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NSF funds UCSB-led Biofoundry to revolutionize biotechnology with unexplored microbes

This week, the National Science Foundation announced the award of a six-year, $22M grant to UC Santa Barbara under its biofoundries program for the establishment of the BioFoundry for Extreme and Exceptional Fungi, Archaea and Bacteria (ExFAB), a collaboration led by UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), together with UC Riverside (UCR), and Cal Poly Pomona (CPP). ExFAB establishes the nation's first biofoundry that focuses on largely untapped and unexplored extreme microbes. UCSB's award is one of only five grants made under NSF's BioFoundry program during this funding cycle, which awarded a total of $75M to the five selected universities.

29 Aug 2024

Study reveals misconceptions among professionals assessing dyslexia

Misconceptions about dyslexia are held by professionals who assess children for the learning difficulty, according to a new study which calls for evidence-based standardized assessment procedures.

28 Aug 2024

Alleviating anxiety: The role of music education in schools

Study uses FAHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS to evaluate music education strategies for reducing anxiety and depression in students, identifying music appreciation and self-care as the most effective interventions.

28 Aug 2024

Primary care providers key to addressing emotional eating

Primary care providers are well positioned to address emotional eating because of their long-term relationships with patients, noted Jana DeSimone Wozniak, PhD and Hsiang Huang, MD, MPH, of Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

28 Aug 2024

Addressing the gender gap in substance abuse treatment

Woman with opioid use disorder and who are also involved with the criminal legal system face unique challenges and stigmas that may keep them from seeking substance use treatment and harm reduction tools that could prevent overdose deaths, according to new research led by a team from Penn State.

28 Aug 2024

University of Arizona nursing program receives $1.6 million to support indigenous students

Indigenous students pursuing nursing careers at the University of Arizona College of Nursing will benefit from additional financial support thanks to a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Indian Health Service.

27 Aug 2024

NIH funds study on psychedelics' potential to treat methamphetamine addiction

John McCorvy, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology, and Anatomy at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW); Adam Halberstadt, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Director of the UCSD Center for Psychedelic Research; and Kevin Murnane, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Neuroscience and Director of Basic Science Research for the Louisiana Addiction Research Center at LSU Health Shreveport, were recently awarded a five-year, $2.4 million research grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to uncover critical insights into how psychedelics could be used as a therapeutic to treat methamphetamine addiction.

27 Aug 2024

New center established to take the lead in enhancing living environments for all ages

The College of Design and Engineering (CDE) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has established the Centre for Environment and Ageing Well (ENgAGE) to take the lead in enhancing living environments that foster the physical, psychological and social well-being of individuals across all age groups, particularly in response to the challenges brought about by demographic shifts and climate change.

27 Aug 2024

Study identifies Gα13 as a key tumor suppressor in ER+ breast cancer

In looking for new ways to fight breast cancer, scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School have unmasked a surprising role of a protein generally associated with cancer growth. They have discovered that in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer, this protein acts as a tumor suppressor instead. ER+ breast cancer constitutes about 80 percent of all breast cancer diagnoses, yet nearly 50 percent of women diagnosed with it experience a relapse after initial treatment.

27 Aug 2024

Stem cell study identifies unique glial contributions to multiple sclerosis

A team of scientists from The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute and Case Western Reserve University has created the largest reported collection of stem cell models from multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and used them to identify unique ways in which glia – integral support cells in the brain – contribute to the disease.

26 Aug 2024

Brief periods of light-intensity exercise can boost children's cerebral blood flow

Cognitive functions, also known as intellectual functions, encompass thinking, understanding, memory, language, computation, and judgment, and are performed in the cerebrum.

26 Aug 2024

University of Oklahoma researcher receives NIH grant to explore natural cancer treatments

Today, about 25% of drugs approved to treat cancer are derived from nature – from the bark of a tree to marine life to bacteria in the soil.

26 Aug 2024

Understanding the health benefits of polyphenols through bitter taste receptors

Bioactive compounds like polyphenols and their health benefits have long captured public attention and interest.

23 Aug 2024

Multimodal therapy shows promise for cancer treatment

Cancer remains one of the most challenging diseases to treat due to its complexity and tendency to metastasize (spread into or invade, nearby tissues or distant places in the body to form new tumors). Traditional therapies, such as chemotherapy and radiation, often face limitations like non-specific targeting and severe side effects. In response, researchers are turning to innovative approaches that combine multiple therapeutic modalities to address these issues. This study explores a cutting-edge solution involving CNHs to create a multimodal cancer phototheranostic platform integrating photothermal therapy (PTT), immunotherapy, and chemotherapy.

23 Aug 2024

Immune cells' two-pronged approach to maintaining acetyl-CoA reserves

Immune cells use two different routes to produce acetyl-CoA, an essential metabolite required to fight infection and cancer, reports a study led by Van Andel Institute scientists.

23 Aug 2024

Virginia Tech leads national initiative to predict and prevent future pandemics

Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 don't respect boundaries, moving between species and continents and leaving destruction as they go. Beating the next pathogen with pandemic potential means getting good at crossing borders ourselves - between fields of study, between research universities, and between scientists and the wider community.

23 Aug 2024

ChatGPT shown to save time in responding to patient inquiries

The groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot shows potential as a time-saving tool for responding to patient questions sent to the urologist's office, suggests a study in the September issue of Urology Practice, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

22 Aug 2024

$1.35 million grant to enhance safety and wellbeing in long-term care facilities

Researchers from the University of Colorado College of Nursing and CU School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus were awarded a $1.35 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to design and implement technologies that improve resident safety and employee wellbeing at long-term care facilities.

22 Aug 2024

New NSF center to tackle pandemic expansion challenges

Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Nina Fefferman became a mathematician because she loves puzzles.

22 Aug 2024

New $20 million initiative focuses on community-driven health research

A new $20 million research initiative will engage the people most impacted by health disparities in developing solutions that may help improve their overall health and well-being.

22 Aug 2024