Kinesiologists at McMaster University have found ketone supplements, used by some athletes hoping to cross the finish line faster, may in fact worsen performance. The new study, published in the latest print edition of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, tackles contradictory research findings related to the effectiveness of ketone supplements, which have gained popularity among athletes seeking a competitive advantage. Some previously published studies had shown the supplements improve performance, while others have reported they had no effect or even worsened performance. Natural ketones can serve as fuels for the brain and muscles. A ketogenic diet –characterized by very low carbohydrate and typically high fat intake – causes the body to produce more organic ketone compounds and increase their use for energy. Ketone supplements speed up that process, without the strict diet. One of the main perceived benefits is that ketones may serve as an alternative ...
Neuroscience studies have showed that as mice and other rodents navigate a maze, their brain often “replays” relevant past events. This mental replaying of events, such as the route taken until reaching their current position, could help rodents create a mental map of the spatial environment, and understand their position in it. Researchers at University College London and Queen Mary University of London recently explored the possibility that the human brain also replays past events to make sense of evolving, non-spatial experiences. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, confirms this hypothesis and suggests that the process through which the human brain reactivates these events might be far more complex than that observed in rodents. “We know that the brain can ‘replay’ information that was encountered in the past, although this has mainly been studied in navigation tasks involving rodents,” Avital Hahamy, one of the researchers who carried out the study, ...
Clinical-stage cell therapy company Tessa Therapeutics have announced positive safety and efficacy data from the trial (NCT04288726 of TT11X, its off-the-shelf CD30.CAR-modified EBVST (Epstein Barr Virus Specific T Cells) therapy in patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) Hodgkin lymphoma. In tandem with Baylor College of Medicine, Tessa enrolled 18 patients with R/R Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in the trial, all of whom had been heavily pre-treated. Patients were administered with TT11X across four dosing levels, resulting in an overall response rate (ORR) of 78%. Higher doses produced improved clinical response, and no dose-limiting toxicities were observed. Treatment works by utilising highly specialised T-cells able to recognize and kill infected cells, whilst activating the body’s immune system to produce a coordinated response. The company claimed that early trials have demonstrated a strong safety profile and efficacy. TT11X is the lead allogenic cell therapy in Tessa’s planned pipeline of treatments built with its CD30.CAR ...
France-based biotech company Osivax has thrown its hat into the influenza ring by dosing the first subject with its vaccine candidate OVX836. The Phase IIa trial (NCT05734040) in Australia will see a potential 500 volunteers given OVX836 in combination with quadrivalent influenza vaccines (QIVs). The developer has tested OVX836 in four completed clinical trials. In a company statement announcing the latest trial kick-off, Osivax said a recently completed separate Phase IIa trial demonstrated that the candidate in combination with QIVs had a good safety profile with no impairment of immune response by the QIVs. The aim of the latest ongoing trial is to evaluate the vaccine in a larger and more diverse population. The company aims to enrol more than 500 participants aged 18-60 across multiple clinical sites in Australia. The OVX836 vaccine targets nucleoprotein – a conserved internal antigen. Internal antigens, unlike surface antigens, have a lower probability of ...
Merck (MSD) has announced updated results with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in the Phase III Keynote-811 trial, which opens up the possibility of changing the checkpoint inhibitor’s label in HER2-positive gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma so it’s based on the tumour’s PD-L1 biomarker status. The Phase III Keynote-811 study (NCT03615326) met its progression-free survival (PFS) endpoint for treating human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma in the intent-to-treat population. A pre-specified interim analysis of trial data found a “statistically significant” improvement in PFS compared to placebo in the ITT group. In 2021, as part of the same Keynote-811 trial, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to Keytruda for treating locally advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma, in combination with trastuzumab and chemotherapy containing fluoropyrimidin and platinum. Based on the latest Keynote-811 results, MSD now plans to work with the ...
A three-year-long retrospective cohort study of a single Atlanta hospital’s patient population found transgender and gender-diverse teenagers rarely chose to discontinue gender-affirming hormone therapy, according to a study being presented Sunday at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago, Ill. Among 82 transgender and gender-diverse adolescents treated at an academic pediatric endocrinology center from beginning of 2016 to end of 2018, only three chose to halt gender-affirming hormone therapy. None of them resumed identifying as their assigned sex at birth. One participant stopped hormonal therapy due to insurance issues, one participant stopped treatment temporarily to conceive a baby, and one stopped testosterone to transition to a nonbinary gender. “In the infrequent cases in which a person discontinues their gender-affirming hormone therapy, it is often due to external factors as opposed to true retransitioning to the sex assigned at birth,” said lead researcher Pranav Gupta, M.D., a fellow at ...
Gone are the days when augmented reality’s primary use cases centered on gaming and entertainment. Investors are now betting on the technology’s promise to enhance surgical navigation. This shift is evidenced by Medivis’ recent funding round — the New York City-based medical augmented reality (AR) company raised $20 million in Series A financing on Tuesday. The round, which takes Medivis’ total funding to $25 million, was led by Thrive Capital. Other investors included Mayo Clinic, Initialized Capital, Disney CEO Bob Iger and NBA star Kevin Durant. Medivis was founded in 2016 by neurosurgeon Osamah Choudhry, who serves as CEO, and radiologist Christopher Morley, who serves as president. Their mission has always been to establish AR as the new standard in surgical navigation, Choudhry shared in a recent interview. “Traditionally, surgeons have relied on 2D flat images, requiring them to mentally reconstruct their patient images into a 3D representation. However, with ...
A new research paper was published on the cover of Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as “Aging (Albany NY)” and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 11, entitled, “Short telomeres in alveolar type II cells associate with lung fibrosis in post COVID-19 patients with cancer.” The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The severity of COVID-19 increases with each decade of life, a phenomenon that suggests that organismal aging contributes to the fatality of the disease. In this regard, researchers Paula Martínez, Raúl Sánchez-Vazquez, Arpita Saha, Maria S. Rodriguez-Duque, Sara Naranjo-Gonzalo, Joy S. Osorio-Chavez, Ana V. Villar-Ramos, and Maria A. Blasco, from Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO), Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria (IBBTEC), Instituto de Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla (IDIVAL), and Universidad de Cantabria, and others have previously shown that COVID-19 severity ...
Numerous visual illusions are caused by limits in the way our eyes and visual neurons work—rather than more complex psychological processes, new research shows. Researchers examined illusions in which an object’s surroundings affect the way we see its color or pattern. The paper, published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, is titled “A model of color appearance based on efficient coding of natural images.” Scientists and philosophers have long debated whether these illusions are caused by neural processing in the eye and low-level visual centers in the brain, or involve higher-level mental processes such as context and prior knowledge. In the new study Dr. Jolyon Troscianko, from the University of Exeter, co-developed a model that suggests simple limits to neural responses—not deeper psychological processes—explain these illusions. “Our eyes send messages to the brain by making neurons fire faster or slower,” said Dr. Troscianko, from the Center for Ecology and Conservation ...
By Alejandra Manjarrez www.biospace.com Pictured: Judicial gavel and scales of justice/iStock AbbVie has filed a lawsuit accusing China-based BeiGene’s new blood cancer drug Brukinsa (zanubrutinib) of infringing on its patent for Imbruvica (ibrutinib). Imbruvica was co-developed by J&J’s Janssen and AbbVie’s Pharmacyclics and approved in 2014 by the FDA as a treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Brukinsa, which gained its FDA approval in January 2023, had its patent issued on Tuesday. Through its complaint, filed that same day in federal court in Delaware, AbbVie is seeking a declaratory judgment of infringement plus damages, Bloomberg Law reported. BeiGene’s shares in Hong Kong and mainland China have fallen more than 10% since the announcement. Both Brukinsa and Imbruvica are BTK inhibitors designed as oral medications to treat the slow-growing blood cancers chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). They are different forms of the same disease and account for about ...
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