Tag Archives: Scientists

Scientists discover antibody that neutralizes 98% strains of the HIV virus

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Scientists have discovered an antibody that can neutralize 98 percent of HIV strains.

The strength and dynamism of the antibody – known as N6 – means it could be developed and re-purposed to treat and prevent HIV infections.

Remarkably, the research team at the US National Institutes of Health have found N6 can neutralize 16 of the 20 strains which have so far resisted all kinds of medication.

It is the most promising discovery to date after decades of failed attempts to neutralize the virus, which rapidly changes its surface proteins to evade recognition.

The last time HIV researchers made such a strong leap in the field was in 2010, with the discovery of an antibody called VRC01.

VRCO1 can stop up to 90 percent of HIV strains from infecting human cells.

It works in the same way as N6: both block the virus by binding to a part of the HIV enveloped called the CD4 binding site.

This prevents the virus from attaching itself to immune cells.

However, N6 can better tolerate changes in the HIV envelope.

For example, one of the key ways HIV evades the immune system is by gathering and attaching sugars, which tend to loosen the antibody’s grip. N6, however, is not affected by this change.

The findings, revealed in a report on Wednesday, have emerged as scientists continue to test N6 as an intravenous infusion in clinical trials to see if it can safely prevent HIV infection in humans.

Due to its potency, N6 may offer stronger and more durable prevention and treatment benefits, and researchers may be able to administer it subcutaneously (into the fat under the skin) rather than intravenously.

In addition, its ability to neutralize nearly all HIV strains would be advantageous for both prevention and treatment strategies.

For example, one of the key ways HIV evades the immune system is by gathering and attaching sugars, which tend to loosen the antibody’s grip. N6, however, is not affected by this change.

The findings, revealed in a report on Wednesday, have emerged as scientists continue to test N6 as an intravenous infusion in clinical trials to see if it can safely prevent HIV infection in humans.

Due to its potency, N6 may offer stronger and more durable prevention and treatment benefits, and researchers may be able to administer it subcutaneously (into the fat under the skin) rather than intravenously.

In addition, its ability to neutralize nearly all HIV strains would be advantageous for both prevention and treatment strategies.

Awesome Research: Suya Is Healthier When Eaten With Beer – Scientists

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A group of researchers at the University of Porto, in Portugal, have said that barbecued meat, popularly known as suya, in Nigeria is healthier when cooked and eaten with beer.

 

The lead author of the study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Dr. Isabel Ferreira, said the recommendation was given following the results of various experiments conducted by the scientists.

 

According to Ferreira, cancer-causing chemicals and molecules such as The PAHs are formed through the process of grilling or barbecuing meat and some chemical in beer could neutralise these free radicals.

 

She said, “One way of stopping PAH-formation might be to apply chemicals called antioxidants that mop up free radicals. And beer is rich in these, in the shape of melanoidins, which form when barley is roasted.”

 

In one of the experiments, Ferraira and her colleagues prepared some beer marinades, bought some meat and headed for the griddle.

“One of their marinades was based on Pilsner, a pale lager. A second was based on a black beer, since black beers have more melanoidins than light beers—as the name suggests, they give it colour.” The meat steeped in the black-beer marinade formed fewer PAHs than those steeped in the light-beer marinade, which in turn formed fewer than the control meat left unmarinated in beer,” she stated.

 

She noted that the meat that was not cooked with beer when cooked had an average of 21 nanogrammes (billionths of a gramme) of PAHs per gramme of grilled meat, while those marinated in black beer averaged only 10 nanogrammes of PAH.

 

Ferreira, however, cautioned against over consumption of barbecued meat with beer or other forms of alcohol that may not have been sourced from barley.

Scientists Discover Human Genes Associated With Depression

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Scientists said on Friday in London that they have found human genes that are probably associated with the development of depression, giving hopes of new treatment of the disease.

Researchers analyzed that the study used self-report data of 307,354 respondents to questionnaires, including 75,607 who reported to have been diagnosed of depression at some point in their lives.

Ashley Winslow, the co-author of the study, said that during the findings they tried to find any single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) or any irregularities at specific points in the genome that are shared by the depressive subjects only.

“A total of 17 such independent SNPs from 15 regions have been found.

Winslow assured that the result could be used to identify people who are at risk of depression long before they actually get one and may lead to novel ways to treat the disease.

“We’ve been dominated by decades of dogma about how we treat depression.

“The hope is this can lead to a novel understanding of the disease,” he said.

The study was conducted by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and 23andMe, a California-based genomics and biotechnology company.

Credit: NAN

Scientists Plan First Human Gene- editing Trial Next Month

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Scientists have achieved two major breakthroughs with the plan to conduct the first-ever human gene-editing trial next month to treat cancer and to stop asthma by turning off the gene controlling coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath.

According to a study published in the journal Nature but first reported in DailyMailUK Online, the world’s first clinical trial that will inject humans with genetically modified cells created with a ground-breaking Deoxy ribonucleic Acid (DNA)-editing technology is set to start next month.

Oncologists at Sichuan University’s West China Hospital in Chengdu have been given approval to begin the tests with cells modified using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique.
It is hoped it might provide a new treatment against cancer for patients who have not responded to chemotherapy or radiation therapy.The researchers will extract immune cells known as T cells from the blood of the patients taking part in the trail and use CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out a gene in the cells.
This will disable a regulatory mechanism in the immune cells that prevents them from normally attacking other cells in the body.The researchers will extract T cells from the blood of patients taking part in the trail.

A gene coding for a protein called PD-9 will be knocked out in the cells using CRISPR-Cas9.The technique uses tags and an enzyme to cut DNA in a precise place, allowing small portions of a gene to be removed. This turns off the gene for PD-9, which will mean the T cells will loose some of the regulation that stops them from attacking cells belonging to the human body.

These edited cells will be multiplied before being injected back into the patient.Researchers hope they will then home in on the cancer and destroy it. However, there are concerns the cells could become overactive and mount an immune response against healthy tissue too.

The scientists hope that when these edited cells are reintroduced back into the patient’s bloodstream they will home in on the cancer and destroy it.Also, scientists have discovered a revolutionary approach which could lead to new ways of treating asthma.

Credit: Guardian

New Virus Deadlier Than Ebola, Zika To Emerge, Scientists Warn

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Scientists have warned that humans should brace for the emergence of a new virus that could be deadlier than Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or Zika.

The scientists in a study published on March 14, 2016, edition of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled “SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence” said outbreaks from zoonotic sources represent a threat to both human as well as the global economy.

A zoonotic disease is a disease that can be passed between animals and humans.

The scientists are already bracing for a potential outbreak of the new SARS-like virus.

They warn the new virus, called WIV1-CoV, may induce the same results in humans as SARS – starting out with flu-like symptoms and accelerating rapidly to pneumonia.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1, (Bat SL-CoV-WIV1) also sometimes called SARS-like coronavirus WIV1 that is W1V1-CoV, is a newly identified CoV isolated from Chinese rufous horseshoe bats. The discovery confirms that bats are the natural reservoir of the SARS virus. Phylogenetic analysis shows the possibility of direct transmission of SARS from bats to humans without the intermediary Chinese civets, as previously believed.

The scientists say this virus may never jump to humans, but if it does, WIV1-CoV has the potential to seed a new outbreak with significant consequences for both public health and the global economy.

According to the researchers, the capacity of this group of viruses to jump into humans is greater than originally thought. While other adaptations may be required to produce an epidemic, several viral strains circulating in bat populations have already overcome the barrier of replication in human cells and suggest reemergence as a distinct possibility.

The researchers wrote: “Focusing on the SARS-like viruses, the results indicate that the WIV1-coronavirus (CoV) cluster has the ability to directly infect and may undergo limited transmission in human populations. However, in vivo attenuation suggests additional adaptation is required for epidemic disease. Importantly, available SARS monoclonal antibodies offered success in limiting viral infection absent from available vaccine approaches. Together, the data highlight the utility of a platform to identify and prioritize prepandemic strains harboured in animal reservoirs and document the threat posed by WIV1-CoV for emergence in human populations.”

Credit: Guardian

Albert Einstein Was Right: Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves 100 Years After

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Scientists said in an historic announcement, on Friday that they have for the first time directly detected the existence of gravitational waves.

 

David Reitze, Executive Director of the U.S.based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), said in Washington that the gravitational waves which were predicted 100 years, ago by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, was one of the two pillars of modern physics.

 

“We did it. This was truly a scientific moon-shot. I really believe that. And we did it. We landed on the moon.”

 

Reitze said the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole.

 

The director explained that gravitational waves were the last piece of Einstein’s theory of general relativity that has yet to be proven.

 

Reitze said signals from gravitational waves are so weak that Einstein himself questioned whether a device sensitive enough could be developed to capture this phenomenon.

 

He noted that the collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.

 

“The gravitational waves were detected on Sept. 14, 2015, at 5:51 a.m. EDT (0951 GMT) by both of the twin LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana; and Hanford, Washington.

 

“Based on the observed signals, LIGO scientists estimated that the black holes for this event were about 29 and 36 times the mass of the Sun, and the event took place 1.3 billion years ago.

 

About three times the mass of the Sun was converted into gravitational waves in a fraction of a second, with a peak power output about 50 times that of the whole visible universe,’’ he said.

 

Reitze recalled that in 1916, German-born theoretical physicist Einstein, predicted the existence of gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space-time resulting from the most violent phenomena in our distant universe such as supernovae explosions or colliding black holes.

 

“In 1974, two American scientists discovered a binary pulsar, a pair of two dead stars emitting pulses of radio waves.

 

They later realised that the orbit of the pulsar was slowly shrinking over time because of the release of energy in a way Einstein’s theory predicted: gravitational waves,’’.

 

He said for discovering the pulsar and indirectly confirming the existence of gravitational waves, the two were awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics.

 

Rainer Weiss, Professor of Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the new LIGO discovery was the first observation of gravitational waves themselves.

 

He said they were made by measuring the tiny disturbances the waves made to space and time as they passed through the earth.

 

“Our observation of gravitational waves accomplishes an ambitious goal set out over five decades ago to directly detect this elusive phenomenon and better understand the universe, and, fittingly, fulfills Einstein’s legacy on the 100th anniversary of his general theory of relativity.

 

“It would have been wonderful to watch Einstein’s face had we been able to tell him,” he said.

 

Weiss said the new discovery, has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The journal was made by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), a group of more than 1,000 scientists from universities around the U.S. as well as in 14 other countries.

Lawrence Krauss, a Theoretical physicist at the Arizona State University, described the finding as “a huge milestone.”

He said the discovery would open a new window on the universe, like the invention of the telescope or discovery of radio waves from space.

Krauss added that the gravitational wave astronomy would be the astronomy of the 21st century.

Gabriela Gonzalez, LSC Spokesperson and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the Louisiana State University, echoed the same view.

 

He said the detection was the beginning of a new era and the field of gravitational wave astronomy is now a reality.

 

“With this discovery, we humans are embarking on a marvelous new quest, the quest to explore the warped side of the universe objects and phenomena that are made from warped space time.

 

“Colliding black holes and gravitational waves are our first beautiful examples,” he said.

 

 

(Xinhua/NAN)

Scientists Confirm New Sexual Disease, Say Black Men More Likely To Test Positive

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Scientists in the United Kingdom have confirmed the existence of a new sexually transmitted disease called mycoplasma genitalium.

The confirmation of the bacterial disease, which causes painful urination among other things, as an STD comes more than two decades after it was first discovered.

A team of fourteen researchers arrived at the conclusion after conducting a national survey of the sexual lifestyles and attitudes of British men and women.

The researchers said the study, which involved testing urine from 4,507 sexually experienced participants aged 16 to 44 years for MG, “strengthens evidence that MG is an STI”.

They added, “MG was identified in over one per cent of the population, including in men with high-risk behaviours in older age groups that are often not included in STI prevention measures.”

The study found that men of black ethnicity were more likely to test positive for MG and showed that the prevalence of the disease was 1.2 per cent in men and 1.3 per cent in women.

It also found that for both men and women, the disease was strongly associated with reporting risk behaviours such as increasing the number of total and new partners and unsafe sex in the past year.

Although it recorded no positive MG tests in men aged 16 to19, prevalence peaked at 2.1 per cent in men aged 25–34 years, while prevalence in was highest in 16 to 19-year-olds at 2.4 per cent and decrease with age.

It added, “Men with MG were more likely to report previously diagnosed gonorrhoea, syphilis or non-specific urethritis, and women previous trichomoniasis.”

Health.com in an article about the study quoted a clinical associate professor, Raquel Dardik, as saying the symptoms for women included irritation, painful urination and bleeding after sex, while those for men included painful urination and watery discharge from the penis.

Credit: PUNCH