Brain waves carry information. A new “Cytoelectric Coupling” hypothesis posits that fluctuating electric fields optimize brain network efficiency and stability by shaping the brain’s molecular infrastructure. To produce its many functions, including thought, the brain works at many scales. Information such as goals or images is represented by coordinated electrical activity among networks of neurons, while within and around each…
Many patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) experience airway-clogging mucus plugs, an accumulation of mucus in the lungs that can affect quality of life and lung functioning. A new study led by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, has found that mucus plugs were also associated with greater mortality. The findings,…
Our bodies burn carbohydrates, proteins, and fat for fuel, and now, researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the University of Lausanne have discovered another important energy source for cells: uridine, the chemical building block unique to RNA. Their new findings reveal that cells ranging from healthy immune cells to cancer cells can process uridine from RNA…
A bionic pancreas—a wearable, pocket-sized, automated insulin delivery device—that was first developed in a Boston University lab has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The iLet Bionic Pancreas is now commercially available, bringing fresh hope to the almost two million Americans with type 1 diabetes.
Situated in the eastern part of Beja, the second-most southern District of Portugal, Moura is a small, historic village with a dry climate, surrounded by a countryside full of oaks and olive trees. It’s where Ana Raquel Santa Maria, Ph.D, grew up with her mother, father, and younger brother. Family has always been a central part of Ana’s life. She spent…
Like each cell in the body, each paddler in a dragon boat plays a specific role. In both cases, each has different characteristics and strengths, but all must work together in tandem for the boat, or the body, to function. Aric Lu knows all of this from firsthand experience. Not only does he enjoy racing dragon boats in his spare…
The end of modern medicine as we know it.” That’s how the then-director general of the World Health Organization characterized the creeping problem of antimicrobial resistance in 2012. Antimicrobial resistance is the tendency of bacteria, fungus and other disease-causing microbes to evolve strategies to evade the medications humans have discovered and developed to fight them. The evolution of these so-called…
New research suggests that centenarians — people who live to be at least 100 — have a diverse collection of viruses in their gut that could help protect them from infectious diseases. The findings, published today in Nature Microbiology, shed light on some of the biological pathways that may help centenarians live long, healthy lives.
We’ve all recently gotten a crash-course in drug repurposing, thanks to near-daily news reports about efforts to identify existing medicines that could help treat COVID-19 in the early phase of the pandemic. A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University jumped into the fray in the spring of 2020, applying novel computational drug repurposing approaches to confront…
Genomic studies of cancer patients have revealed thousands of mutations linked to tumor development. However, for the vast majority of those mutations, researchers are unsure of how they contribute to cancer because there’s no easy way to study them in animal models. In an advance that could help scientists make a dent in that long list of unexplored mutations,…