COVID-19: Breathing problems are the most common reason for returning to the hospital A recent study shows that it is relatively rare for COVID-19 patients to return to the hospital within 2 weeks of discharge. Individuals with high blood pressure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were the most likely to require readmission. Individuals with breathing problems were the COVID-19 patients most likely to return to the hospital after discharge. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many hospitals remain under severe pressure. To identify ways to relieve some of this pressure and improv ..read more

In the first study of its kind, University of Illinois Chicago researchers have found associations among disrupted sleep, elevated blood pressure and changes in the gut microbiome. The research aimed to determine whether a 28-day period of disrupted sleep changed the microbiota in rats. The gut microbiota refers to the collection of microorganisms living in the intestines. The researchers also sought to identify biological features associated with undesirable arterial blood pressure changes. The results were published in Physiological Genomics. Using rats, the researcher disrupted their s ..read more

All cancers are the result of cells that have gone haywire, multiplying out of control and expanding beyond their normal constraints. But not all tumors are the same: for reasons that remain poorly understood, some are more likely to become aggressive and metastasize to other parts of the body. New research highlights a long-overlooked aspect of how and why some tumors become more dangerous than others. A team led by Rockefeller’s Elaine Fuchs found that mechanical properties of the tissue elements that surround pre-malignant tumor cells powerfully shape the development of two of the most comm ..read more

A new antibacterial agent that has been engineered by researchers at Dartmouth to essentially hide from the human immune system may treat life-threatening MRSA infections. A new paper, published today in Science Advances, provides details on the agent, which is the first lysin-based treatment with the potential to be used multiple times on a single patient, making it ideal to treat particularly persistent drug-resistant and drug-sensitive infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has prioritized finding effective treatment of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aur ..read more

A bioengineering technique to boost production of specific proteins could be the basis of an effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, new research suggests. Scientists manipulated a natural cellular process to ramp up levels of two proteins used by the virus to infect other cells, packaged the protein-boosting instructions in nanoparticles and injected them into mice. Within a month, the mice had developed antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The technique involves altering specific sequences of messenger RNA, molecules that translate genetic information into f ..read more

Researchers from Boston Medical Center’s Maxwell Finland Laboratory for Infectious Diseases have identified properties in placenta tissue that may play an important role in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 from a mother with the virus to her fetus. The study results demonstrate that the COVID-19 virus universally invades the placenta in cases with and without evidence of fetal infection, highlighting the protection that the placenta may offer against COVID-19 infection as current data indicates a less than five percent COVID-19 transmission rate in newborns from their mothers. Published ..read more

kills and physical-exercise training. “Researchers from each of the six trials came together to write a review paper describing their experiences conducting a telerehabilitation study, and to report on the facilitators and barriers to the implementation of telerehab services within a research context,” says Sakakibara. Going forward with telerehabilitation as a new reality, Sakakibara says the study authors determined there are important lessons learned from each of the six trials. Most notably, the efficacy and cost of telerehabilitation is similar to that of traditional face-to-face manageme ..read more

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition that is characterized by the buildup of clumps of beta-amyloid protein in the brain. Exactly what causes these clumps, known as plaques, and what role they play in disease progression is an active area of research important for developing prevention and treatment strategies. Recent studies have found that beta-amyloid has antiviral and antimicrobial properties, suggesting a possible link between the immune response against infections and the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Chemical biologists at the Sloan Kettering Institute have now dis ..read more

The humble ink in a tattoo artist’s needle could be the key to improving the detection of cancer, thanks to new research from the USC Viterbi Department of Biomedical Engineering. WiSE Gabilan assistant professor in the department with a lab at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, Cristina Zavaleta and her team recently developed new imaging contrast agents using common dyes such as tattoo ink and food dyes. When these dyes are attached to nanoparticles, they can illuminate cancers, allowing medical professionals to better differentiate between cancer cells and normal adjacent c ..read more

A new randomized control trial has found that turning mobile mental health intervention into a smartphone game can potentially improve well-being. Published September 2, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the five-week study conducted by Silja Litvin at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and her colleagues shows that gamifying the content of mobile interventions improved resilience, a key character trait that reduces the susceptibility to depression, stress, and anxiety. Mobile mental health apps have the potential to act as interventions for depression and anxiety, but the ..read more