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27/10/2019

{Happy Diwali}

May this festival of lights, with the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi, bring you a lot of joy of success, health, wealth and prosperity and keep the darkness of ignorance and adversities away from your life. We wish you and very Happy & Safe Diwali....

Save Environment, go green , avoid crackers...

31/12/2018

“Wishing you and your family good health, happiness,
success and prosperity in the coming year!
Have a great start to a great year!”

06/08/2017

17/06/2017

New tuberculosis blood test in children: reliable, highly specific

A new blood test provides a fast and accurate tool to diagnose tuberculosis in children, a new proof-of-concept study shows. The newly developed test (TAM-TB assay) is the first reliable immunodiagnostic assay to detect active tuberculosis in children. The test features excellent specificity, a similar sensitivity as culture tests in combination with speed of a blood test. The promising findings are a major advance for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in children, particularly in tuberculosis-endemic regions.

The study has been published on Sept 1st, 2014 in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Tuberculosis (TB) in children is a serious public health problem especially in low-resource countries. About one million children per year develop tuberculosis worldwide. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of paediatric TB poses a major challenge. TB symptoms in children are often non-specific and similar to those of common paediatric illnesses, including pneumonia and malnutrition. Further, obtaining adequate respiratory specimens for direct mycobacterial confirmation is problematic. Consequently, there is an urgent need for a more precise, rapid and affordable diagnostic test for childhood tuberculosis.

The new so-called TAM-TB assay is a sputum-independent blood test. It makes use of an immunological phenomenon during tuberculosis disease: During an active infection, the expression of CD27 -- a surface marker expressed on mycobacteria specific CD4+ T cells -- is lost. Using standard intracellular cytokine staining procedures and polychromatic flow cytometry, the test result is available within 24 hours after blood sampling.

New blood test assessed in tuberculosis endemic regions in Tanzania

The new test was assessed in tuberculosis endemic regions in Tanzania at the Ifakara Health Institute and the NIMR Mbeya Medical Research Center. Sputum and blood samples were obtained from children with tuberculosis symptoms to compare the performance of the new assay with culture tests. For the assessment of the diagnostic performance of the new test, the children were assigned to standardized clinical case classifications based on microbiological and clinical findings. The test proved to have a good sensitivity and excellent specificity.

"This rapid and reliable test has the great potential to significantly improve the diagnosis of active tuberculosis in children " says TB CHILD Program Manager Klaus Reither from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), who coordinated the study.

In a collaborative effort between Swiss TPH and Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich), the test will now be further refined to optimise performance, particularly in HIV-infected children, and to reduce costs. The goal is to finally validate and implement a rapid, robust and accurate diagnostic test for active paediatric tuberculosis that can be used on the district level in resource-poor, tuberculosis-endemic countries.

17/06/2017

New technology enables effective simultaneous testing for multiple blood-borne pathogens
Novel device tests blood for 17 viruses and 13 bacterial and protozoan pathogens simultaneously with 95% accuracy, comparable with existing FDA-approved tests, reports The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics

The emergence of new pathogens like West Nile Virus, Ebola, Dengue, and Zika, threaten human health on a global scale. Identification of these pathogens requires a rapid response from industry to develop new tests and the FDA to assess test safety and efficacy. A report in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics evaluates the new OpenArray system that offers simultaneous detection of multiple viruses, bacteria, and protozoan pathogens in human blood samples. Investigators determined that this system is a promising tool for flexible, fast, and accurate blood screening.

Some highly virulent pathogens may have a low prevalence rate and/or be restricted seasonally or geographically. However, the impact of transfusion-transmitted infection of such agents can have fatal consequences, particularly in highly vulnerable populations such as newborns, the elderly, or immunocompromised individuals. The cost effectiveness of a multiple agent test means that more testing could be done, resulting in safer blood.

"All blood for transfusion must be tested for infectious agents. The increasing number of agents that may infect blood and the recognition that some of them only pose a risk in certain areas or certain times means that new methods to streamline blood testing must be developed. The major feature of our OpenArray device, the ability to test for multiple infectious agents at the same time, could be an answer to that need," explained Robert Duncan, PhD, an investigator with the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Silver Spring, MD.

Many "singleplex" tests approved by the FDA are available to measure one specific pathogen. Less commonly available are "multiplex" systems that can detect multiple pathogens. The OpenArray platform (Thermo Fisher Scientific) simultaneously tested 17 viral strains in human plasma samples (e.g., HIV-1, HIV-2, Dengue, influenza, Chikungunya) and 13 types of bacteria (e.g., Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureas) and protozoa (e.g., Leishmania donovani, L. infantum, Babesia microti) in human blood samples. The individual tests use real-time PCR, which are spatially separated on the OpenArray device allowing a high level of multiplexing.

"New multiplex PCR-based diagnostic technologies aimed at faster and more accurate pathogen identification are increasingly used for detection of respiratory or gastrointestinal pathogens, yet testing for a multitude of pathogens directly in the blood is still at the research stage. This study demonstrated that new technologies can enable early and accurate detection of pathogens directly in blood samples. The engagement and coordination of a number of stakeholders, including regulatory, clinical practitioner, and the diagnostics industry, are necessary for implementation of such disruptive technologies for patient care," added Elena Grigorenko, PhD, Vice President of Research and Development with Diatherix Laboratories, Eurofins Clinical Diagnostics Division at Huntsville, AL.

To design this device, the first step required choosing regions on each of the pathogen genomes to target and short pieces of DNA to accomplish that targeting. These short pieces, called primers and probes, which achieve the PCR, were loaded into the OpenArray device. The next critical step was laboratory growth of the 30 pathogens and mixing each one of them with normal volunteers' whole blood or plasma to mimic the blood from an infected individual. Once performance of the device was adjusted to maximum ability to detect these infectious agents in the mock clinical samples, it was tested with 92 donor samples obtained from a blood donor testing center with known pathogen content, as determined by FDA-licensed tests. Ninety-five percent of virus-positive samples were correctly identified.

"We need the next generation of superior performance tests that will detect an increasing number of transfusion-transmittable agents in multiplex format with high sensitivity and specificity, robustness, and adaptability to accomplish detection of new pathogens and maintain the safety of blood products," commented Dr. Duncan. "Our goal in this research is to provide a proof of concept that will stimulate device developers to advance new technology for multiple assay testing devices into clinical use."

"In support of this initiative, Phillip Williamson, PhD, VP of Operations and Scientific Affairs, said, "As the largest independent blood donor testing organization in the U.S., Creative Testing Solutions welcomes the opportunity to work with the FDA and others on new research initiatives and clinical trials that will ideally improve blood donor testing and the safety of the U.S. blood supply."

This OpenArray Platform is a research use only device and is not cleared or approved for clinical use.

08/06/2017

New technique uses modified insulin and red blood cells to reduce blood sugar levels

The researchers modified insulin by chemically binding it to a glucose derivative called glucosamine. The glucosamine could then bind to glucose transporters on the surface of a red blood cell, effectively attaching the insulin to the blood cell. The end result is a red blood cell studded with insulin molecules.

The idea is that these insulin-loaded blood cells could then be injected into a diabetic patient. In this study, the work was done in Type 1 diabetic mice.

Once in the bloodstream, the blood cells carrying insulin interact with their environment. If glucose levels are high, glucose molecules effectively displace the glucosamine in the blood cells' glucose transporters. And when the glucosamine is set free from the blood cell, so is the insulin.

The insulin can then bind to insulin receptors in the liver, muscles and fatty tissues, triggering a process that reduces glucose levels in the blood.

"In short, this is a fully biocompatible smart system that responds, when needed, to normalize glucose levels in the blood," says Zhen Gu, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC.

In the study, researchers compared mice receiving the modified insulin and blood cell system to three other groups: a group that received saline solution; a group that got only modified insulin; and a group that got a mixture of unmodified insulin and red blood cells.

The researchers found that the Type I diabetic mice that received the modified insulin and blood cell system were able to significantly reduce blood glucose levels for more than two days. The best performance among the other groups saw an initial dip in blood sugar levels, but returned to high glucose levels within 12 hours.

The researchers also tested each of the drug combinations in a group of healthy mice, and found that the modified insulin and blood cell system reduced the risk of hypoglycemia compared to the other drug combinations.

In addition, the researchers conducted an experiment in the Type I diabetic mice using modified insulin and nanoparticles that had been coated with red blood cell membranes. The modified insulin and nanoparticle system achieved comparable results to those found using modified insulin and red blood cells.

"This is a positive result, because it bodes well for developing a standardized means of delivering this glucose regulation system," Gu says.

"The team will further evaluate the long-term biocompatibility of the modified insulin system in an animal model before determining whether to move to clinical trials," says co-author Dr. John Buse, professor of medicine at the UNC School of Medicine and director of the UNC Diabetes Care Center and the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute. "The vision, if realized, would be one of the most exciting advances in diabetes care."

"We are also exploring the use of painless microneedles to deliver this system, rather than relying on the conventional injections which were used in this study," Gu says. "The possibility of using a different drug delivery system makes it difficult to assess cost, but we're optimistic that the cost of the potential formulation would be comparable to existing treatments."

08/06/2017

Astronauts' exercise capacity goes down during spaceflight due to decreased blood vessel function

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have decreased physical fitness because of a decrease in the way oxygen moves through the body, according to a Kansas State University kinesiology study.

Carl Ade, assistant professor of exercise physiology, and collaborators partnered with the Johnson Space Center to find that astronauts' exercise capacity decreases between 30 and 50 percent in long-duration spaceflight because the heart and small blood vessels are not as effective at transporting oxygen to the working muscle.

"It is a dramatic decrease," Ade said. "When your cardiovascular function decreases, your aerobic exercise capacity goes down. You can't perform physically challenging activities anymore. While earlier studies suggest that this happens because of changes in heart function, our data suggests that there are some things happening at the level of the heart, but also at the level of the microcirculation within capillaries."

In addition to improving astronaut health and providing valuable information for future long-duration spaceflights, the research also can help Earth-bound clinical patients with heart failure, Ade said.

The NASA-funded research appears in the Journal of Applied Physiology in the publication "Decreases in maximal oxygen uptake following long-duration spaceflight: Role of convective and diffusive O2 transport mechanisms." The journal also featured the research in a recent podcast.

Other Kansas State University researchers involved include Thomas Barstow, professor of kinesiology, and Ryan Broxterman, 2015 doctoral graduate in physiology and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah. Alan Moore, associate professor of health and kinesiology at Lamar University, also contributed.

While in outer space or on the International Space Station, astronauts have to perform many physically demanding tasks, from the simpler task of opening a capsule door to potentially more intense future planetary tasks such as helping a fallen crew member. Just as important is making sure astronauts can perform life-saving tasks when they return to gravity -- tasks that could include an emergency landing on Earth or performing extravehicular activities on the surface of Mars, Ade said.

For the study, the researchers used Johnson Space Center data on nine male and female astronauts who spent about six months aboard the International Space Station. The data included exercise measurements before and after their time in outer space.

The astronauts performed a stationary bike exercise test several months before they launched to the International Space Station. The researchers established the astronauts' exercise capacity through measurements -- such as oxygen uptake, cardiac output, hemoglobin concentration and arterial saturation -- that illustrate how effectively the body transports oxygen to the muscle mitochondria. Within a couple of days of returning to earth, the astronauts performed the same stationary bike exercise test to determine changes in aerobic exercise capacity.

By comparing the two sets of data, the researchers saw a 30 to 50 percent decrease in maximal oxygen uptake. Maximal oxygen uptake is the maximum rate of oxygen that is consumed during exercise and shows the cardiorespiratory health of a person. The researchers attribute this decrease to the way that microgravity changes the interaction between blood vessel capillaries and red blood cells, but say that more research is needed to understand what is happening in the capillaries.

"This decrease is related to not only health, but performance," Ade said. "If we can understand why maximal oxygen uptake is going down, that allows us to come up with targeted interventions, whether that be exercise or pharmacological interventions. This important new information can help these astronauts and prevent any adverse performance changes in their job."

While the research is key to planning for future long-duration spaceflights, such as journeys to Mars or deep space, it also can help understand blood vessel function in older patients or patients with heart failure.

"We have seen similar situations happen with heart failure and with aging," Ade said. "If we can better understand what is happening in the astronaut and how to prevent it, then we might be able to do the exact same thing in a patient who is older or who has heart failure."

08/06/2017

Contrary behavior by blood vessels in the brainstem is what keeps us breathing, research suggests

If the body were a marching band, the brainstem would be the drum major. It keeps our heart beating and our lungs breathing in the essential rhythms of life. And just like a drum major, the job is more complex than it looks. If cellular waste products build up in the body, the brainstem has to jolt the lungs into action without disrupting other bodily functions, as surely as a drum major reins in a wayward woodwind section without losing the low brass.

Neuroscientists studying the brainstem have focused on neurons, which are brain cells that send signals to one another and all over the body. But focusing just on the neurons in the brainstem is like staring only at the drum major's hands. Recently, neuroscientists have come to understand that astrocytes, cells once thought to simply provide structure to the brain, also release signaling molecules that regulate neurons' function. But until now, no one even considered the possibility that blood vessels may be similarly specialized.

For more than a century, doctors and scientists have known that blood vessels dilate when cellular waste products like carbon dioxide build up. Widening the vessels allows fresh blood to flush through, carrying in oxygen and washing away the acidic carbon dioxide. This has been shown to be true throughout the body, and is standard dogma in undergraduate physiology classes.

UConn physiologist Dan Mulkey was teaching exactly that to undergraduates one day when he realized that it couldn't possibly be true in a certain part of the brainstem.

"I thought, wow. If that happened in the region of the brain I study, it would be counterproductive," Mulkey says. He studies the retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN), a small region in the brainstem that controls breathing. He's shown in the past that RTN neurons respond to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream by stimulating the lungs to breathe. But if the blood vessels in the RTN dilated in response to rising carbon dioxide the same way blood vessels do everywhere else, it would wash out that all-important signal, preventing cells in the RTN from doing their job driving us to breathe. It would be as if the drum major didn't notice the percussion section wandering off to left field

When Mulkey returned to the lab, he asked his team, including NIH postdoctoral fellow Virginia Hawkins, to see how blood vessels in thin slices of brainstem respond to carbon dioxide. And they saw it was indeed true - RTN blood vessels constricted when carbon dioxide levels rose. But blood vessels from slices of cortex (the wrinkled top part of the brain) dilated in response to high carbon dioxide, just like the rest of the body.

But how did the blood vessels know to act differently in the RTN? Mulkey guessed that RTN astrocytes had something to do with it. He suspected that the astrocytes were releasing adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a small molecule cells can use to signal one another. And that was causing the RTN blood vessels to constrict.

When they tested it, they found the hypothesis was correct. The astrocytes in the RTN were behaving differently than astrocytes anywhere else in the body. When these brainstem astrocytes detected high levels of carbon dioxide, they released ATP signaling to the neurons and blood vessels.

When the researchers induced the astrocytes artificially to release ATP, they got the same results. Bathing the RTN blood vessels directly in ATP also caused them to constrict. Blocking ATP receptors blocked the ability of blood vessels to respond to carbon dioxide. When the team did the same experiments in live animals, they got the same results. Perhaps most importantly, manipulating blood vessels in the RTN actually influenced how animals breathe, thus linking regulation of blood vessel diameter to behavior.

The majority of this research was done by UConn undergraduates, including Ashley Trinh, Colin Cleary, and Todd Dubreuil, as well as Elliot Rodriguez, a summer student in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates in Physiology and Neurobiology program at UConn, who studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania the rest of the year. The students' work uncovered a major discovery in neurophysiology. The work was funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (HL104101 HL126381) and the Connecticut Department of Public Health (150263).

"This is a big change in how we think about breathing," Mulkey says. And about blood vessels. Even in a single organ like the brain, the purpose of blood flow is not the same everywhere. Tailored responses in the RTN keep the body's drum major conducting, and let the band play on.

08/06/2017

New study explores safety of exercise in children with sickle cell disease

While regular exercise is known to reduce inflammation over time, it actually increases inflammation in the short term. This is a concern for children with sickle cell disease, a condition that is marked by increased inflammation that can cause severe pain. The pain episodes in sickle cell disease are due to the abnormally shaped red blood cells that can get clogged in the blood vessels, a situation that could get exacerbated by more inflammation. But is there a level of exercise that is safe for these children? Primary Investigator Robert Liem, MD, from Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and colleagues will address this question in a five-year multicenter study recently funded by a $2.7 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

"Most children with sickle cell disease miss out on the important benefits of exercise because of unsubstantiated fears that it might be harmful in their condition. Our study will be the first step toward developing safe exercise guidelines for these children," says Liem, who is the Director of Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program at Lurie Children's and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "If we can establish the safety of exercise in children with sickle cell disease, then they won't have to miss gym class or be kept away from participating in school sports. This can have substantial impact on their quality of life."

In the upcoming study, the team will look at the different ways moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity affects inflammation. Their hypothesis is that exercise is safe in this population and does not provoke sickle cell disease related complications. With these data, Liem hopes to develop a future clinical trial to look at whether or not regular exercise may instead have a beneficial impact on this disease

The study will include 70 children with sickle cell disease and 70 children without the disease in order to compare outcomes. Participants will undergo an exercise test that mimics typical physical activity patterns in kids – brief intervals of stationary cycling, then resting, then cycling again, as when kids play basketball or soccer. Researchers will then examine the effect of this exercise on signs of inflammation in bloodwork. Since higher inflammation can also precipitate sickle cell disease related breathing problems, researchers also will conduct lung function tests to see if there is evidence of asthma-like changes after exercise. They also will evaluate inflammation pathways on the genetic level, checking whether certain genes turn on or not in response to exercise.

"The genomic aspect is the most innovative part of our study," says Liem. "When we talk about exercise being good for you, we need to know what is happening on the genetic and molecular level. We want to see how the genetic changes regulate the inflammation response to exercise. We hope this will provide important evidence of exercise safety in kids with sickle cell disease."

08/06/2017

Researchers discover innovative way to produce hematopoietic stem cells

discovers an innovative method to produce infinite supply of healthy blood cells from the readily available cells that line blood vessels. This achievement by the researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine marks the first time that any research group has generated such blood-forming stem cells.
Senior author Dr. Shahin Rafii, director of the Ansary Stem Cell Institute, chief of the Division of Regenerative Medicine and the Arthur B. Belfer Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine commented: "This is a game-changing breakthrough that brings us closer not only to treat blood disorders, but also deciphering the complex biology of stem-cell self-renewal machinery,"
In order to cure these diseases, researchers have long hoped to discover a method to make the body produce healthy HSCs. However, this has not been accomplished partly because until now scientists have not been able to engineer a fostering atmosphere in which stem cells can get converted into new and long-lasting cells.

Dr. Rafii and his team show a method to efficiently convert vascular endothelial cells, cells that line all blood vessels, into plenty of fully functioning HSCs that can be transplanted to yield new, healthy blood cells for a lifetime. The research team also discovered that specific types of endothelial cells—vascular niche cells - compose the self-renewal of the newly converted HSCs. This research may answer one of the most longstanding questions in regenerative and reproductive medicine: How do stem cells constantly replenish their supply?

In a previous study published in Nature in 2014, the research team showed the feasibility of converting adult human vascular endothelial cells into hematopoietic cells. Yet the team was not able to prove the generation of true HSCs as the function of human HSCs and regenerative potential can only be approximated by transplanting the cells into mice—which did not truly imitate human biology.

In order to address this issue, the team applied their approach to blood marrow transplants in a mouse model, whereby the definitive evidence for HSC potential could be rigorously tested, as the mouse blood transplant models were endowed with normal immune function. The vascular endothelial cells isolated from readily accessible organs of the adult mice were taken and the researchers instructed them to produce more of certain proteins connected with the functioning of the blood stem-cells.

These reprogrammed cells were developed and multiplied in co-culture with the engineered vascular niche. The reprogrammed HSCs were then transplanted as single cells with their progenies into mice that had been irradiated to destroy all of their blood forming and immune systems. They were observed to see the possibility of self-renewal and production of healthy blood cells.

Surprisingly, the conversion process yielded transplantable HSCs in surplus that restored the entire blood system in mice for the duration of their lifetime—a phenomenon known as engraftment. "We developed a fully-functioning and long-lasting blood system," said lead author Dr. Raphael Lis, an instructor in medicine and reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

In addition, all of the working components of the immune systems are developed in the HSC-engrafted mice. "This is clinically important because the reprogrammed cells could be transplanted to allow patients to fight infections after marrow transplants," Dr. Lis said. The mice in the study lived a normal life with no sign of leukemia or any other blood disorders and died of natural cause.

Dr. Rafii and his team in collaboration with Dr. Olivier Elemento, associate director of the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, and Dr. Jenny Xiang, the director of Genomics Services also demonstrated that the reprogrammed HSCs and their differentiated progenies involving the white and red bloods cells, as well as the immune cells were endowed with the same genetic attributes to that of normal stem cells of adults. These findings put forward that the consequences of the reprogramming process in the generation of true HSCs that have genetic signature that are very similar to normal adult HSCs.

The Weill Cornell Medicine team is the first to accomplish cellular reprogramming for creating engraftable and authentic HSCs—considered to be the holy grail of stem cell research. "We think the difference is the vascular niche," said contributing author Dr. Jason Butler, an assistant professor of regenerative medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. "Growing stem cells in the vascular niche puts them back into context, where they come from and multiply. We think this is why we were able to get stem cells capable of self-renewing."

This method could have wide-ranging clinical implications when scaled up and applied to human beings

08/06/2017

Complex malaria vaccine protects monkeys against virulent parasite strain

Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, modified an experimental malaria vaccine and showed that it completely protected four of eight monkeys that received it against challenge with the virulent Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite. In three of the remaining four monkeys, the vaccine delayed when parasites first appeared in the blood by more than 25 days.

Malaria symptoms occur when parasites replicate inside red blood cells and cause them to burst. To enter blood cells, the parasite first secretes its own receptor protein, RON2, onto the cell's surface. Another parasite surface protein, AMA1, then binds to a specific portion of RON2, called RON2L, and the resulting complex initiates attachment to the outer membrane of the red blood cell.
Several experimental malaria vaccines previously tested in people were designed to elicit antibodies against AMA1 and thus prevent parasites from entering blood cells. Although AMA1 vaccines did generate high levels of antibodies in humans, they have shown limited efficacy in field trials in malaria-endemic settings.

To improve vaccine efficacy, the NIAID scientists modified an AMA1 vaccine to include RON2L so that it more closely mimics the protein complex used by the parasite. Monkeys were vaccinated with either AMA1 alone or with the AMA1-RON2L complex vaccine. Although the overall levels of antibodies generated did not differ between the two groups, animals vaccinated with the complex vaccine produced much more neutralizing antibody, indicating a better quality antibody response with AMA1-RON2L vaccination. Moreover, antibodies taken from AMA1-RON2L-vaccinated monkeys neutralized parasite strains that differed from those used to create the vaccine. This suggests, the authors note, that an AMA1-RON2L complex vaccine could protect against multiple parasite strains. Taken together, the data from this animal study justify progression of this next-generation AMA1 vaccine toward possible human trials, they conclude.