Invasive sheep brought to US after WWII are making Texas bighorns sick

Aoudads sheep carry Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae that has a fatality in wild sheep as high as 80 percent.

Comment:  Another expample of human actions inadvertantly affecting the natural course.  

Read more here

Algae Microrobots Battle Bladder Cancer

Ultrasound and artificial intelligence-guided algae microrobots delivered chemotherapy deep into tumors in mice, paving the way to improved bladder cancer care.

Comment:  The combinations of technology on this is really fascinating.  The scientist use diatom algae which has a silicon shell that is relatively conducive to loading and slowly releasing chemotherapeutics (doxyrubicin).  The particles are coated with magnetic nanoparticles.  Ultrasound is used to visualize them in the bladder.  Magnets and AI are used to guide the particles to the tumors.   Really cool, but for development purposes can the technology be scaled?

Read more here

Brain PET scans reveal neuron loss in long COVID

• Neuron Loss Confirmed: Adults with long COVID have 16-20% fewer dopamine-releasing neurons in key brain regions compared to healthy controls
• Symptom Correlation: Lower dopamine neurons linked to apathy, cognitive decline, slower motor speed, and worse memory performance
• Inflammation Connection: Prior research showed elevated brain inflammation in long COVID patients, now confirmed to directly injure dopamine neurons
• Treatment Potential: Dopamine precursors and dopamine metabolism inhibitors could be tested as new long COVID treatments
• Clinical Trial Coming: Researchers plan to launch dopamine-targeted treatment trials

Commentary:  Great to see imaging playing a role in elucidating mechanisms of long Covid

Read more here

Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Stimulated Responses in 90% of High-Risk Individuals

A KRAS-targeting vaccine for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is safe and can elicit durable immune responses.

A peptide vaccine covering 9- of the most common KRAS mutations was used in this clinical trial involving high risk volunters.

Comments:  It hasn't been long since a pharmaceutical targeting KRAS was reported to be effective in treating pancreatic cancer.  The Johns Hopkins investigators in this study ask why can't we let the immune system do the job?

I would be curious if an mRNA vaccine approach isn't in the works?

Read more here

Bone-conduction hearing in elephants and humans: a middle-ear comparative study

The elephant's middle ear (ME) boasts ossicles approximately nine times more massive than humans', with eardrums seven times larger.  This allows elephants to detect changes in the earths viabrations as far as 4km away and may play a role in behavioral reproduction, group dynamics, and detection of threats.

Comment:  Information that may not be useful, but provides trivia when dinner conversations stall.

Read more here

For those living with dementia, new study suggests shingles vaccine could slow the disease

Comment:  This study suggests an interesting relationship between infectious disease, immunology, and neurology

GSK is one pharma investing in assessing the mechanism involved.

Read more here

A rising tide scenario’: Why other Big Pharmas could follow Lilly into psychedelics

A great review on who and how Pharma is investing in psychedelics

Comment:  Always interesting in how we discover compounds in nature and modify them for pharmaceuticals

Read more here

Cyclosporiasis: What to Know About the Current Outbreak

Thousands of cyclosporiasis cases across dozens of US states triggered investigations, but the exact contamination source remains elusive.

Comment:  Environmental parasitic burden is highly affected by environmental change.  I wonder if climate change increased risk in this case and more to come?

Find out more about this parasitic infection here