Going beyond pregnancy and COVID-19, the world could someday soon come to rely on at-home tests for many diseases thanks in part to AI-fueled improvements. University of Florida scientists have used artificial intelligence tools to simplify a test that works for both hepatitis C and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The simplified test happens in one small test tube in just a few minutes. With further refinement, it could come to doctor’s offices soon and, one day, even home tests that are as easy as a pregnancy test. “We are trying to build a home-based test that is as reliable as a lab-based test,” said Piyush Jain, a UF professor of chemical engineering who led the latest research. “We are trying to make the test simple, eliminate the need for expensive equipment and provide results in just 10 to 20 minutes.” To accomplish those goals, Jain’s group is innovating ...
Researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at UCLA and the National Institutes of Health have developed a zebrafish model that provides new insight into how the brain acquires essential omega-3 fatty acids, including docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and linolenic acid (ALA). Their findings, published in Nature Communications, have the potential to improve understanding of lipid transport across the blood-brain barrier and of disruptions in this process that can lead to birth defects or neurological conditions. The model may also enable researchers to design drug molecules that are capable of directly reaching the brain. Omega-3 fatty acids are considered essential because the body cannot make them and must obtain them through foods, such as fish, nuts and seeds. DHA levels are especially high in the brain and important for a healthy nervous system. Infants obtain DHA from breastmilk or formula, and deficiencies of ...
For Catalent, the hits keep coming. After an April communique warning of reduced sales and productivity issues at three separate plants, the CDMO juggernaut delayed the release of its earnings for the third fiscal quarter. The report was originally scheduled to roll out Tuesday. Catalent said in a release Monday it’s now angling to unveil is quarterly report on May 15. Last month, Catalent said manufacturing hurdles at three major production sites—including two of the contract manufacturer’s largest—were expected to put a squeeze on third-quarter earnings and weigh on the company’s outlook for the entire fiscal year, which runs through the first half of 2023. Now, in addition to those “operational challenges,” Catalent says it has “also since identified significant issues with its forecasts over the past year.” With that mix of operational and productivity hangups, plus “prior forecasting challenges,” Catalent expects to “significantly reduce” both its 2023 revenue and EBITDA ...
Children and adolescents face greater risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) when exposed to antibiotics or a Western diet at early ages, or when their family has higher socioeconomic status, according to a study being presented today at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2023. “Pediatric IBD cases are rising globally, and approximately 1 in 4 of all IBD cases are now diagnosed before age 21,” said Nisha Thacker, the study’s lead author and a gastrointestinal dietitian. A unique concern about pediatric IBD is the impact that the inflammation has on a child’s growth and the progression of puberty, so parents should be aware of this condition and the modifiable factors that influence it. As a part of her PhD studies, at The University of Newcastle in Australia, she conducted a meta-analysis of 36 observational studies representing approximately 6.4 million children. Thacker found that any exposure to antibiotics before age 5 was ...
For individuals with depression, the most common causes of hospitalization are endocrine, musculoskeletal, and vascular diseases, according to a study published online May 3 in JAMA Psychiatry. Philipp Frank, Ph.D., from University College London, and colleagues examined the association between depression and physical conditions requiring hospitalization in a prospective multicohort study. The primary analysis was based on data from the U.K. Biobank (130,652 individuals), and analyses were repeated in an independent dataset of two cohorts in Finland (109,781 individuals). The researchers found that severe/moderately severe depression was associated with the incidence of 29 nonoverlapping conditions requiring hospital treatment during five years of follow-up in the main analysis. After adjustment for confounders and multiple testing, 25 of these associations remained (adjusted hazard ratio range, 1.52 to 23.03) and were confirmed in the independent dataset. The highest cumulative incidence was seen for endocrine and related internal organ diseases, musculoskeletal diseases, and diseases of the circulatory system and blood (245, ...
After the European Commission proposed a massive overhaul to the EU’s drug legislation, a group of 19 European countries is launching an effort to reduce the bloc’s supply chain reliance on outside countries. The position paper (PDF) urges the EU to “take more drastic steps” to improve the security of Europe’s supply of medicines. Belgium is leading the charge, and 18 other countries such as France, Germany and Spain are on board. In 2019, more than 40% of global active pharmaceutical ingredients came from China, the countries point out. That, coupled with other factors such as the fact that “almost all API producers depend on China for intermediate inputs,” make Europe and the rest of the world dependent on “a few manufacturers for a large bulk of their medicines supply,” according to the paper. The proposed European Critical Medicine Act would follow in the footsteps of similar acts such as the Critical Raw Materials Act ...
Lung cancer accounts for more than 20% of cancer deaths in the UK A new UK study has revealed the potential of using artificial intelligence (AI) to help doctors diagnose lung cancer earlier. LIBRA, which was led by researchers from the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the Institute of Cancer Research, London, and Imperial College London, used data from the CT scans of nearly 500 patients with large lung nodules – abnormal growths – to develop an AI model. The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, RM Partners and Cancer Research UK also supported the study. To assess how effective the new model was at predicting cancer, the team used a measure called the area under the curve (AUC). An AUC of one would indicate a perfect model, while 0.5 would be expected if the model was randomly guessing. The results, which have ...
Reviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLM Investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and collaborating institutions evaluated the dual-therapeutic effect of gene therapy in a clinically relevant model for common form of bone cancer. With a worldwide incident rate of 3.4 cases per million people per year, osteosarcoma is one of the most common bone cancers affecting children and adolescents. The current gold standard treatment option requires extensive surgical intervention and chemotherapy that leads to a poor prognosis and decreased quality of life. Due to the aggressive nature of the disease, the surgical intervention usually involves total reconstruction of the limbs or, in most cases, amputation. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, in collaboration with investigators at University College Dublin (UCD), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), have identified a potential therapeutic target and developed a unique delivery ...
In the first year of Covid-19, Medicare paid providers $1 billion for psychotherapy services, and $580 million were improper payments, including $348 million that were for telehealth services, a recent audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) found. The OIG audit, published Tuesday, analyzed $1 billion in Part B payments for more than 13.5 million psychotherapy services from March 2020 through February 2021. Its analysis consisted of two random samples of psychotherapy services: a sample of 111 enrollee days for telehealth services and a sample of 105 enrollee days for non-telehealth services. An enrollee day includes “all claim lines for Medicare Part B psychotherapy services with the same service start date for a specific enrollee,” the OIG said. Audits from before the pandemic showed improper payments for psychotherapy services, leading the agency to examine payments during the pandemic when telehealth access was greatly expanded. “Because of the significant increase ...
A newer, more effective treatment for uterine fibroids is available that doesn’t require surgery. That’s good news for the estimated 26 million women in the U.S. who have fibroids—including the millions of Black women who are disproportionately affected by these benign tumors. Black women in the U.S. are up to three times more likely to develop fibroids than white women. Dr. Elizabeth Stewart, a Mayo Clinic gynecologist and researcher, recently published a review on these approved fibroid medications. They are called oral gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist combinations. “There are two new FDA-approved drugs for the medical treatment of uterine fibroids,” says Dr. Stewart. Dr. Stewart says the drugs are effective in treating heavy menstrual bleeding, relieving pain and reducing the need for a hysterectomy. “Because many women are pushed in the direction of surgical therapy, and we know there are big limitations to surgical therapies, this is a great treatment option for many ...
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