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Scientists propose network of imaging centers to drive innovation in biological research
When sparks fly to innovate new technologies for imaging life at the microscopic scale, often diverse researchers are nudging each other with a kind of collegial one-upmanship.
“Look at the resolution we obtain with this microscope I’ve designed,” the physicist says. “Great,” the biologist replies, “but my research organism moves fast. Can you boost the system’s speed?” “You’ll have terabytes of raw data coming off that microscope system,” says the computational scientist. “We’ll build in algorithms to manage the data and produce the most meaningful images.” Around they go, propelling a cycle of challenge and innovation that allows them to see more clearly into new dimensions of the microscopic world.
Interdisciplinary interactions are essential for driving the innovation pipeline in biological imaging, yet collegial workspaces where they can spring up and mature are lacking in the United States. Last fall, the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) convened a National Science Foundation workshop to identify the bottlenecks that stymie innovation in microscopy and imaging, and recommend approaches for transforming how imaging technologies are developed and deployed. The conclusions of the 79 workshop participants are summarized in a Commentary in the August issue of Nature Methods.
“We propose a network of national imaging centers that provide collaborative, interdisciplinary spaces needed for the development, application, and teaching of advanced biological imaging techniques,” write the authors and workshop leaders, MBL Fellows Daniel A. Colón-Ramos of Yale University School of Medicine, Patrick La Riviere of the University of Chicago, Hari Shroff of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and MBL Senior Scientist Rudolf Oldenbourg.
“Creating spaces for co-locating microscopists, computational scientists and biologists, in our experience, is a key and missing ingredient in new and necessary ecosystems of innovation. Sometimes the seeds of innovation have to be planted in the same pot for them to flower and be fruitful,” Colón-Ramos says.
For the proposed centers to optimally succeed, they need expert staff scientists who engage in and catalyze collaborations among the major players in the imaging ecosystem, the group concluded. The centers will provide space and expertise not only for teaching existing, high-end imaging techniques, but also for designing and testing new technologies with real-world biological applications and disseminating them promptly to staff and visiting scientists, faculty and students. All can participate in an iterative innovation process, driving discovery while becoming interdisciplinary thinkers and project developers themselves.
As a next step in transforming the vision of national imaging centers into a reality, a follow-up meeting with a variety of funding stakeholders will be scheduled in the spring of 2020.
An Imaging Initiative is in progress at the MBL, with many elements of the proposed national imaging centers already in place and others under development.
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Parasite needs chemical (lipid/nutrient) in cat intestines for sex
Toxoplasma gondii is a microbial parasite that infects humans and but needs cats to complete its full life cycle. New research published August 20 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology shows why: the sexual phase of the parasite’s life cycle requires linoleic acid, a nutrient/lipid found at uniquely high levels in the felines, because cats lack a key enzyme for breaking it down. The finding, from by Bruno Martorelli Di Genova and Laura Knoll of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues, is likely to help in the development of treatments to reduce spread of the parasite from cats to their human companions. It also presents an opportunity to avoid using cats for Toxoplasma research.
Toxoplasma can live asexually in any mammal, including humans. But it forms gametes (sexual cells) only in cats, a restriction that has long been recognized, but whose reason was not understood. The authors suspected something was missing when reproducing the infections in vitro and not observing sexual development. It is known that fungi require linoleic acid for sexual development. To test Toxoplasma’s requirement for the same lipid, they generated cat intestinal organoids — three-dimensional “test tube” models that share several essential properties with actual intestines — and showed that linoleic acid was required for sexual reproduction of the parasite. Cats lack an enzyme called delta-6-desaturase, which catalyzes the conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, accounting for the peculiarly high levels of linoleic acid in the cat intestine, but not in other mammals. When the authors supplemented the diet of mice with linoleic acid, and added a specific inhibitor of the enzyme, Toxoplasma could complete the sexual phase of its life cycle in the mouse intestine.
Toxoplasma is the leading cause of foodborne illness in the US, according to CDC. The most common route of infection for human is by consumption of contaminated raw or undercooked meat. Cat litter, after 24-48 of being cleaned, can also a source of Toxoplasma infection. However, cats can only shed oocysts once in their life time. Pregnant women are urged to avoid eating raw or undercooked meat, as also avoiding cleaning the litterbox after 48 hours, to prevent Toxoplasma infection. Congenital toxoplasmosis can have potentially serious consequences for the unborn child. An improved understanding of the parasite life cycle stemming from this study may lead to production of vaccines that could inhibit Toxoplasma’s sexual reproduction or the transmission of Toxoplasma to livestock.
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New pharmaceutical target reverses osteoporosis in mice
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have discovered a pharmaceutical target that, when activated, can reverse bone degradation caused by osteoporosis in mouse models of the disease.
“The most widely used drugs currently approved by the FDA to treat osteoporosis can prevent further bone loss, but they don’t help rebuild the bone,” said Shyni Varghese, professor of biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, and orthopedics at Duke.
“We’ve discovered a biochemical receptor that, when activated, can do both,” added Yu-Ru “Vernon” Shih, a research scientist in Varghese’s lab and the study’s first author.
The findings appear online August 21 in the journal Science Advances.
Despite its apparent rigidity, bone is living tissue constantly being broken down and replaced by the body. Osteoporosis occurs when old tissue is lost faster than new tissue can be created, causing the bone to become weak and brittle. The disease afflicts more than 40 million men and women in the United States alone and is most common in older women past menopause.
In 2014, Varghese was studying the role of popular biomedical devices made of calcium phosphate in promoting bone repair and regeneration. She discovered that the biochemical adenosine acting on the A2B receptor plays a particularly large role in promoting bone growth. It stood to reason that a lack of the chemical might play a role in the development of osteoporosis, so Varghese decided to find out.
In the study, Varghese and her research team studied mice that had had their ovaries removed to mimic post-menopause osteoporosis. They looked at the expression levels of two enzymes that help produce adenosine as well as the levels of adenosine traveling between cells. As predicted, they discovered that the mice’s lack of estrogen was causing all three to plummet.
The researchers then tested to see if increasing the levels of adenosine in the mice would help reverse the damaging effects of the disease. But rather than pumping in adenosine itself, they injected a non-hormonal small molecule produced by Bayer that activates the A2B receptor.
“The mice that received the drug were completely cured,” said Varghese. “Their bones were just as healthy as the control group without osteoporosis.”
While the discovery of a pharmaceutical target capable of reversing osteoporosis is exciting, creating a small molecule drug that can activate it without side effects is a difficult task. Adenosine is created naturally throughout the entire body and has many roles such as modulating neurons and regulating blood flow to various organs. Researchers can’t simply dump a bunch of it into the bloodstream to stop bone degradation without side effects.
But with the A2B receptor identified, Varghese and others can start looking for ways to deliver activators to bones without flooding other areas of the body. For example, one of Varghese’s students is beginning to study ways of tethering adenosine-like molecules to carriers that target bone tissue. Her lab is also pursuing a sort of bandage that can deliver growth-supporting drugs directly to damaged or broken bones.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01-AR063184, R01-AR071552).
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Ronda Rousey’s Middle Finger Almost Snapped In Two—See the Graphic Photo
Professional wrestler Ronda Rousey shared a (quite disturbing) photo of her broken finger on Instagram Tuesday—and it definitely warrants a "graphic content" warning.
In the photo, Rousey shows the middle finger on her left hand practically snapped in two. The craziest part? Rousey apparently didn’t notice the break at first, which happened while she was filming for the drama series 9-1-1.
“So the word is out I nearly lost my finger shooting [9-1-1]," she wrote in the caption. "Freak accident, first take of the day a boat door fell on my hand, I thought I just jammed my fingers so I finished the take before looking,” Okay, what? How does one not notice a break like that the second it happens?
RELATED: 5 Times Ronda Rousey Seriously Inspired Us
Rousey continued explaining: “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m used to live audiences and never showing pain unless I’m supposed to.”
“After a break in the action I told our director the situation and was rushed via ambulance to the hospital," she wrote. "I returned to filming the next day and finished my scenes before returning home to recover."
According to the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH), injuries like these that involve the fingertips are among the most common hand injuries. That's because fingertips are exposed to many activities, the ASSH explains. “A fingertip injury can result in damage to the skin, bone, nailbed, tendons, and the pulp, the padded area of the fingertip. You can also damage the nerve endings in the fingertips,” according to ASSH.
RELATED: 7 Things You Didn't Know About Your Bones
The treatment for a fingertip injury obviously depends on the nature of the injury. Treatment could be as simple as dressing the injury with gauze or as severe as amputation. It could also involve splints, metal pins, or surgery, according to ASSH. Rousey's injury, according to her Instagram post, apparently warranted the latter. Doctors at the hospital "promptly reattached my bone and tendon with a plate and screws," she wrote.
You might think that an injury like this would take weeks to come back from, but Rousey explained that she was at least somewhat functional just a few days after the incident. “Modern medicine amazes me, I already had 50% range of motion back in 3 days,” she said.
Rousey laughed off the gruesome injury, humorously promoting 9-1-1. She wrote in the Instagram post, “Tune in to see how well I can act like my finger didn’t just fall off in this upcoming season.”
RELATED: How Do Broken Bones Heal?
Health24.com | Many ‘anti-vaxxer’ parents would switch doctors over vaccination policy
Forty percent of US parents say they would likely find a new doctor if their child’s primary care provider sees families who refuse childhood vaccines, a nationwide poll finds.
And three in 10 say their child’s primary care provider should not treat youngsters whose parents refuse all vaccines.
A challenging position
Those are key findings of the latest C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health from the University of Michigan. The findings are based on responses from 2 032 parents of at least one child aged 18 or younger.
“When a family refuses all childhood vaccines, it puts providers in a challenging position,” poll co-director Sarah Clark said in a university news release announcing the findings.
Not only is an unvaccinated child unprotected against harmful and contagious diseases (such as measles, whooping cough and chickenpox), those who skip vaccines also pose a risk of transmitting diseases to other patients, she pointed out.
“This can be especially risky exposure for vulnerable populations, including infants too young to receive vaccines, elderly patients, patients with weakened immune systems or pregnant women,” Clark added.
But many parents were unaware of their health care provider’s policies, and some were unconcerned.
Many parents favour tighter controls
Thirty-nine percent said their child’s primary care provider requires patients to get all recommended vaccines; 8% said only some vaccines are required; and 15% said their provider has no policy. Almost four in 10 weren’t sure.
But 29% of respondents said they’d be “somewhat likely” to look for another doctor if theirs saw kids whose parents had refused all vaccines. Twelve percent would be “very likely” to switch, the findings showed.
Six percent said their provider doesn’t let unvaccinated kids use the common waiting room; 2% said they are allowed do so if they wear a mask. About one-quarter said their provider had no restrictions.
Many parents favour tighter controls: 17% said unvaccinated kids should be kept out of the waiting room and 27% said any allowed in should have to wear masks. Yet, 28% of parents favoured no restrictions.
About 43% said they would want to know if other patients at their child’s primary care practice had received no vaccines, while 33% would not, according to the poll.
Policies surrounding unvaccinated children
Clark said recent measles outbreaks underscore the need for parents and providers to consider policies for unvaccinated children.
“Parents may assume that when they take their child to the doctor, they are in a setting that will not expose their child to diseases,” she said. “Parents may not have considered that there could be another child in the waiting room whose parents have refused all vaccines.”
Clark said providers need to consider whether to adopt policies to prevent exposure to vaccine-preventable diseases and then communicate them to everyone in their practice.
“Any parent – and particularly parents of infants or immunocompromised children – should ask their child’s primary care provider about policies surrounding unvaccinated children,” she advised.
The poll, administered to a representative sample of parents, has a margin of error of plus or minus one to three percentage points.
Image credit: iStock
West Lane Hospital patients ‘at high risk of avoidable harm’
Two patients died in two months at the Middlesbrough centre, which has been rated inadequate.
Health24.com | Could excessive fluoride consumption during pregnancy lower your baby’s IQ?
Fluoride exposure from drinking water during pregnancy could be making children less intelligent, a new Canadian study argues.
Expectant moms with higher levels of fluoride in their urine tended to have kids with lower average IQs, based on a study of 601 mother-child pairs from six cities in Canada.
Societal and economic concern
On average, a 1 milligram-per-litre increase in maternal urinary fluoride was associated with a 4.5-point lower IQ score in boys by the time they reached ages three to four, researchers report.
“Four and a half IQ points is of substantial societal and economic concern,” said senior researcher Christine Till, an associate professor of psychology at York University in Toronto. “We’re talking a magnitude that’s comparable to what we’re talking about when we talk about lead exposure.
“You would have millions of more children falling into the range of intellectual disability with IQ scores of less than 70, and that many fewer kids in the gifted range,” Till concluded.
However, the researchers only found an association, due to the observational nature of the study. It was published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Debate over fluoridation has simmered since cities began adding the mineral to public water supplies in the 1950s, Till said.
Two out of every three US residents now live in an area with fluoridated water, compared with 38% of Canadians and 3% of Europeans, the researchers said in background notes.
Strong case for a hypothesis
Despite these findings, more studies with similar results will be needed to prompt a tough reconsideration of fluoride’s safety, said paediatric neuropsychologist David Bellinger, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a professor of environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“In my view, a strong case for a hypothesis is present when multiple studies conducted independently produce consistent results. I don’t think we are there yet in terms of fluoride neurotoxicity, but the results of this study move the needle in that direction,” said Bellinger, who wrote an editorial accompanying the report.
“When it comes to epidemiology, it is unwise to place too much emphasis on the results of any one study,” Bellinger concluded, although he noted that Till and her colleagues produced a “very good environmental epidemiology study”.
The American Dental Association released a statement saying it “remains committed to fluoridation of public water supplies as the single most effective public health measure to help prevent tooth decay.
“Throughout more than 70 years of research and practical experience, the overwhelming weight of credible scientific evidence has consistently indicated that fluoridation of community water supplies is safe,” the ADA said. “The evidence-based research shows the recommended concentrations of fluoride (0.7 mg/L) used in community water fluoridation is beneficial and safe for the public.
“We welcome this and further scientific study of the issue to see if the findings can be replicated with methods that demonstrate more conclusive evidence,” the ADA said.
Fluoride crosses the placenta
For the Canadian study, the researchers gathered urine samples from pregnant women during each trimester and tested their fluoride levels. They also tracked the women’s potential exposure to fluoride by asking them to fill out a questionnaire regarding how much water, tea, coffee and other water-based beverages they drank.
Their children’s IQ scores were then assessed once they reached ages three to four, and those scores were compared against the fluoride in mom’s urine during pregnancy.
Fluoride crosses the placenta, and lab studies have shown that the mineral accumulates in brain regions involved in memory and learning, researchers said in background notes. Fluoride also has been shown to alter proteins and neurotransmitters in the central nervous system.
The researchers found that urinary fluoride levels during pregnancy were associated with lower IQ scores in boys, but no statistically significant association was found in girls.
No benefit to a foetus
“We found that fluoride exposure in pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in these preschool-age children,” Till said, though the study could not prove that fluoride exposure actually caused IQ levels to drop.
The study follows on the heels of a 2017 study in Mexico City that associated maternal urinary fluoride levels with a 6.3-point decrease in IQ levels among boys and girls, Till said.
“I definitely think emerging research is making the science evolve,” Till said.
Pregnant women should consider reducing their exposure to fluoride, Till said. That might include avoiding public water sources that are fluoridated, since those account for 70% of fluoride exposure in adults.
“There’s absolutely no benefit of fluoride to a foetus or a baby without teeth,” Till said. “You’re not doing any harm to your baby by reducing your fluoride intake. You can reduce it and your baby will be fine.”
Image credit: iStock
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