April 1st). Many of these children were noted to have impaired motor skills and social communication skills at 18-months. The results of this study suggest that the medical examination that most children in Japan receive at 18 months can be an effective method to screen for ASD.

This study was published online July 21, 2020 in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, one of the most prestigious international autism journals.

Background

The proportion of people diagnosed with ASD has increased worldwide over the last two decades. A 2014 US survey reported a prevalence of 1.68% in 8 year-olds. One of the main reasons for the increase in prevalence in recent years is the improvement of screening accuracy.

Early detection and early intervention of ASD is important for improving the prognosis of children with ASD. However, it is considered difficult to detect ASD in children under the age of 2 using common screening tools used today. Okaya City strives to improve the accuracy of early detection of autism spectrum disorders during the 18-month health checkup and experienced public health nurses carefully screen each child. In addition, they have established a system in which children who are suspected of having ASD are referred to the Shinano Medical and Welfare Center for early diagnosis and support. This study investigated the cumulative incidence of autism spectrum disorders in Okaya city, where an early diagnosis system is in place. In addition, the team examined the features that were found at age 18-months in children who were later diagnosed with ASD.

Research methods and results

The research subjects were 1,067 children who were born between April 2, 2009 to April 1, 2012, who received the 18-month old health checkup in Okaya City. A survey of the medical information provided by the Shinano Medical and Welfare Center found that 33 of the 1,067 subjects (22 boys, 11 girls) has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder before entering elementary school (cumulative incidence 3.1% [4.3% of boys, 2.0% of girls]). A comparison of 33 children with ASD and 1,034 children without autism revealed that children diagnosed with ASD tended to have lower fine and gross motor skills and social communication skills at the time of the 18-month health checkup.

Implications/ Future Plans

The cumulative incidence reported in this study was the highest incidence of medically diagnosed ASD in the general population reported compared to previous studies. These results suggest that a diagnosis with high sensitivity would be possible by establishing a careful screening system at the 18-month health checkups. In addition, children with ASD have been shown to have underdeveloped fine and gross motor skills and social communication abilities at the age of 18-months, which are factors that predict ASD at an early stage. It is anticipated that the continuation of research will lead to the development of an early diagnosis system for autism spectrum disorders that utilizes infant health checkups.

Paper title and author

Title: Brief Report: Cumulative Incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Before School Entry in a Thoroughly Screened Population

Author: Daimei Sasayama· Tetsuya Kudo · Wakako Kaneko · Rie Kuge · Noriaki Koizumi · Tetsuo Nomiyama · Shinsuke Washizuka · Hideo Honda

Journal: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (online publication)

New Orleans, LA - A pilot study conducted by a team of LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine faculty has found that Snapchat is an effective tool to teach residents emergency radiology. The results are published online in Emergency Radiology available here.
The team compared image analysis and interpretation by radiology residents using Snapchat on smartphones with conventional analysis on a single screen in the resident conference room.

"All cases used were diagnoses considered to require emergent, non-routine communication on the order of minutes to the ordering health care provider," notes Bradley Spieler, MD, Vice Chairman of Research in the Department of Radiology at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine. "As such, these types of diagnoses demand prompt imaging recognition as they are considered critical findings which could result in death or significant illness if not acted upon expeditiously."

The team chose Snapchat, a social media app allowing communication via video and digital images with text messaging functionality, not only because of its popularity with young adults, but most importantly because unlike other image based social media platforms, Snapchat allows for the timing of image visibility by users. The ability to specify the length of time an image is visible to a user (or trainee in this scenario) in rendering an image-based diagnosis creates an intriguing potential for innovation in radiologic curricula, particularly as it relates to assigning a metric to diagnostic performance.

Over a four-week period, LSU Health New Orleans radiology residents, who are all millennials, were shown five emergent radiologic cases using Snapchat and five cases of similar content and duration on a classroom projector. All images depicted diagnoses requiring immediate communication to ordering physicians. Performance was scored 0-2 (0?=?complete miss, 1?=?major finding, but missed the diagnosis, 2?=?correct diagnosis) by two attending radiologists in consensus.

"All residents performed better on Snapchat each week," says Dr. Spieler, who is also an Associate Professor of Radiology, Internal Medicine, Urology, & Cell Biology and Anatomy at LSU Health New Orleans. "Their accuracy rate was higher using Snapchat than a traditional classroom screen."

The authors maintain that new challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the need to alter curricular landscapes through innovative teaching methods and connectivity with students and residents. Smartphones and mobile devices are used daily in hospitals in patient care. The comfort level with this technology is high, which simplifies its integration into graduate medical education. Radiology is a specialty particularly suited to visual social media platforms, and it is only natural that the technologically bound craft of radiology continues to push this medium in innovative ways.

Spieler says, "We believe that the results from this pilot study could facilitate a promising and novel training method in enhancing recognition of imaging diagnoses, particularly those of life-threatening nature, which could be applied to the evolving landscape of distance learning."

Other LSU Health New Orleans authors include Drs. Dane Mackey, Caitlin Henry, Raman Danrad, Carl Sabottke, Claude Pirtle, and Eric Wallace in Diagnostic Radiology; and Dr. Jason Mussell in Cell Biology and Anatomy. Dr. Catherine Batte in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Louisiana State University also contributed.

The authors conclude, "Our hope is that this investigation can aid in the promotion of active learning and lecture participation as well as to explore metrics for gauging diagnostic performance and pattern recognition in image-based curricula both within the classroom and in remote teaching formats. A larger sample size and more intricate study designs, for example, with the adjunct of eye tracking, may support the burgeoning role that handheld devices and imaged-based social media applications like Snapchat can play in learning at all levels of education especially in the context emergency radiology."

With the reopening of flights during the summer holiday season in Europe, many countries have started to see an increase in COVID-19 infections. A new IIASA-led study sheds light on how COVID-19 spreads regionally and between countries, as well as on how effective governmental measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have been to date.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has prompted countries around the world to institute travel bans restricting the influx of visitors from especially countries where the spread of the virus is still rampant. Such restrictions, as well as other measures put in place by governments to curb the spread of COVID-19, have been heavily criticized in both political and public debate, prompting many to wonder how effective current measures aimed at reducing the spread of the pandemic really are. To address this uncertainty, IIASA researchers examined how the virus is spread regionally as well as between countries, and how this develops over time. The study's surprising results have been published in Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences.

According to the authors, the majority of studies about transmission of COVID-19 tend to focus on specific countries. This study however, explored a much wider cross-section of countries and used approaches more commonly applied to estimate regional transmission of economic quantities (such as GDP or trade). The main questions that the researchers wanted to address were, on the one hand, whether governmental measures have actively been reducing the cross-border transmission of COVID-19 cases and, on the other hand, which channels were the main sources of transmission across national borders.

"Back in January this year, the virus was often seen as a Chinese and later an Italian problem. Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the globe, however, almost all Western countries reacted by employing measures to contain or delay the spread of the virus," explains study lead author Tamás Krisztin, a researcher in the IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program. "It is important to model daily infection counts across countries to assess the effectiveness of government measures such as border closures and flight suspensions, and also to estimate scenarios of what the infection rate would look like if such measures were not taken."

The results indicate that cross-country transmission processes, specifically via international flight connections, played a particularly important role in the early stages of the virus' spread and that the shutdown of international airports and border closures were indeed important policies to prevent further spillovers across countries. It appears that governments, who took early action to reduce cross-border air passenger traffic, did in fact do the right thing to prevent the spread of infection. The research also supports anecdotal evidence that countries that delayed closing their borders to air traffic have higher infection rates.

Also interesting to note is the fact that the spread between countries could mostly be explained by international flight connections between them, rather than shared borders (land-travel transmission). The researchers point out that this could also explain why Austria was relatively more affected by the virus than, for instance, neighboring countries in Eastern Europe, even though they share land borders with Austria.

"In the face of decreasing public appetite for travel restrictions, and understandable concern over the economic consequences of drastic lockdown measures, we want to support and strengthen the decisions taken by European and most other governments in this regard. The policies they introduced appear to have played a particular role in reducing COVID-19 cases, flattening the curve, relieving stress on the healthcare system and, ultimately, saving lives," says Krisztin.

The researchers caution that as governments reopen cross-border air traffic, they should carefully evaluate where they allow flights to, and which regions they accept flights from. The scale of this traffic should also be carefully calibrated and continually monitored. The study clearly demonstrates that cross-border air traffic is a very important channel for spread of COVID-19, and as opposed to land travel where the spread is geographically limited, air traffic allows the virus to jump countries and continents in a very short time.