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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 14, 2018 at 9:01am

Newer drugs make hepatitis C-positive kidneys safe for transplant

Improved antivirals could help expand the number of organs available for donation

People who received kidneys from donors infected with hepatitis C did not become ill with the virus, thanks to treatment with newer drugs that can cure the disease, a small study reports.

Ten patients not previously infected with hepatitis C took doses of powerful antiviral medications before and after receiving the transplants. None of the patients developed chronic infections, researchers report online March 6 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The finding could help make more kidneys available for transplants.

C. Durand et al. Direct-acting antiviral prophylaxis in kidney transplantation from .... Annals of Internal Medicine. Published online March 6, 2018. doi:10.7326/M17-2871.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 12, 2018 at 6:55am

Space travel changes your DNA. How much of that is permanent?

When Scott Kelly came back from his 342-day mission on International Space Station, the initial findings revealed that his telomeres lengthened in space, but shortened in just two days following his return to Earth. These findings suggest that genetic changes are temporary and DNA returns to normal after the passage of some time. NASA used two astronauts, Mark and Scott Kelly, since they were twins and shared the same DNA, this made things easier for the space agency to find out the differences or in other word how space affected human body. 

While it’s possible for the DNA differences to be a temporary effect on the human body, NASA’s findings reveal otherwise. Approximately 7 percent of Scott Kelly’s DNA changed while he was in space. So, 7 percent of his DNA was altered permanently, while the remaining 93 percent reverted to normal as his body adapted to living on Earth.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 11, 2018 at 7:20am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 2, 2018 at 9:18am

According to new research diabetes could be five  separate types.

The results, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, showed the patients could be separated into five distinct clusters.

• Cluster 1 - severe autoimmune diabetes is broadly the same as the classical type 1 - it hit people when they were young, seemingly healthy and an immune disease left them unable to produce insulin
• Cluster 2 - severe insulin-deficient diabetes patients initially looked very similar to those in cluster 1 - they were young, had a healthy weight and struggled to make insulin, but the immune system was not at fault
• Cluster 3 - severe insulin-resistant diabetes patients were generally overweight and making insulin but their body was no longer responding to it
• Cluster 4 - mild obesity-related diabetes was mainly seen in people who were very overweight but metabolically much closer to normal than those in cluster 3
• Cluster 5 - mild age-related diabetes patients developed symptoms when they were significantly older than in other groups and their disease tended to be milder

This new classification makes treatment better and scientists think treating these groups differently would produce better outcomes.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2018 at 9:22am

Lichens redefined...

For 150 years, scientists believed lichen were defined by a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and algae. The fungus provides structure and support for the organism, while the algae produces food through photosynthesis. However, researchers recently discovered that certain lichen have an additional fungus in the mix. This threesome was revealed after a team set out to explain what made one type of lichen toxic versus another that was seemingly identical.

Lichens may be a symbiosis of three organisms!

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/07/20/science.aaf8287

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 10, 2018 at 8:50am

Sunday, 11 February, is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

In order to achieve full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls, and further achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/70/212 declaring 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

http://www.un.org/en/events/women-and-girls-in-science-day/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 24, 2018 at 6:35am

For the first time, China has overtaken the United States in terms of the total number of science publications, according to statistics compiled by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

The agency’s report, released on January 18, documents the United States’ increasing competition from China and other developing countries that are stepping up their investments in science and technology. Nonetheless, the report suggests that the United States remains a scientific powerhouse, pumping out high-profile research, attracting international students and translating science into valuable intellectual property.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 18, 2017 at 11:43am

A new wave of thought to fight super bugs

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 7, 2017 at 10:52am

http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/70/3/479.full
Report of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Working Group on the Role of Microbiota in Blood Pressure Regulation

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 5, 2017 at 8:11am

Antibiotic weakness: When the medicines you take themselves help microbes survive?

A new study has found that medications can change body chemistry to make it more hospitable to invading microbes! 

Antibiotics save lives, but they are not fail-safe. Even when microbes haven’t acquired drug-evading genetic mutations—a hallmark of antibiotic resistance—the medications don’t always clear infections. A new study identifies a surprising reason why: At infection sites, antibiotics change the natural mixture of chemicals made by the body in ways that protect infecting bacteria. They also thwart the ability of the host’s immune cells to fight off the intruders.

These chemical changes were incited not by bacterial cells, but by the animals’ own cells. The researchers learned this after giving antibiotics to so-called “germ-free” mice that had no bacteria and saw the same chemical changes. 

Scientists are not sure how the chemicals elicit these effects. But they note some of the compounds slow down aspects of bacterial metabolism, making the antibiotics less lethal. Most antibiotics speed up bacterial metabolism while also de-stabilizing the metabolic process, leading to the build-up of toxic molecules inside the bacteria that help to kill them. With this process dampened, bacteria more easily survive.

The findings do suggest infections are complicated environments, and that antibiotics influence more than just bacterial cells, often in unexpected ways. And it is important to understand these complications for effective treatments.

These findings, published recently in Cell Host & Microbe, could help scientists “build more effective treatments''.

http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(17)30455-9

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