#McGovern Institute

[jcmarchi]

Reevaluating an approach to functional brain imaging

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/reevaluating-an-approach-to-functional-brain-imaging/

Reevaluating an approach to functional brain imaging

A new way of imaging the brain with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) does not directly detect neural activity as originally reported, according to scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

The method, first described in 2022, generated excitement within the neuroscience community as a potentially transformative approach. But a study from the lab of MIT Professor Alan Jasanoff, reported March 27 in the journal Science Advances, demonstrates that MRI signals produced by the new method are generated in large part by the imaging process itself, not neuronal activity.

Jasanoff, a professor of biological engineering, brain and cognitive sciences, and nuclear science and engineering, as well as an associate investigator of the McGovern Institute, explains that having a noninvasive means of seeing neuronal activity in the brain is a long-sought goal for neuroscientists. The functional MRI methods that researchers currently use to monitor brain activity don’t actually detect neural signaling. Instead, they use blood flow changes triggered by brain activity as a proxy. This reveals which parts of the brain are engaged during imaging, but it cannot pinpoint neural activity to precise locations, and it is too slow to truly track neurons’ rapid-fire communications.

So when a team of scientists reported in 2022 a new MRI method called DIANA, for “direct imaging of neuronal activity,” neuroscientists paid attention. The authors claimed that DIANA detected MRI signals in the brain that corresponded to the electrical signals of neurons, and that it acquired signals far faster than the methods now used for functional MRI.

“Everyone wants this,” Jasanoff says. “If we could look at the whole brain and follow its activity with millisecond precision and know that all the signals that we’re seeing have to do with cellular activity, this would be just wonderful. It could tell us all kinds of things about how the brain works and what goes wrong in disease.”

Jasanoff adds that from the initial report, it was not clear what brain changes DIANA was detecting to produce such a rapid readout of neural activity. Curious, he and his team began to experiment with the method. “We wanted to reproduce it, and we wanted to understand how it worked,” he says.

Recreating the MRI procedure reported by DIANA’s developers, postdoc Valerie Doan Phi Van imaged the brain of a rat as an electric stimulus was delivered to one paw. Phi Van says she was excited to see an MRI signal appear in the brain’s sensory cortex, exactly when and where neurons were expected to respond to the sensation on the paw. “I was able to reproduce it,” she says. “I could see the signal.”

With further tests of the system, however, her enthusiasm waned. To investigate the source of the signal, she disconnected the device used to stimulate the animal’s paw, then repeated the imaging. Again, signals showed up in the sensory processing part of the brain. But this time, there was no reason for neurons in that area to be activated. In fact, Phi Van found, the MRI produced the same kinds of signals when the animal inside the scanner was replaced with a tube of water. It was clear DIANA’s functional signals were not arising from neural activity.

Phi Van traced the source of the specious signals to the pulse program that directs DIANA’s imaging process, detailing the sequence of steps the MRI scanner uses to collect data. Embedded within DIANA’s pulse program was a trigger for the device that delivers sensory input to the animal inside the scanner. That synchronizes the two processes, so the stimulation occurs at a precise moment during data acquisition. That trigger appeared to be causing signals that DIANA’s developers had concluded indicated neural activity.

Phi Van altered the pulse program, changing the way the stimulator was triggered. Using the updated program, the MRI scanner detected no functional signal in the brain in response to the same paw stimulation that had produced a signal before. “If you take this part of the code out, then the signal will also be gone. So that means the signal we see is an artifact of the trigger,” she says.

Jasanoff and Phi Van went on to find reasons why other researchers have struggled to reproduce the results of the original DIANA report, noting that the trigger-generated signals can disappear with slight variations in the imaging process. With their postdoctoral colleague Sajal Sen, they also found evidence that cellular changes that DIANA’s developers had proposed might give rise to a functional MRI signal were not related to neuronal activity.

Jasanoff and Phi Van say it was important to share their findings with the research community, particularly as efforts continue to develop new neuroimaging methods. “If people want to try to repeat any part of the study or implement any kind of approach like this, they have to avoid falling into these pits,” Jasanoff says. He adds that they admire the authors of the original study for their ambition: “The community needs scientists who are willing to take risks to move the field ahead.”

#2022 #approach #attention #Biological engineering #blood #Brain #brain activity #Brain and cognitive sciences #brain imaging #brain research #code #communications #Community #data #developers #Disease #engineering #how #Imaging #it #Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) #McGovern Institute #Method #mit #Moment #monitor #MRI #MRI scanner #neural #neural activity

[reportwire]

Aging Brain Initiative awards fund five new ideas to study, fight neurodegeneration | MIT News

Aging Brain Initiative awards fund five new ideas to study, fight neurodegeneration | MIT News

Neurodegenerative diseases are defined by an increasingly widespread and debilitating death of nervous system cells, but they also share other grim characteristics: Their cause is rarely discernible and they have all eluded cures. To spur fresh, promising approaches and to encourage new experts and expertise to join the field, MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative (ABI) this month awarded five seed grants…

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#Aging Brain Initiative (ABI) #ALS #Alzheimer&039;s disease #amyotrophic lateral sclerosis #Ann Graybiel #Ayano Matsushima #Boston Medical Center #Gloria Choi #immune inflammation #Li-Huei Tsai #McGovern Institute for Brain Research #MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences #neurodegeneration #Peter Dedon #Picower Institute for Learning and Memory #Ritu Raman #Thomas Heldt #Vivian Sze

[mindblowingscience]

A diverse set of species, from snails to algae to amoebas, make programmable DNA-cutting enzymes called Fanzors—and a new study from scientists at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research has identified thousands of them. Fanzors are RNA-guided enzymes that can be programmed to cut DNA at specific sites, much like the bacterial enzymes that power the widely used gene-editing system known as CRISPR. The newly recognized diversity of natural Fanzor enzymes, reported Sept. 27 in the journal Science Advances, gives scientists an extensive set of programmable enzymes that might be adapted into new tools for research or medicine. "RNA-guided biology is what lets you make programmable tools that are really easy to use. So the more we can find, the better," says McGovern Fellow Omar Abudayyeh, who led the research with McGovern Fellow Jonathan Gootenberg. CRISPR, an ancient bacterial defense system, has made it clear how useful RNA-guided enzymes can be when they are adapted for use in the lab. CRISPR-based genome editing tools developed by MIT professor and McGovern investigator Feng Zhang, Abudayyeh, Gootenberg, and others have changed the way scientists modify DNA, accelerating research and enabling the development of many experimental gene therapies.

Continue Reading.

#Science #CRISPR #Genetics #RNA #DNA #Biology #stem #zoology

[dedalvs]

From left to right: Marc Okrand (creator of Klingon), Paul Frommer (creator of Na’vi), Damian Blasí (researcher), Ev Fedorenka (researcher), Jessie Sams (creator of Méníshè), me, and Arika Okrent (author of In the Land of Invented Languages). MIT, 2022. (at McGovern Institute for Brain Research) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck87GI5vhSz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#conlang

[mit]

Study shows computational models trained to perform auditory tasks display an internal organization similar to that of the human auditory cortex.

Computational models that mimic the structure and function of the human auditory system could help researchers design better hearing aids, cochlear implants, and brain-machine interfaces. A new study from MIT has found that modern computational models derived from machine learning are moving closer to this goal.

In the largest study yet of deep neural networks that have been trained to perform auditory tasks, the MIT team showed that most of these models generate internal representations that share properties of representations seen in the human brain when people are listening to the same sounds.

The study also offers insight into how to best train this type of model: The researchers found that models trained on auditory input including background noise more closely mimic the activation patterns of the human auditory cortex.

“What sets this study apart is it is the most comprehensive comparison of these kinds of models to the auditory system so far. The study suggests that models that are derived from machine learning are a step in the right direction, and it gives us some clues as to what tends to make them better models of the brain,” says Josh McDermott, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, and the senior author of the study.

MIT graduate student Greta Tuckute and Jenelle Feather PhD ’22 are the lead authors of the open-access paper, which appears today in PLOS Biology.

Keep reading.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr!

#hearing #cognitive science #brain #ai #artificial intelligence #machine learning #science

[bpod-bpod]

Rhythm of Life

Whether you dance like a drunken dad or trained professional, you have rhythm in your bones. It underlies fundamental actions from walking to breathing. This rhythm comes from bursts of activity in brain circuits called central oscillators. These have proven hard to pinpoint and study, but new research has fully described one such circuit in mice. The collection of neurons (brain cells, pictured, green) control the regular swishing of a mouse’s whiskers, called whisking. When one neuron sparks into life, it inhibits those around it (with an inhibitor shown in red), which ultimately creates a coherent rhythm across the network, resulting in the regular movement. The scientists traced the neurons back from the whisker muscles, and found a cluster of cells all expressing a protein called parvalbumin (blue) leading the dance. This first isolation of a mammal oscillator could be a step towards understanding a fundamental aspect of our bodies.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Jun Takatoh and Vincent Prevosto and colleagues

Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

Image copyright held by the original authors

Research published in Nature, August 2022

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

#science #biomedicine #neuroscience #immunofluorescence #whiskers #rhythm #breathing #brains #neurons

[uaox]

Search algorithm reveals nearly 200 new kinds of CRISPR systems

Microbial sequence databases contain a wealth of information about enzymes and other molecules that could be adapted for biotechnology. But these databases have grown so large in recent years that they’ve become difficult to search efficiently for enzymes of interest. Now, scientists at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the National…

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[sunaleisocial]

Women in STEM — A celebration of excellence and curiosity

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/women-in-stem-a-celebration-of-excellence-and-curiosity/

Women in STEM — A celebration of excellence and curiosity

What better way to commemorate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day than to give  three of the world’s most accomplished scientists an opportunity to talk about their careers? On March 7, MindHandHeart invited professors Paula Hammond, Ann Graybiel, and Sangeeta Bhatia to share their career journeys, from the progress they have witnessed to the challenges they have faced as women in STEM. Their conversation was moderated by Mary Fuller, chair of the faculty and professor of literature. 

Hammond, an Institute professor with appointments in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, reflected on the strides made by women faculty at MIT, while acknowledging ongoing challenges. “I think that we have advanced a great deal in the last few decades in terms of the numbers of women who are present, although we still have a long way to go,” Hammond noted in her opening. “We’ve seen a remarkable increase over the past couple of decades in our undergraduate population here at MIT, and now we’re beginning to see it in the graduate population, which is really exciting.” Hammond was recently appointed to the role of vice provost for faculty.

Ann Graybiel, also an Institute professor, who has appointments in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, described growing up in the Deep South. “Girls can’t do science,” she remembers being told in school, and they “can’t do research.” Yet her father, a physician scientist, often took her with him to work and had her assist from a young age, eventually encouraging her directly to pursue a career in science. Graybiel, who first came to MIT in 1973, noted that she continued to face barriers and rejection throughout her career long after leaving the South, but that individual gestures of inspiration, generosity, or simple statements of “You can do it” from her peers helped her power through and continue in her scientific pursuits. 

Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, director of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and a member of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, is also the mother of two teenage girls. She shared her perspective on balancing career and family life: “I wanted to pick up my kids from school and I wanted to know their friends. … I had a vision for the life that I wanted.” Setting boundaries at work, she noted, empowered her to achieve both personal and professional goals. Bhatia also described her collaboration with President Emerita Susan Hockfield and MIT Amgen Professor of Biology Emerita Nancy Hopkins to spearhead the Future Founders Initiative, which aims to boost the representation of female faculty members pursuing biotechnology ventures.

A video of the full panel discussion is available on the MindHandHeart YouTube channel.

[jlertle]

We can think, even if our language abilities are destroyed by a stroke.

Language is a way to express thoughts, but thoughts, memories, and reasoning exist without language.

Favorite quote from this MIT piece: "This language system seems to be distinct from regions that are linked to our ability to plan, remember, reminisce on past and future, reason in social situations, experience empathy, make moral decisions, and construct one’s self-image. Thus, vast portions of our everyday cognitive experiences appear to be unrelated to language per se."

[jcmarchi]

How the brain coordinates speaking and breathing

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/how-the-brain-coordinates-speaking-and-breathing/

How the brain coordinates speaking and breathing

MIT researchers have discovered a brain circuit that drives vocalization and ensures that you talk only when you breathe out, and stop talking when you breathe in.

The newly discovered circuit controls two actions that are required for vocalization: narrowing of the larynx and exhaling air from the lungs. The researchers also found that this vocalization circuit is under the command of a brainstem region that regulates the breathing rhythm, which ensures that breathing remains dominant over speech.

“When you need to breathe in, you have to stop vocalization. We found that the neurons that control vocalization receive direct inhibitory input from the breathing rhythm generator,” says Fan Wang, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the study.

Jaehong Park, a Duke University graduate student who is currently a visiting student at MIT, is the lead author of the study, which appears today in Science. Other authors of the paper include MIT technical associates Seonmi Choi and Andrew Harrahill, former MIT research scientist Jun Takatoh, and Duke University researchers Shengli Zhao and Bao-Xia Han.

Vocalization control

Located in the larynx, the vocal cords are two muscular bands that can open and close. When they are mostly closed, or adducted, air exhaled from the lungs generates sound as it passes through the cords.

The MIT team set out to study how the brain controls this vocalization process, using a mouse model. Mice communicate with each other using sounds known as ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), which they produce using the unique whistling mechanism of exhaling air through a small hole between nearly closed vocal cords.

“We wanted to understand what are the neurons that control the vocal cord adduction, and then how do those neurons interact with the breathing circuit?” Wang says.

To figure that out, the researchers used a technique that allows them to map the synaptic connections between neurons. They knew that vocal cord adduction is controlled by laryngeal motor neurons, so they began by tracing backward to find the neurons that innervate those motor neurons.

This revealed that one major source of input is a group of premotor neurons found in the hindbrain region called the retroambiguus nucleus (RAm). Previous studies have shown that this area is involved in vocalization, but it wasn’t known exactly which part of the RAm was required or how it enabled sound production.

The researchers found that these synaptic tracing-labeled RAm neurons were strongly activated during USVs. This observation prompted the team to use an activity-dependent method to target these vocalization-specific RAm neurons, termed as RAmVOC. They used chemogenetics and optogenetics to explore what would happen if they silenced or stimulated their activity. When the researchers blocked the RAmVOC neurons, the mice were no longer able to produce USVs or any other kind of vocalization. Their vocal cords did not close, and their abdominal muscles did not contract, as they normally do during exhalation for vocalization.

Conversely, when the RAmVOC neurons were activated, the vocal cords closed, the mice exhaled, and USVs were produced. However, if the stimulation lasted two seconds or longer, these USVs would be interrupted by inhalations, suggesting that the process is under control of the same part of the brain that regulates breathing.

“Breathing is a survival need,” Wang says. “Even though these neurons are sufficient to elicit vocalization, they are under the control of breathing, which can override our optogenetic stimulation.”

Rhythm generation

Additional synaptic mapping revealed that neurons in a part of the brainstem called the pre-Bötzinger complex, which acts as a rhythm generator for inhalation, provide direct inhibitory input to the RAmVOC neurons.

“The pre-Bötzinger complex generates inhalation rhythms automatically and continuously, and the inhibitory neurons in that region project to these vocalization premotor neurons and essentially can shut them down,” Wang says.

This ensures that breathing remains dominant over speech production, and that we have to pause to breathe while speaking.

The researchers believe that although human speech production is more complex than mouse vocalization, the circuit they identified in mice plays the conserved role in speech production and breathing in humans.

“Even though the exact mechanism and complexity of vocalization in mice and humans is really different, the fundamental vocalization process, called phonation, which requires vocal cord closure and the exhalation of air, is shared in both the human and the mouse,” Park says.

The researchers now hope to study how other functions such as coughing and swallowing food may be affected by the brain circuits that control breathing and vocalization.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

#air #Brain #Brain and cognitive sciences #brain research #command #complexity #Food #Fundamental #generator #Health #how #human #humans #it #lungs #map #McGovern Institute #Method #mice #mit #model #muscles #National Institutes of Health (NIH) #neurons #nucleus #One #Optogenetics #Other #paper #process

[karismed4]

Texas Medical Services

Texas is home to many world-class hospitals, medical centers and health systems. But the state also has some of the highest healthcare costs in the country.

Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that provides low-cost health care coverage to people with limited incomes. It is a key safety net for vulnerable children, pregnant women and adults.

Preventive Care

A doctor’s job isn’t just to treat a sinus infection or stomach bug, but to keep you healthy in the first place. That means regular annual check-ups with your primary care provider (PCP) and preventive screenings that can find illnesses or medical problems early and help you improve your health.

Screenings and other preventive services are covered at no out-of-pocket cost to you if you see an in-network provider and your medical plan doesn’t apply a deductible or coinsurance to them. Some of these screenings include mammograms, Pap smears and blood pressure checks.

Vaccines and immunizations are also part of your preventive care, even if you’re not on Medicare. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends immunizations for children and adults at various stages of life.

The judge’s decision threatens the coverage of routinely recommended preventive services, and could lead to more Americans going without needed health care. That would be especially harmful for people in rural communities and racial and ethnic minorities, who are more likely to go without health insurance.

The federal government will likely appeal the ruling and ask for a stay on its implementation while it makes its way through the court system. That’s the only way to ensure access to the important preventive services that are guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act.

Supportive Palliative Care

Supportive palliative care (SPC) is patient and family-centered medical care that focuses on pain relief and other distressing symptoms related to serious illness. It also helps patients and their families manage emotions, understand goals of care, explore their values and interests, and make informed health decisions. SPC is offered alongside treatments meant to cure or treat the underlying condition and can be provided at any stage of an illness, regardless of whether that treatment is successful. It can even serve as a bridge to hospice services for patients with an expected terminal prognosis.

SPC may be provided by physicians who specialize in palliative medicine, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, dietitians, and chaplains, as well as home health aides and volunteers. It can take place in hospitals, outpatient palliative care clinics and residential facilities, or at a patient's home. Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance plans usually cover SPC. Veterans and some employers' policies may also cover this service.

UT Southwestern Medical Center has a team of palliative care experts, including Quan T. Dang, M.D., Hope Engelbrecht, Louis Joseph Lux, M.D., and Stacey C. Muhammad, M.D. These professionals work to provide symptom management and emotional support for patients of all ages who are suffering from a serious illness. This specialized team can help with chronic and progressive conditions such as cancer, heart disease, lung problems, and neurological diseases like Alzheimer's.

Treatment

The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is a collection of 54 medicine-related institutions including 21 hospitals, eight specialty and academic and research institutes, four medical schools, seven nursing schools and three public health organizations. The main center is located in Houston. It contains several notable libraries such as the McGovern Medical Library, which houses rare medical books dating back to the 1500s and historical manuscripts from the atomic bomb casualty commission that recorded the effects of the blasts on survivors.

While primary care providers help people recover from occasional health issues like a sinus infection or stomach bug, they should also work to prevent these issues from occurring in the first place. Without a primary care physician, uninsured people will look for healthcare in emergency rooms, which is expensive and often ineffective.

There are a number of addiction treatment programs in Texas, including state-funded options and private-funded facilities. Typically, these programs require clients to undergo a medical detox in Texas under supervision and follow up with residential inpatient or outpatient treatment. In some cases, a combination of both is offered to meet the individual needs of each client.

In addition to medical detox, some addiction treatment programs offer group and family therapy as well as different behavioral treatments. These therapies can help a person overcome their drug or alcohol addiction and achieve long-term sobriety.

Prevention

Your medical team treats you when you're sick with the occasional sinus infection or stomach bug, but their job should also include working to keep you healthy in the first place. Preventive care means more than a trip to your PCP – it's about knowing the steps you can take to protect yourself from developing a serious illness, such as obesity and high cholesterol.

In Texas, the state's health services agency promotes a wide range of public programs to help keep you healthy. For example, the Department of State Health Services' Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Program creates and promotes programs that encourage healthy lifestyle behaviors and educate people about preventing diseases. Its Immunization Branch provides information for families and their medical providers about the benefits of immunizations and which ones are recommended at different life stages.

The agency's County Indigent Health Care Program helps low-income Texans get the health care they need, such as prescriptions paid for by Medicaid or SCHIP. And its Aging and Disability Resource Centers can help Texans find assistance with personal care, nursing home care or help at home. And its Community Resource Coordination Groups help people whose needs can't be met by one agency and would benefit from interagency coordination.

But many Texans lack access to health care, including preventive care. They often seek medical treatment in emergency rooms, where the costs are much higher than at a doctor's office or clinic. They're more likely to die from a chronic illness, and they're less likely to have a family physician or other provider who can guide them toward good health habits.

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 10/25/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 10/25/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA) are circulating letters in the House urging their colleagues to join them in demanding that President Biden drop the charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Fox News Digital reported on Monday. AWC

Russia

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday submitted Sweden’s NATO bid to Turkey’s parliament, bringing Stockholm’s entrance into the Western military one step closer. AWC

A report published by The Washington Post on Monday revealed how the CIA has supported covert Ukrainian attacks inside Russia, including the killing of Darya Dugina, daughter of the prominent Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. AWC

The Kremlin said Tuesday that Russian intelligence agencies are aware of the support Ukrainian intelligence receives from the US and Britain. AWC

Finnish officials say that the investigation into the Balticconnector pipeline destruction is focused on a Chinese shipping vessel. The Swedish Prime Minister deemed the damage to the pipeline to be “purposeful.” The Institute

Israel

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Israel will decide on its Gaza strategy in response to media reports that said the US was urging a delay to the ground invasion of Gaza. AWC

A Pentagon official told reporters on Monday that the military is preparing for a “significant escalation” of attacks on US troops stationed in the Middle East due to President Biden’s support for Israel’s onslaught in Gaza. AWC

The US has sent military officers to Israel to serve as advisors amid preparations for an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, demonstrating the deep US involvement in Israel’s war. AWC

French President Emmanuel Macron was in Israel on Tuesday and said the US-led anti-ISIS coalition based in Iraq and Syria should also fight Hamas. AWC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Israeli soldiers on Tuesday that the strikes Israel launched on Gaza on Monday were the hardest yet. AWC

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that Israel will continue to hurt “innocent civilians” in its onslaught on Gaza. AWC

Israel’s ambassador to the UN has lashed out at UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for saying the Hamas attack on southern Israel “did not occur in a vacuum” and demanded his resignation. AWC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Israeli soldiers on Tuesday that the strikes Israel launched on Gaza on Monday were the hardest yet. AWC

Middle East

The Pentagon said Tuesday that US troops stationed in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 13 times within a week as the US is backing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. AWC

Read More

#kyle anzalone #libertarian institute #news roundup

[hofculctr]

Hofstra University

International Science Lecture Series Fall 2023

1-2:25 p.m. The Ukraine Conflict With Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and commentary by Hofstra University Professor Carolyn Eisenberg

4:20-5:45 p.m. Daniel Ellsberg A Tribute to Daniel Ellsberg

A short video presentation, followed by a faculty/student dialogue about Ellsberg’s urgent call for the prevention of nuclear war and a treaty to ban nuclear weapons

Presented by The Center for Civic Engagement’s Institute for Peace Studies, and L.I. Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives in collaboration with the Hofstra Cultural Center

Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, First Floor, South Campus

Admission is FREE and open to the public. Advance registration is required. More info and to RSVP visit https://shorturl.at/krvzZ

For more information, call Professor Martin Melkonian at 516-463-5595.

#Hofstra #InternationalSceneLecture #Ukraine

[the-institute-promos]

➤ OPEN CHARACTER: KELSEY, 21, MISTRESS, VAMPIRE

FULL NAME: Kelsey Rae McGovern NICKNAME(S): Up to Player PRONOUNS: She/Her BIRTHDAY: Up to player AGE: 21 STATUS: Mistress MAJOR: Up to player SPECIES: Vampire SPECIAL POWERS: None SEXUALITY: Up to player I AM A: Up to player I WANT A: Up to player TURN-ONS: Up to player TURN-OFFS: Up to player

➤ BIOGRAPHY

Kelsey grew up your typical looking popular girl. Cheerleader, dozens of friends, friendly with everyone no matter what group or ‘clique’ you hung out with. From the chess nerds to the Jocks she would be friendly with you. She had always had guys interested in her over the years and her fair share of boyfriends but none had been as adamant as Kai. She always thought it was cute how he followed her around and the more time they spent together the more she liked him and by the end of their sophomore year they were happily dating. They dated for the rest of their high school careers and were happy together, sure they had fights, what couples didn’t but Kai always made sure to make Kelsey happy. After graduating Kai had sprung a massive surprise on her when he asked her to marry him. It took her a moment to respond to him, things had been getting rough on her side, Kai had seemed oblivious to her slowly becoming less happy but she thought maybe getting married would be what they needed to fix things so in the end she said yes happily. That happiness didn’t last long though and by the end of the summer Kelsey’s life had changed for good. One night on her way home from a night of with her friends Kelsey decided to take a short cut through a alleyway trying to get home faster and it was the worst decision of her life. She was attacked but what she later learned was a vampire and turned into a vampire herself. Her mentor helped her the first few days but she knew she couldn’t never be around Kai like this. Which led to their fallout a few days later. She knew her emotions were over whelming her thanks to being a newly turned vampire and when she exploded it ruined everything they had. “I hate you! I never loved you!” She had yelled at him watching the broken expression on his face. She left the next day to never look back not wanting to see how much she hurt him because deep down inside she had hurt herself as well. She stayed with her sire and soon became a much different version of Kelsey enjoying all the things she could do as a vampire. Which is how she was led to The Institute, wanting a fresh start with her new life after the few years she had to adjust. A degree and a new start.

➤ PERSONALITY

✚ Endearing, friendly, confident ▬ Stubborn, bitchy, complex

➤ ESTABLISHED CONNECTIONS

None

➤ FACE CLAIM & OOC INFO

Kelsey’s faceclaim is Claire Holt. // Could Kelsey be right for you?

Bio written by Shay.

The Institute - Plot - Rules - Ask - Apply

The Institute is a supernatural master/slave roleplay established in 2015, set at a prestigious university on a tropical island--a prestigious university with some dark secrets.

Our long-term NPC headmaster has just been killed, and we are rolling out big IC changes--new worldbuilding, new in character rules, new locations, and new open characters! Join us today to be part of our revamp!

CURRENT BANS: NONE

#supernatural rp #vampire rp #college rp #university rp #fantasy rp #town rp #island rp #city rp #claire holt #smut rp

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] Newswise — A five-year, $3.3 million grant to develop a molecular diagnostic test for congenital syphilis has been awarded to researchers from UTHealth Houston by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health.Irene Stafford, MD, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, is the principal investigator of the R01HD108201 grant.Congenital syphilis can have severe health consequences on a baby; however, how it impacts the baby depends on when or if the mother received treatment for the infection.“Right now, there is a lack of sensitive diagnostic tests to determine whether or not a baby has developed congenital syphilis,” said Stafford, who is a maternal-fetal medicine physician with UT Physicians, the clinical practice of McGovern Medical School. “Everything is based on an algorithm of whether or not the mom has received treatment or if the baby is showing any signs of syphilis, or has abnormally high syphilis serology labs. So, you have to go through a checklist to determine if they have it and newborns require months of follow-up to determine infection status. Our goal is to create a test for syphilis that is effective, so we can do immediate treatment.”Babies born with congenital syphilis can have bone damage, severe anemia, enlarged liver and spleen, jaundice, nerve problems causing blindness or deafness, meningitis, or skin rashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Locally, syphilis cases in Houston have increased 128% since 2019, and numbers are the highest ever nationally in more than 12 years. “One-fourth of the nation’s syphilis cases come from Texas,” Stafford said.The multicenter study, which includes Baylor College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the University of California, the University of Southern California, and The Ohio State University, will also focus on neurodevelopment testing of babies born with syphilis. Neurodevelopment issues impact 60% of babies born with syphilis who are left untreated, according to Stafford.“The reality is that right now, we are having a boom of cases across the country and especially here in Texas. We are doing the best with what we have, but this test could be an incredible step in treating and diagnosing congenital syphilis,” she said.Currently, researchers are looking to enroll 995 patients across all sites.Stafford leads a perinatal syphilis program at UT Physicians, where she has dedicated a clinic day for patients with syphilis. “Through this program, we’re going to have better outcomes, and hopefully reduce the burden of infection, especially in our city,” she said. window.fbAsyncInit = function () FB.init( appId: '890013651056181', xfbml: true, version: 'v2.2' ); ; (function (d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = " fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); [ad_2]

[moremedtech]

Researchers uncover a new CRISPR-like system in animals that can edit the human genome

Researchers uncover a new CRISPR-like system in animals that can edit the human genome. The first RNA-guided DNA-cutting enzyme found in eukaryotes, Fanzor could one day be harnessed to edit DNA more precisely than CRISPR/Cas systems. A team of researchers led by Feng Zhang at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has uncovered the first programmable RNA-guided system in eukaryotes — organisms that include fungi, plants, and animals. In a study published today in Nature, the team describes how the system is based on a protein called Fanzor. They showed that Fanzor proteins use RNA as a guide to target DNA precisely, and that Fanzors can be reprogrammed to edit the genome of human cells. The compact Fanzor systems have the potential to be more easily delivered to cells and tissues as therapeutics than CRISPR-Cas systems, and further refinements to improve their targeting efficiency could make them a valuable new technology for human genome editing. CRISPR-Cas was first discovered in prokaryotes (bacteria and other single-cell organisms that lack nuclei) and scientists including those in Zhang’s lab have long wondered whether similar systems exist in eukaryotes. The new study demonstrates that RNA-guided DNA-cutting mechanisms are present across all kingdoms of life. “CRISPR-based systems are widely used and powerful because they can be easily reprogrammed to target different sites in the genome,” says Zhang, senior author on the study, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience in the MIT departments of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, an investigator at MIT’s McGovern Institute, a core institute member at the Broad Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “This new system is another way to make precise changes in human cells, complementing the genome editing tools we already have.”

Searching the domains of life

A major aim of the Zhang lab is to develop genetic medicines using systems that can modulate human cells by targeting specific genes and processes. “A number of years ago, we started to ask, ‘What is there beyond CRISPR, and are there other RNA-programmable systems out there in nature?’” says Zhang. Two years ago, Zhang lab members discovered a class of RNA-programmable systems in prokaryotes called OMEGAs, which are often linked with transposable elements, or “jumping genes,” in bacterial genomes and likely gave rise to CRISPR-Cas systems. That work also highlighted similarities between prokaryotic OMEGA systems and Fanzor proteins in eukaryotes, suggesting that the Fanzor enzymes might also use an RNA-guided mechanism to target and cut DNA. In the new study, the researchers continued their work on RNA-guided systems by isolating Fanzors from fungi, algae, and amoeba species, in addition to a clam known as the northern quahog. Co-first author Makoto Saito of the Zhang lab led the biochemical characterization of the Fanzor proteins, showing that they are DNA-cutting endonuclease enzymes that use nearby non-coding RNAs known as ωRNAs to target particular sites in the genome. It is the first time this mechanism has been found in eukaryotes, such as animals. Unlike CRISPR proteins, Fanzor enzymes are encoded in the eukaryotic genome within transposable elements, and the team’s phylogenetic analysis suggests that the Fanzor genes have migrated from bacteria to eukaryotes through so-called horizontal gene transfer. “These OMEGA systems are more ancestral to CRISPR and they are among the most abundant proteins on the planet, so it makes sense that they have been able to hop back and forth between prokaryotes and eukaryotes,” says Saito.

No collateral damage

To explore Fanzor’s potential as a genome editing tool, the researchers demonstrated that it can generate insertions and deletions at targeted genome sites within human cells. The researchers found the Fanzor system to initially be less efficient at snipping DNA than CRISPR-Cas systems, but by systematic engineering, they introduced a combination of mutations into the protein that increased its activity 10-fold. Additionally, unlike some CRISPR systems and the OMEGA protein TnpB, the team found that a fungal-derived Fanzor protein did not exhibit “collateral activity,” where an RNA-guided enzyme cleaves its DNA target as well as degrading nearby DNA or RNA. The results suggest that Fanzors could potentially be developed as efficient genome editors. Co-first author Peiyu Xu led an effort to analyze the molecular structure of the Fanzor/ωRNA complex and illustrate how it latches onto DNA to cut it. Fanzor shares structural similarities with its prokaryotic counterpart CRISPR-Cas12 protein, but the interaction between the ωRNA and the catalytic domains of Fanzor is more extensive, suggesting that the ωRNA might play a role in the catalytic reactions. “We are excited about these structural insights for helping us further engineer and optimize Fanzor for improved efficiency and precision as a genome editor,” said Xu Like CRISPR-based systems, the Fanzor system can be easily reprogrammed to target specific genome sites, and Zhang said it could one day be developed into a powerful new genome editing technology for research and therapeutic applications. The abundance of RNA-guided endonucleases like Fanzors further expands the number of OMEGA systems known across kingdoms of life and suggests that there are more yet to be found. “Nature is amazing. There’s so much diversity,” says Zhang. “There are probably more RNA-programmable systems out there, and we’re continuing to explore and will hopefully discover more.” The paper’s other authors include Guilhem Faure, Samantha Maguire, Soumya Kannan, Han Altae-Tran, Sam Vo, AnAn Desimone, and Rhiannon Macrae. Support for this work was provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Poitras Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research at MIT; K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Molecular Therapeutics Center at MIT; Broad Institute Programmable Therapeutics Gift Donors; The Pershing Square Foundation, William Ackman, and Neri Oxman; James and Patricia Poitras; BT Charitable Foundation; Asness Family Foundation; Kenneth C. Griffin; the Phillips family; David Cheng; Robert Metcalfe; and Hugo Shong. Source: MIT Read the full article

#CRISPR #genome #harvard #healthtech #medtech #medtechnews #MIT #rna