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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 6:42am

To find the answer, the researchers re-analyzed data from trials of the newest EGFR inhibitor, osimertinib, developed by AstraZeneca. They looked at baseline scans and first follow-up scans taken a few months into treatment for patients with either EGFR-only or with EGFR and p53 mutations.

The team compared every tumor on the scans, far more than were measured in the original trial. They found that for patients with just the EGFR mutations, all tumors got smaller in response to treatment. But for patients with both mutations, while some tumors had shrunk, others had grown, providing evidence of rapid drug resistance. This pattern of response, when some but not all areas of a cancer are shrinking in response to a drug treatment within an individual patient, is known as a "mixed response" and is a challenge for oncologists caring for patients with cancer.
To investigate why some tumors in these patients might be more prone to drug resistance, the team then studied a mouse model with both the EGFR and p53 mutation. They found that within resistant tumors in these mice, far more cancer cells had doubled their genome, giving them extra copies of all their chromosomes.

The researchers then treated lung cancer cells in the lab, some with just the single EGFR mutation and some with both mutations, with an EGFR inhibitor. They found that within five weeks of exposure to the drug, a significantly higher percentage of cells with both the double mutation and double genomes had multiplied into new drug-resistant cells.
Once we can identify patients with both EGFR and p53 mutations whose tumors display whole genome doubling, we can then treat these patients in a more selective way now.

 Sebastijan Hobor, Heterogeneous responses to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibition in non-small cell lung cancer result from chromosomal instability facilitated by whole genome doubling and TP53 co-mutation, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47606-9

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 6:41am

Why many lung cancer patients who have never smoked have worse outcomes
The reason targeted treatment for non-small cell lung cancer fails to work for some patients, particularly those who have never smoked, has been discovered by researchers.
The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that lung cancer cells with two particular genetic mutations are more likely to double their genome, which helps them to withstand treatment and develop resistance to it.
The most common genetic mutation found in NSCLC is in the epidermal growth factor receptor gene (EGFR), which enables cancer cells to grow faster. It is found in 10-15 % of patients who have never smoked.
Survival rates vary depending on how advanced the cancer is, with only around a third of patients with Stage IV NSCLC and an EGFR mutation surviving for up to three years.
Lung cancer treatments that target this mutation, known as EGFR inhibitors, have been available for over 15 years. However, while some patients see their cancer tumors shrink with EGFR inhibitors, other patients, particularly those with an additional mutation in the p53 gene (which plays a role in tumor suppression), fail to respond and experience far worse survival rates.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 6:31am

Permanent gene edits to tardigrades help shed light on their amazing resilience

Some species of tardigrades are highly and unusually resilient to various extreme conditions fatal to most other forms of life. And we need to know the genetic basis of this resilience to use the knowledge. 

For the first time, researchers successfully edited genes using the CRISPR technique in a highly resilient tardigrade species previously impossible to study with genome-editing tools. The work has been published in PLoS Genetics.

The successful delivery of CRISPR to an asexual tardigrade species directly produces gene-edited offspring. The design and editing of specific tardigrade genes allow researchers to investigate which are responsible for tardigrade resilience and how such resilience can work.

If you've heard about tardigrades, then you've no doubt heard about their uncommon abilities to survive things like extreme heat, cold, drought, and even the vacuum of space, which different members of the species possess. So naturally, they attract researchers keen to explore these novelties, not just out of curiosity, but also to look at what applications might one day be possible if we learn their secrets.

To understand tardigrades' superpowers, we first need to understand the way their genes function. 

Researchers have developed a method to edit genes—adding, removing or overwriting them—like you would do on computer data, in a very tolerant species of tardigrade, Ramazzottius varieornatus. This can now allow researchers to study tardigrade genetic traits as they might more established lab-based animals, such as fruit flies or nematodes.

The team used a recently-developed technique called direct parental CRISPR (DIPA-CRISPR), based on the now-famous CRISPR gene-editing technique, which can serve as a genetic scalpel to cut and modify specific genes more efficiently than ever before. DIPA-CRISPR has the advantage of being able to affect the genome of a target organism's offspring and had previously been shown to work on insects, but this is the first time it's been used on the non-insect organisms that include tardigrades.

Single-step generation of homozygous knockout/knock-in individuals in an extremotolerant parthenogenetic tardigrade using DIPA-CRISPR, PLoS Genetics (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011298

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 11:33am

Chronic Insomnia Linked to Ultra-Processed Foods

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have been linked to health problems such as heart disease and diabetes, and a new study suggests they might also be contributing to chronic insomnia in some people. These UPFs can be any foodstuffs that are heavily modified to improve their taste, or produce them on a mass scale, or help them to last longer. They contrast with foods like fruit or vegetables, that come mostly as they are.

Researchers led by a team from Sorbonne Paris Nord University in France looked at data collected on 38,570 adults as part of the NutriNet-Santé research project, mapping diet information against sleep variables.
Researchers found a statistically significant association between higher UPF consumption and increased chronic insomnia risk, after allowances were made for sociodemographic, lifestyle, diet quality, and mental health factors.
Overall, the study participants got 16 percent of their daily energy from UPFs, while 19.4 percent of the cohort reported symptoms of chronic insomnia – and this group tended to have more UPFs in their dietary intake.

The data also showed a slightly stronger association in men. The study only assessed single points in time, and relied on self reporting, but the large number of people involved suggests this is a link that's worthy of future investigation.
https://www.jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(24)00094-7/fulltext

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 11:28am

Imaging techniques peek into the placenta
Researchers are finding ways to monitor an understudied human organ: the placenta. Defects in the placenta might be responsible for many miscarriages and stillbirths. The mysterious organ has proven difficult to study, largely because of the risks to pregnant women and their historical exclusion from clinical trials. Magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasounds help researchers to visualize the placenta and its blood flow in a non-invasive way, and spot potential problems before they lead to pregnancy loss. But progress remains slow. We’re dealing with a paradigm change, and there’s a lot of resistance to changing the paradigm now.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/06/placenta-stillbi...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 11:25am

Drug that ‘melts away’ tumours hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for some bowel cancer patients
Pembrolizumab triples chance of survival for the 10-15% of patients with the 'right genetic makeup', study finds
A “gamechanger” immunotherapy drug that “melts away” tumours dramatically increases the chances of curing some bowel cancers and may even replace the need for surgery, doctors have said.

Pembrolizumab targets and blocks a specific protein on the surface of immune cells that then seek out and destroy cancer cells.

Giving the drug before surgery instead of chemotherapy led to a huge increase in patients being declared cancer-free, a clinical trial found. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world’s largest cancer conference.

https://meetings.asco.org/abstracts-presentations/234190?utm_source...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 11:17am

A glass that builds and heals itself

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 11:13am

A glass that builds and heals itself

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 11:11am

How spaceflight disrupts a person’s biology
Just a few days in orbit can cause immune-cell disruption, dehydration and cloudy thinking — but most of these conditions revert to normal soon after travellers return to Earth, according to the largest catalogue of data detailing the impacts of space travel on the human body. The reports aim to chart how spaceflight affects space tourists, who have a wider variety of health histories than trained astronauts. This is the beginning of precision medicine for spaceflight.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07639-y.epdf?sharing_tok...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07648-x.epdf?sharing_tok...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 13, 2024 at 10:47am

New theory describes how waves carry information from surroundings

Waves pick up information from their environment through which they propagate. A theory of information carried by waves has now been developed at TU Wien—with astonishing results that can be utilized for technical applications.

Ultrasound is used to analyze the body, radar systems to study airspace or seismic waves to study the interior of our planet. Many areas of research are dealing with waves that are deflected, scattered or reflected by their surroundings. As a result, these waves carry a certain amount of information about their environment, and this information must then be extracted as comprehensively and precisely as possible.

Searching for the best way to do this has been the subject of research around the world for many years. Researchers have now succeeded in describing the information carried by a wave about its environment with mathematical precision. This has made it possible to show how waves pick up information about an object and then transport it to a measuring device.

This can now be used to generate customized waves to extract the maximum amount of information from the environment—for more precise imaging processes, for example. This theory was confirmed with microwave experiments. The results were published in the journal Nature Physics.

Jakob Hüpfl et al, Continuity equation for the flow of Fisher information in wave scattering, Nature Physics (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-024-02519-8

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