Publisher Health

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the importance wearing masks and disinfection of items has become paramount. As a result, there is now a greater need for effective, potent, and simple-to-apply disinfectants. Foam-type disinfectants are a leading candidate in this regard since they do not drip, keep the disinfected area visible, and are less likely to reach the user’s eyes.
However, foam-type disinfectants are not without issues. While the foam is usually stabilized with the adsorption of a surfactant at the air/liquid interface, adding high concentration of ethanol, an antiseptic, to foams in aqueous solutions causes defoaming resulting from destabilization of the foam.
To improve the stability of foam disinfectants at high ethanol concentrations, a group of researchers from Tokyo University of Science (TUS), Japan, in collaboration with the Life Science Products Division, NOF Corporation, have now come up with a new proposal. This study, led by Associate Professor Kenichi Sakai of TUS, was made available online on August 04, 2022 and published in Chemistry Letters.
In their study, the team added an anionic (negatively charged) surfactant, long-chain alcohols, and an inorganic electrolyte to an aqueous solution containing 60% ethanol by volume. They used sodium methyl stearoyl taurate (SMT) as the surfactant, CnOH (where n = 12, 14, 16) as the alcohols, and magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) as the electrolyte.
The inorganic electrolyte provided two main advantages: firstly, it enabled effective screening of the electrostatic repulsion between the SMT headgroup adsorbed at the air-liquid interface. Secondly, it promoted interactions between Mg2+ ions and the headgroups. These, in turn, facilitated the additional adsorption of SMT and CnOH, increasing the surface viscosity and foam stability.
“We have been working on this research project before the novel coronavirus infection became a social problem. We believe that the social impact of this research will only increase as the social need for disinfectants and health safety go up,” says Dr. Sakai, explaining his motivation behind the study.
The team observed that, in the absence of the MgSO4, foaming occurred upon shaking for CnOH (n = 12, 14, 16) with the foam stability increasing with increasing n. Additionally, the combination of SMT and CnOH resulted in a decrease in surface tension and an increase in surface viscosity, which increased foam stability.
When MgSO4 was added, foaming happened upon vigorous shaking. The foam stability increased with increase in the mole ratio of MgSO4, which decreased the surface tension while increasing the surface viscosity.
Finally, the team used a non-pressurized commercial pump to test the foam formation of the solution. They found that the SMT and C14OH mixture produced adequate foaming both with and without MgSO4. Further, defoaming occurred after 30 seconds for both cases, an appropriate time scale for the dissipation of the foam after application.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected human lives and social activities on a global scale. As a result, the importance of proper sanitation has been recognized worldwide. We believe that the results of our research will contribute to the sustainable development goal (SDG3) of ensuring good health and well-being among people of all ages,” says Dr. Sakai.
Indeed, the team’s samples could help formulate foam-type hand sanitizers you may be using soon.

For people trying to improve their health and lose weight by themselves — privately tracking and journaling meals and exercise — new research from UBC Okanagan suggests it is time to call in the professionals.
Dr. Lesley Lutes’ latest research paper, published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, suggests people trying to make lifestyle changes are more successful when they use a commercial weight loss program compared to those trying to do it on their own. She is the Director of UBC’s Centre for Obesity and Well-Being Research Excellence and studies behavioural change programs aimed at improving physical and emotional health and personal happiness.
“Given the prevalence of obesity, accessible and effective treatment options are needed to manage obesity and its comorbid conditions including heart disease and pre-diabetes,” she says. “Evidence-based commercial weight management programs are a potential solution to the lack of available treatment and considerably cheaper than a clinic-based approach.”
But, she notes, very few commercial programs have been rigorously evaluated, making it difficult for doctors to refer patients to for-profit programs due to a lack of evidence-based success rates.
While there are hundreds of commercial weight loss programs available — only six meet the United States Preventive Services Taskforce criteria — the quality and success rate, along with behavioural and nutritional components, isn’t well known by health-care providers.
Even fewer of these programs integrate cognitive, affective and behavioural factors — seen as critical elements of care and supported as the basic standard of any care.

A team that includes Rutgers scientists has designed a synthetic protein that quickly detects molecules of a deadly nerve agent that has been classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction and could be used in a chemical warfare attack.
This development could pave the way for a new generation of tailor-made biosensors and treatments that could be deployed against the chemical warfare agent, VX, scientists said.
As described in Science Advances, the team created the protein through a special design on high-speed computers in Rutgers laboratories.
“We’ve made an artificial protein that binds a chemical target — in this case, the VX nerve agent,” said Vikas Nanda, an author on the study and a scientist at Rutgers’ Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM). “We wanted to design it to generate a signal that could be coupled to a device, making a biosensor for chemical weapons. And we’ve been able to achieve that.”
VX is an odorless, tasteless, human-made chemical compound that is the most toxic and rapidly acting of any of the known chemical warfare agents. It works by attacking the nervous system, causing muscle paralysis and death via asphyxiation within minutes. Because VX is classified as a weapon of mass destruction, countries are banned from stockpiling it. However, nations are permitted to store small amounts for research.
The Rutgers team designed the protein to have a cavity at its center that matched the precise shape and chemical composition of VX. Collaborators at the City College of New York took the Rutgers design and produced a real version of the protein, purified it and shipped the sample on ice overnight to an approved chemical weapon testing facility, MRIGlobal in Kansas City, Mo. There, the protein was tested against VX within 24 hours.
“The protein underwent a dramatic shape change, burying VX in the cavity we designed,” said Nanda, who also is a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “This shape change is the signal which could be coupled to a sensor device.”
The protein, Nanda said, can detect VX at levels a thousand times more sensitive than current technologies. In addition, the protein doesn’t produce false positives that occur when present-day sensors accidentally detect non-nerve agent chemicals which are similar, like some pesticides.
According to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, VX or other nerve agents were possibly used in chemical warfare during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. Chemical weapons experts have alleged it also has been used more recently in warfare and, in one case, an assassination. While antidotes are available for VX, they are most useful if given as soon as possible after exposure.
“The design method presented here should enable the development of a new generation of biosensors, therapeutics and diagnostics,” Nanda said.
Douglas Pike, a graduate student at CABM, was involved in the study. In addition, James McCann, Mia Brown, and Ronald Koder of the Department of Physics, City College of New York, and David Crouse of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clarkson University, were on the study.
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Every day in the United States, 17 people die waiting for an organ transplant, and every nine minutes, another person is added to the transplant waiting list, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. One potential solution to alleviate the shortage is to develop biomaterials that can be three-dimensionally (3D) printed as complex organ shapes, capable of hosting cells and forming tissues. Attempts so far, though, have fallen short, with the so-called bulk hydrogel bioinks failing to integrate into the body properly and support cells in thick tissue constructs.
Now, Penn State researchers have developed a novel nanoengineered granular hydrogel bioink that makes use of self-assembling nanoparticles and hydrogel microparticles, or microgels, to achieve previously unattained levels of porosity, shape fidelity and cell integration.
The team published their approach in the journal Small. 
“We have developed a novel granular hydrogel bioink for the 3D-extrusion bioprinting of tissue engineering microporous scaffolds,” said corresponding author Amir Sheikhi, Penn State assistant professor of chemical engineering who has a courtesy appointment in biomedical engineering. “We have overcome the previous limitations of 3D bioprinting granular hydrogels by reversibly binding the microgels using nanoparticles that self-assemble. This enables the fabrication of granular hydrogel bioink with well-preserved microporosity, enhanced printability and shape fidelity.”
To date, the majority of bioinks have been based on bulk hydrogels — polymer networks that can hold a large amount of water while maintaining their structure — with nanoscale pores that limit cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions as well as oxygen and nutrient transfer. They also require degradation and/or remodeling to allow cell infiltration and migration, delaying or inhibiting bioink-tissue integration.
“The main limitation of 3D bioprinting using conventional bulk hydrogel bioinks is the trade-off between shape fidelity and cell viability, which is regulated by hydrogel stiffness and porosity,” Sheikhi said. “Increasing the hydrogel stiffness improves the construct shape fidelity, but it also reduces porosity, compromising cell viability.”
To overcome this issue, scientists in the field began using microgels to assemble tissue-engineering scaffolds. In contrast to the bulk hydrogels, these granular hydrogel scaffolds were able to form 3D constructs in situ, regulate the porosity of the created structures and decouple the stiffness of hydrogels from the porosity.

Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys, led by Ze’ev Ronai, Ph.D., have shown for the first time that inhibiting a key metabolic enzyme selectively kills melanoma cells and stops tumor growth. Published in Nature Cell Biology, these findings could lead to a new class of drugs to selectively treat melanoma, the most severe form of skin cancer.
“We found that melanoma is addicted to an enzyme called GCDH,” says Ronai, professor and director of the NCI-designated Cancer Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys. “If we inhibit the enzyme, it leads to changes in a key protein, called NRF2, which acquires its ability to suppress cancer. Now, our goal is to find a drug, or drugs, that limit GCDH activity, potentially new therapeutics for melanoma.”
Because tumors grow rapidly and require lots of nutrition, researchers have been investigating ways to starve cancer cells. As promising as this approach may be, the results have been less than stellar. Denied one food source, cancers invariably find others.
GCDH, which stands for Glutaryl-CoA Dehydrogenase, plays a significant role in metabolizing lysine and tryptophan, amino acids that are essential for human health. When the Ronai lab began interrogating how melanoma cells generate energy from lysine, they found GCDH was mission-critical.
“Melanoma cells ‘eat’ lysine and tryptophan to produce energy,” says Sachin Verma, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Ronai lab and first author of the study. “However, harnessing energy from this pathway requires cancer cells to quench toxic waste produced during this process. It’s a six-step process, and we thought the cells would need all six enzymes. But it turns out only one of these enzymes is crucial, GCDH. Melanoma cells cannot survive without the GCDH portion of the pathway.”
Further exploration showed that inhibiting GCDH in an animal model gave NRF2 cancer-suppressing properties.

Cell-based immunotherapy called CAR-T cell therapy has revolutionized the treatment of several cancers. The treatment uses genetically modified T cells to target and attack certain types of leukemia and lymphoma. While it can eliminate cancer in some patients who would otherwise succumb to the disease, it also comes with the risk of a range of side effects, some of which affect brain function and can be life-threatening.
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests a simple blood test — administered before CAR-T cell treatment is initiated — may identify which patients are predisposed to developing neurotoxic side effects in the days and weeks after CAR-T cell therapy. Analyzing blood samples from patients before, during and after CAR-T cell therapy, the researchers found that levels of a protein called neurofilament light chain (NfL) are higher in patients who go on to develop neurotoxic complications. High levels of the protein are present even before therapy begins, and those levels remain elevated throughout treatment and up to a month afterward.
The research, published Sept. 1 in the journal JAMA Oncology, could help doctors anticipate these life-threatening side effects and allow them to begin giving treatments that can reduce the neurotoxic effects early during a patient’s treatment. It also opens the door to developing ways to prevent the side effects or reduce their risk before CAR-T cell therapy begins.
“Our study suggests that some patients receiving CAR-T cell therapy have previously undetected damage to neurons present at baseline, before we even begin preparing them for this treatment,” said lead author Omar H. Butt, MD, PhD, an instructor in medicine who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. “We don’t know the origin of this damage, but it appears to predispose them to developing neurotoxic complications. If we understand who is at risk of these complications, we can take early steps to prevent it or reduce the severity.”
A general marker of damage to neurons, the NfL protein has been used to measure or monitor the severity of several neurologic diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
“Measures of NfL in the blood are being used as a way to evaluate the effectiveness of potential new therapies for multiple sclerosis,” said co-senior author Beau M. Ances, MD, PhD, the Daniel J. Brennan Professor of Neurology. “We plan to continue our studies to find the origin of neuronal damage in these cancer patients. This is a unique collaboration that was possible at Washington University because we have some of the top experts in CAR-T cell therapy and leading expertise in neurodegenerative diseases. It presents a great opportunity to bridge gaps and bring these fields together to try to solve a vexing problem and help patients.”
The study was relatively small, involving 30 patients treated at Siteman Cancer Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
The baseline levels of NfL could distinguish patients who did not develop neurotoxic side effects from those who developed any degree of such side effects. The researchers plan to continue analyzing data from more patients to see if a larger sample size will allow them to identify patients at risk of mild, moderate or severe complications.
The complications vary widely across individuals, and can include anything from difficulty concentrating, memory problems, confusion, difficulty reading, and headaches to seizures, strokes and brain swelling. Doctors manage these complications mainly with high-dose steroids and sometimes with immune modulating treatments that attempt to reduce inflammation. It is extremely helpful to know who is at risk of the most dangerous side effects since these therapies can, unfortunately, blunt the anti-cancer effect of the CAR-T cells, and doctors would prefer to avoid using them whenever possible.
Another mystery is that the elevated NfL levels are present beforehand and remain mostly stable even as some patients develop and then recover from neurotoxic side effects. This suggests that NfL levels indicate something is wrong but don’t reflect whatever is taking place to cause the patients’ complications.
“We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of the actual disease process, and that’s where many of our future studies are going,” Butt said. “We’re trying to get a better sense of what is causing these changes to begin with. And in later stages, even after symptoms have resolved, we still see these elevated NfL levels.”
Added co-senior author Armin Ghobadi, MD, an associate professor of medicine and clinical director of the Center for Gene and Cellular Immunotherapy at Washington University School of Medicine and Siteman Cancer Center: “We have a study ongoing at Siteman to see if, in fact, these patients continue to have subtle symptoms in terms of cognitive changes or deficits that persist long term.”

Scientists have created a roadmap of the genetic mutations present in the most common childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital study is the first to supply a comprehensive view of the genomics of all subtypes of ALL. The work serves as a foundational guide for physicians and scientists to understand disease development and improve treatment outcomes. The research was published today in Nature Genetics.
“In this study, we were able to comprehensively define the number and type of recurrently altered genes that are found in childhood ALL,” said co-corresponding author Charles Mullighan, Ph.D., M.B.B.S., St. Jude Department of Pathology. “Because of the scale of the study, we could identify many newly implicated genes that have not been reported in leukemia or cancer at all, and to show that they fall into several new cellular pathways.”
Creating A Roadmap to Understand ALL
Due to the work of scientists and clinicians at institutions such as St. Jude, most children with ALL will survive. However, a fraction of those patients do not respond well to therapy. Scientists believed that differences in these patients’ cancer genetics could predict treatment responses. For example, the St. Jude team found that in leukemia that is normally considered low risk, a single specific genetic rearrangement was associated with a significantly increased risk of relapse.
If researchers understand the impact of genetic differences on cancer outcomes, then in the future physicians can sequence patients’ cancer before starting treatment. This will enable physicians to personalize treatments to individual patients based on their genetics and likelihood of responding to different anti-cancer therapies.
But before bringing personalized therapies into the clinic, scientists need to map the different mutations that drive the development of leukemia across the landscape of diverse disease subtypes.

Tumors have significant differences depending on the person affected, even if they are the same cancer, such as breast cancer. Therefore, precision oncology targets specific genetic characteristics of a tumor and incorporates them into treatment. In this way, existing therapies can be “tailored” to avoid side effects and save money on expensive treatments. This represents the cancer treatment of the future.
Dr Dilara Akhoundova, medical oncologist at the University Hospital Bern and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, and Prof Mark A. Rubin, director of the Department for BioMedical Research (DBMR) and the Bern Center for Precision Medicine (BCPM), have now summarized and reviewed the most recent advances in multi-omics tumor profiling. In their review, published in the leading journal Cancer Cell, they provide a critical view of the current state of translational validation of the reviewed technologies and analyze their potential for integration into precision treatment. “These new technologies take us to a depth of understanding of tumors that has never been seen before. It is as if with the standard tools, we were told that Switzerland is a country with higher altitudes than the Netherlands; with these new technologies, we can see the 3-D landscape of mountains, valleys, and lakes,” says Mark A. Rubin, Director of the Bern Center for Precision Medicine.
Integrating novel technologies into the clinic as fast as possible
However, there are still a number of hurdles to overcome before the latest technologies can be used in the clinic: among other things, they still need to be standardized, or require new infrastructures in clinics due to the evaluation of a very large volume of data or regulatory approval.
One of the latest promising technologies in precision oncology is liquid biopsy, which makes it possible to provide information about the type of cancer in patients more quickly and minimally invasively by means of a blood test. Especially in the case of tumors located deep in the body, such as in the lungs or pancreas, this requires invasive procedures, occasionally under general anesthesia. Many such technologies as liquid biopsy are being used in translational and clinical cancer research. Their clinical potential is already very high; they still require, in some cases, an additional method that increases “measurement accuracy” for certain samples. Other innovations are still in their infancy and need to be clinically validated to see if they can even achieve their goal.
Bern initiatives for cancer research in Switzerland
Advancing and implementing novel, cutting-edge technologies into precision medicine is a crucial focus of BCPM. Cancer translational research projects led by researchers at the BCPM, such as those led by Prof. Mark A. Rubin, Prof. Marianna Kruithof-De Julio, and Prof. Sven Rottenberg, as well as a tight collaboration with clinical oncologists from the University Hospital Bern and other Swiss institutions, are essential to advance precision oncology further, and approach novel technologies to the patients. “In our review, we consider how these new approaches can be translated into tests that can better predict responses to tumor therapies in patients,” says Dilara Akhoundova, lead author of the study.
Another important Bern precision oncology initiative is the Swiss Oncology and Cancer Immunology Breakthrough Platform (SOCIBP), which aims to establish a common genomic “language” for Swiss cancer research: Molecular tumor data will be presented and shared in an understandable way, and genomic testing across Switzerland will be standardized. The project is funded by the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN), a federal initiative. “One of our current translational projects focuses on the standardization and clinical validation of genomic tests assessing DNA repair in prostate cancer and other solid tumors,” Rubin explains. The project’s overarching goal is to develop more reliable predictive biomarkers allowing precision oncology treatment for tumors harboring DNA repair defects.
The study was supported by the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) SOCIBP, the Swiss Cancer League, the Nuovo-Soldati Foundation for Cancer Research, the ISREC Fondation Recherche Cancer, and the Werner and Hedy Berger-Janser Foundation.
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Scientists at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus have discovered a new kind of synapse in the tiny hairs on the surface of neurons.
The commonly overlooked protrusions called primary cilia contain special junctions that act as a shortcut for sending signals quickly and directly to the cell’s nucleus, inducing changes to the cell’s chromatin that forms chromosomes.
“This special synapse represents a way to change what is being transcribed or made in the nucleus, and that changes whole programs,” says Janelia Senior Group Leader David Clapham, whose team led the new research published September 1 in Cell. The effects in the cell are not just short-term, he adds — some can be long-term. “It is like a new dock on a cell that gives express access to chromatin changes, and that is very important because chromatin changes so many aspects of the cell.”
Synapses are well-known to occur between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of other neurons, but had never been observed between the neuron’s axon and the primary cilium. Janelia’s high-resolution microscopes and innovative tools enabled the researchers to peer deep into the cell and cilia to observe the synapse, the signaling cascade inside the cell, and the changes in the nucleus.
The discovery of the ciliary synapse could help scientists better understand how long-term changes in cells are communicated. The cilia, which extend from the cell’s interior, near the nucleus, to the exterior, could provide a faster and more selective way for cells to carry out these long-term changes, Clapham says.
“This was all about seeing — and Janelia enables us to see like we couldn’t see before,” Clapham says. “It opens up a lot of possibilities we hadn’t thought of.”
Imaging cilia

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an analytical tool with a wide range of applications, including the magnetic resonance imaging that is used for diagnostic purposes in medicine. However, NMR often requires powerful magnetic fields to be generated, which limits the scope of its use. Researchers working at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM) have now discovered potential new ways to reduce the size of the corresponding devices and also the possible associated risk by eliminating the need for strong magnetic fields. This is achieved by combining so-called zero- to ultralow-field NMR with a special hyperpolarization technique. “This exciting new method is based on an innovative concept. It opens up a whole range of opportunities and overcomes previous disadvantages,” said Dr. Danila Barskiy, a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award winner who has been working in the relevant discipline at JGU and HIM since 2020.
New approach to enable measurements without strong magnetic fields
The current generation of NMR devices is — because of the magnets — extremely heavy and expensive. Another complicating factor is the present shortage of liquid helium that is employed as a coolant. “With our new technique we are gradually moving ZULF NMR towards a status of being completely magnet-free, but we still have many challenges to overcome,” stated Barskiy.
To make magnets redundant in this context, Barskiy has come up with the idea of combining zero- to ultralow-field nuclear magnetic resonance (ZULF NMR) with a special technique that makes it possible to hyperpolarize atomic nuclei. ZULF NMR is itself a recently developed form of spectroscopy that provides abundant analytical results without the need for large magnetic fields. Another advantage over high-field NMR is the fact that its signals can also be readily detected in the presence of conductive materials, such as metals. The sensors employed for ZULF NMR, typically optically pumped magnetometers, are highly sensitive, easy to use, and they are already commercially available. Thus it is relatively straightforward to assemble a ZULF NMR spectrometer.
SABRE-Relay: Transferring spin order like a baton
However, the generated NMR signal is an issue to be dealt with. The methods that have been used to date to generate the signal are suitable only for the analysis of a limited selection of chemicals or are otherwise associated with exorbitant costs. For this reason, Barskiy has decided to exploit the hyperpolarization technique SABRE which allows aligning nuclear spins at large numbers in solution. There are a number of such techniques that would produce a signal sufficient for detection in ZULF conditions. Among these is SABRE, short for Signal Amplification by Reversible Exchange, which has proved to be particularly well suited. Central to the SABRE technique is an iridium metal complex that mediates the transfer of the spin order from parahydrogen to a substrate. Barskiy has managed to sidestep the disadvantages resulting from the temporary binding of the sample to the complex by employing SABRE-Relay, a very recent improvement of the SABRE technique. In this case, SABRE is used to induce polarization which is then relayed to a secondary substrate.
Spin chemistry at the interface of physics and chemistry
In their paper titled “Relayed Hyperpolarization for Zero-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance” published in Science Advances, Dr. Danila Barskiy, lead author Erik Van Dyke, and their co-authors report on how they were able to detect the signals for methanol and ethanol extracted from a sample of vodka. “This simple example demonstrates how we have been able to extend the application range of ZULF NMR with the help of an inexpensive, rapid, and versatile method of hyperpolarization,” summarized Barskiy. “We hope that we’ve managed to get a little closer to our objective of making feasible the development of compact, portable devices that can be used for the analysis of liquids such as blood and urine and in future, possibly endowing discrimination of particular chemicals such as glucose and amino acids.”
Danila Barskiy won a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2020 and as a result relocated from the University of California, Berkeley to Mainz, where he began research in Professor Dmitry Budker’s group at the JGU Institute of Physics and HIM. Barskiy is active in the field of physical chemistry and heads a research group focusing on the possible applications of NMR in chemistry, biology, and medicine.
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