Publisher Health

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have suggested that smokers who are unable to quit smoking may benefit by switching from smoking cigarettes to vaping e-cigarettes if they switch completely and are able to avoid relapsing to cigarette smoking.
However, there have been few studies on whether smokers are able to transition to e-cigarettes — battery-operated devices that heat a liquid made of nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals to make an aerosol that users inhale into their lungs — without relapsing back to cigarette smoking.
Published in the Oct. 19, 2021 online issue of JAMA Network Open, an analysis by the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center reports that e-cigarette use — even on a daily basis — did not help smokers successfully stay off cigarettes.
“Our findings suggest that individuals who quit smoking and switched to e-cigarettes or other tobacco products actually increased their risk of a relapse back to smoking over the next year by 8.5 percentage points compared to those who quit using all tobacco products,” said first author John P. Pierce, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.
“Quitting is the most important thing a smoker can do to improve their health, but the evidence indicates that switching to e-cigarettes made it less likely, not more likely, to stay off of cigarettes.”
Researchers used data from the nationally representative Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) longitudinal study, undertaken by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the FDA Center for Tobacco Products under contract with Westat. The team identified 13,604 smokers between in 2013 and 2015 who were followed over two sequential annual surveys to explore changes in use of 12 tobacco products.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to more than 218 million infections and over 4.5 million deaths as of Sept. 3, 2021. Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as case isolation, quarantining contacts, and the complete lockdown of entire countries, were implemented in an effort to contain the pandemic. But these NPIs often come at the expense of economic disruption, harm to social and mental well-being, and costly administration costs to ensure compliance.
Given the slow rollout of vaccination programs worldwide and the rise of several mutations of the coronavirus, the use of these types of interventions will continue for some time. In Chaos, by AIP Publishing, researchers in China use a data-driven agent-based model to identify new and sustainable NPIs to contain outbreaks while minimizing the economic and social costs.
“Based on the proposed model, we proposed targeted interventions, which can contain the outbreak with minimal disruption of society. This is of particular importance in cities like Hong Kong, whose economy relies on international trade,” said author Qingpeng Zhang.
The researchers built a data-driven mobility model to simulate COVID-19 spreading in Hong Kong by combining synthetic population, human behavior patterns, and a viral transmission model. This model generated 7.55 million agents to describe the infectious state and movement for each Hong Kong resident.
Since mobile phone data is difficult to obtain in most countries, the researchers calibrated their model with open-source data, so it could be easily extended to the modeling of other metropolises with various demographic and human mobility patterns.
“With the agent-based model, we can simulate very detailed scenarios in Hong Kong, and based on these simulations, we are able to propose targeted interventions in only a small portion of the city instead of city-level NPIs,” said Zhang.
The researchers found that by controlling a small percentage (top 1%-2%) of grids in Hong Kong, the virus could be largely contained. While such interventions are not as effective as citywide NPIs and compulsory COVID-19 testing, such targeted control has the benefit of a much smaller disruption of society.
The proposed model leading to the targeted interventions has the potential to guide current citywide NPIs to achieve a balance between lowering the risk and preserving human mobility and economy of the city.
“Our findings also apply to other major cities in the world, such as Beijing, New York, London, and Toyko, as COVID-19 is likely to be around indefinitely, and we have to learn how to live with it,” said Zhang.
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Materials provided by American Institute of Physics. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Identifying the dynamic events occurring during urinary tract infections (UTI) has revealed a new potential strategy to combat this condition, considered the most common type of infection. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine have discovered that the sequence of events taking place during UTI sustains a delicate balance between the responses directed at eliminating the bacteria and those minimizing tissue damage that may occur in the process.
The NRF2 pathway stood out as a key contributor to this balance, by regulating both the potential damage to tissues and the elimination of bacteria. Treating an animal model of UTI with the FDA-approved, anti-inflammatory drug dimethyl fumarate (DMF), a known NRF2 activator, reduced tissue damage and bacterial burden, opening the possibility that DMF could be used to manage this condition in the future. The study appears in the journal Cell Reports.
“Urinary tract infections are not only common, but typically recurrent and tend to give rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a serious medical concern,” said corresponding author Dr. Indira Mysorekar, E. L. Wagner Endowed Professor of Medicine- infectious diseases at Baylor, previously at Washington University School of Medicine.
“More than 85% of UTI are caused by uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC), bacteria that can attach to the surface of the epithelial cells lining the inside of the bladder, called urothelial cells,” said first author Dr. Chetanchandra S. Joshi, a postdoctoral associate in the Mysorekar lab. “Attached UPEC can then enter the urothelial cells, where they reproduce. In the current study, we looked at how urothelial cells fight back UPEC invasion and proliferation while preserving their integrity, which is essential for proper bladder function.”
A dynamic balance of responses
Working with urothelial cells grown in the lab, Mysorekar, Joshi and their colleagues discovered that a precise sequence of events followed UPEC invasion of urothelial cells. First, in the early hours after their infection, urothelial cells defended themselves by producing reactive oxygen species (ROS), highly active compounds that kill bacteria. However, if sustained, ROS also can damage urothelial cells, which would be detrimental for the bladder.

Scientists from the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Tracer Kinetics at Osaka University developed a novel system for targeted cancer radiation therapy that uses gold nanoparticles labeled with astatine-211. Owing to the limited range and half-life of the radiation, along with the localization of the nanoparticles, healthy cells are considerably less likely to be harmed. This work may lead to effective cancer treatments without the side effects of current techniques.
Brachytherapy is a method of treating cancer using a sealed radioactive source called a “seed” implanted directly inside the patient’s body. It has been found to be effective for certain tumors of the prostate, head, neck, and brain, among others. However, like other forms of radiation therapy, brachytherapy can also cause severe side effects, such as vomiting or headaches. More sophisticated methods for targeting radiation are needed to maximize the effectiveness of the treatment while sparing healthy cells.
Now, a team of scientists led by Osaka University has used gold nanoparticle “nanoseeds” containing a radioactive isotope to ensure that radiation was localized only to cancer cells. Astatine-211 is an unstable isotope of the element astatine that contains one extra neutron. This causes it to undergo radioactive decay while emitting alpha particles. Because of their large size, rapidly moving alpha particles can cause fatal double-strand breaks in the DNA of cancer cells while remaining close to the radiation source. In addition, because the half-life of astatine-211 is so short, about 7 hours, it will become inactive long before the nanoparticles can leak into healthy tissues. This allows large therapeutic doses to be administered without causing severe side effects. “We have developed a new safe and powerful cancer treatment using gold nanoparticles with astatine-211, which emits alpha rays that strongly damage target DNA but have a very short range inside the body,” first author Hiroki Kato explains.
Using rat or mouse models, the nanoparticles were injected directly into tumors. The team found that the nanoparticles entered the cancer cells but did not spread to other organs during a time period equivalent to six radioactive half-lives. At the same time, the nanoparticles were highly toxic to the cancer cells. “We have demonstrated that tumor growth can be strongly suppressed by injecting this nano drug directly into the tumor,” senior author Koichi Fukase says. Because gold nanoparticles can be easily fabricated, and astatine-211 may be produced in cyclotrons without the need for nuclear fuel, this new therapy can be made widely available in hospitals.
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Materials provided by Osaka University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Blood transfusions save lives, yet the precious fluid is in desperately short supply, not just in the U.S. but around the globe. But what if transfusions don’t always require blood?
A new mathematical model of the body’s interacting physiological and biochemical processes — including blood vessel expansion, blood thickening and flow-rate changes in response to the transfusion of red blood cells — shows that patients with anemia, or blood with low oxygen levels, can be effectively treated with transfusions of blood substitutes that are more readily available.
The research, co-authored by scientists at Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), was published on Oct. 14 in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
Using a different fluid could also eliminate a harmful consequence of blood transfusion: Blood use has been observed to lower lifespan by 6 percent per unit transfused per decade because of its adverse side effects.
“Instead of real blood, we can use a substitute that can lower the costs and eliminate blood transfusion’s negative effects,” said lead study author Weiyu Li, a PhD student in energy resources engineering at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).
Transfusion is a common procedure for transferring blood components directly to anemic patients’ circulation. Red blood cells are uniquely equipped to perform the function of carrying oxygen, which is why they are used for transfusions for patients experiencing anemia. But the process of obtaining, storing and delivering the correct, sanitary blood type for each patient is also intensive and costly. Moreover, the supply of blood that is available falls far short of the demand: The global deficit across all countries without enough supply totals about 100 million units of blood per year.

What’s a potential recipe for helping some patients with diabetes better manage their health? Start with a group of family medicine residents, throw in a dash of community health workers, fold in an abundance of vouchers for fresh fruit and vegetables and mix in local produce stands in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Yield: The Veggie Rx program at Penn State Health St. Joseph Downtown Campus.
It began in 2018 when the United Way of Berks County helped Lisa Weaver, a healthy community program associate with Penn State Berks LaunchBox, and a team of clinicians from Penn State Health St. Joseph and students from Penn State Berks launch a pilot program through which patients with chronic obesity and diabetes were offered vouchers as a way to improve their access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
“Community members who seek care at our downtown campus may not have easy access to produce for one reason or another,” Weaver said. “Our goal is to provide patients with resources to find nutrition that might help them live a healthier life, and ultimately lead to improved health outcomes and decreased health care costs.”
A passion for produce
Weaver and her colleagues teamed up with Susan Veldheer and other researchers from Penn State College of Medicine to analyze the pilot program data and figure out if the program was achieving its intended goals.

The F.D.A. may authorize booster shots of vaccines different from the ones that Americans originally received. The science behind the move is promising.The Food and Drug Administration seems likely to allow Americans to switch vaccines when choosing a Covid-19 booster shot. That authorization, which could come this week, is the latest development in a long-running debate over whether a mix-and-match strategy helps protect people from the coronavirus.Here are answers to some common questions about mixing and matching booster shots.How is mix-and-match different?Immunizations typically consist of two or more doses of the same vaccine. The Moderna vaccine, for example, is administered in two identical shots of mRNA, separated by four weeks.A double dose can create much more protection against a disease than a single shot. The first dose causes the immune system’s B cells to make antibodies against a pathogen. Other immune cells, called T cells, develop the ability to recognize and kill infected cells.The second shot amplifies that response. The B cells and T cells dedicated to fighting the virus multiply into much bigger numbers. They also develop more potent attackers against the enemy.In recent years, some vaccine researchers have experimented with a switch from one vaccine to another for the second dose. This strategy is technically known as a heterologous prime-boost.The pandemic spurred more research into this possibility. One of the first authorized heterologous prime-boost vaccines for any disease is the Sputnik V vaccine, developed last year by Russian researchers to prevent Covid-19. It uses two different adenoviruses to deliver coronavirus proteins, which the immune system then attacks. The first dose contains an adenovirus called Ad5, and the second contains another, called Ad26.Why might mix-and-match be better?Scientists have long suspected that heterologous prime-boosts sometimes work better than two identical doses. The designers of the Sputnik V vaccine were concerned that the first shot of Ad5 would create antibodies not just against the coronavirus proteins it delivered, but also against Ad5 itself. A second shot of Ad5 might be wiped out by people’s immune systems before it could boost protection against Covid-19.Studies of experimental H.I.V. vaccines also suggested that mixing vaccines could create a broader, more potent response than multiple doses of a single vaccine. Different types stimulate the immune system in different ways, and switching between two vaccines might give people the best of both worlds.The pandemic gave scientists new opportunities to test that idea. As the AstraZeneca vaccine was quickly rolled out in Europe, it became clear that younger recipients run a small but real risk of developing blood clots. Young people who had already received one dose of AstraZeneca were offered a second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech.Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines began showing that they were losing some of their effectiveness against Covid infection, although they both remained strong against hospitalization.Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesThe two vaccines are profoundly different. AstraZeneca’s formulation is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus. Pfizer and BioNTech make their vaccine with mRNA. When researchers looked at the immune response from this heterologous prime-boost, they found that it produced more antibodies than two shots of AstraZeneca alone.A larger trial with 830 volunteers took place in Britain. Researchers gave two doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to some of the volunteers, two shots of Pfizer-BioNTech to others, and a mix to the rest. They found no concerning evidence that a heterologous prime-boost caused dangerous side effects. (Still, in their report, published last month, the British scientists cautioned that their study was too small to detect rare problems.)The mix-and-match option could offer lifesaving flexibility in a world where Covid-19 vaccines remain in desperately short supply. If supplies were to run out before people got a second dose, they could switch to another vaccine and still get a strong immunity to the coronavirus.So what about Covid vaccine boosters?Vaccines against some diseases require more than two shots in a so-called primary series to reach the highest possible protection. In other cases, an additional booster shot, after the primary series, is needed to restore flagging immunity.Over the summer, both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines began showing some loss of effectiveness against infection, although they both remained strong against hospitalization. Nevertheless, the Biden administration began a push for boosters to restore people’s immune responses.Pfizer and BioNTech ran trials of boosters of their vaccine, while Moderna ran its own studies. Last month, the F.D.A. authorized a Pfizer-BioNTech booster for certain groups of people who received two doses earlier this year. It is expected to do the same for Moderna this week.Johnson & Johnson decided to use a single dose for its vaccine, which proved to be less effective in clinical trials than Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech. A study published last month found that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 71 percent effective against hospitalization, compared with 88 percent for Pfizer-BioNTech and 93 percent for Moderna.On Friday, the F.D.A. advisers voted in favor of authorizing a second dose of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine as a booster, to strengthen immunity in Americans who had received the first dose. But Dr. Peter Marks, the F.D.A.’s top vaccine regulator, said at the meeting that it was possible the agency would not require people to take the same vaccine as a booster.The agency is considering adjusting the language on the labels for all three authorized vaccines to indicate that providers can administer a different authorized vaccine at their discretion.How well do mix-and-match boosters work?The studies of heterologous prime-boosts in Europe earlier this year suggested that mixed vaccines can still deliver good protection against Covid-19. In June, the National Institutes of Health started its own variation on these trials, looking at what happens when fully vaccinated people switch to a new vaccine for a booster.Dr. Kirsten Lyke of the University of Maryland School of Medicine presented the first results of the trial at Friday’s F.D.A. meeting. The researchers recruited people who had gotten one of the three vaccines authorized in the United States, and then gave them one of the three vaccines as a booster. All told, they compared nine groups of 50 volunteers each.There are over 100 Covid-19 vaccines in clinical trials. Some may be most effective as “universal boosters” given to previously vaccinated people. Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesDr. Lyke and her colleagues found that switching boosters raised the level of coronavirus antibodies, no matter which combination people got. “Maybe these things are going to play well together,” she said in an interview. And switching to a new booster did not produce any notable side effects.The results for people who initially received a Johnson & Johnson vaccine were particularly striking. Those receiving a Johnson & Johnson booster saw antibodies go up just fourfold. Switching to a Pfizer-BioNTech booster raised antibody levels by a factor of 35. A Moderna booster raised them 76-fold.Dr. Lyke cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions from the results so far. The researchers hope that by next month they’ll know how well the different boosters increase T cells, not just antibodies. It’s possible that Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine will shine in those results..css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}.css-1in8jot{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1in8jot{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1in8jot:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1in8jot{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}What to Know About Covid-19 Booster ShotsThe F.D.A. authorized booster shots for a select group of people who received their second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at least six months before. That group includes: vaccine recipients who are 65 or older or who live in long-term care facilities; adults who are at high risk of severe Covid-19 because of an underlying medical condition; health care workers and others whose jobs put them at risk. People with weakened immune systems are eligible for a third dose of either Pfizer or Moderna four weeks after the second shot.Regulators have not authorized booster shots for recipients of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines yet. A key advisory committee to the F.D.A. voted unanimously on Oct. 14 to recommend a third dose of the Moderna vaccine for many of its recipients. The same panel voted unanimously on Oct. 15 to recommend booster shots of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine for all adult recipients. The F.D.A. typically follows the panel’s advice, and should rule within days.The C.D.C. has said the conditions that qualify a person for a booster shot include: hypertension and heart disease; diabetes or obesity; cancer or blood disorders; weakened immune system; chronic lung, kidney or liver disease; dementia and certain disabilities. Pregnant women and current and former smokers are also eligible.The F.D.A. authorized boosters for workers whose jobs put them at high risk of exposure to potentially infectious people. The C.D.C. says that group includes: emergency medical workers; education workers; food and agriculture workers; manufacturing workers; corrections workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; public transit workers; grocery store workers.Yes. The C.D.C. says the Covid vaccine may be administered without regard to the timing of other vaccines, and many pharmacy sites are allowing people to schedule a flu shot at the same time as a booster dose.“We’ll get a more rounded picture,” she said.Will there be other booster options?It’s entirely possible. Over 100 Covid-19 vaccines are now in clinical trials, with even more being tested in animals. Adam Wheatley, an immunologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, predicted that some of those new vaccines could prove to be superior boosters.Unlike vaccines made from mRNA or adenoviruses, those from companies like Sanofi-Pasteur and Novavax contain large amounts of viral proteins.“I suspect the protein boosters will be really good,” Dr. Wheatley said. “When you come in with a relatively large dump of proteins to the body, it results in a quite robust recall of antibody responses.”Nicolas Kressman, a spokesman for Sanofi-Pasteur, said the company was far along in trials of its protein-based vaccine as a booster for people who have already received other vaccines. “Our intention is also to develop our vaccine as a universal booster, able to boost immunity regardless of the vaccination first received,” he said.It’s not yet clear how many Covid-19 boosters we will need to gain long-lasting protection. It’s conceivable that a single shot may be enough. But it’s also possible that Covid-19 vaccines will have to be given every year, much like a seasonal flu shot.If Covid-19 boosters become an annual event, then a mix-and-match strategy should help enable more people to get vaccinated. It will be far easier for people to get regularly immunized if they don’t have to worry about receiving another shot of their original vaccine.The flu offers a precedent for this plan. Each year, vaccine makers produce new batches of seasonal flu shots. Some are inactivated influenza viruses. Some contain live viruses that are too weak to make people sick. Others are made just of proteins from influenza proteins. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has no preference for which age-appropriate flu vaccine people get.That sort of flexibility may also drive down the price of boosters.“Cost considerations are definitely going to play a role,” Dr. Wheatley said. “When you rock up to your local CVS, they might not carry the Pfizer shot, and you might have to get the Sanofi product because that’s what’s more cost-effective.”

A novel computational platform developed by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine identifies top-performing viral vectors that could deliver gene therapies to the retina with maximum efficiency and precision.
The technology, described in a paper published today in the journal eLife, streamlines development of gene therapy approaches for the treatment of genetic blinding disorders. The approach saves precious time and resources by speeding up identification of suitable gene-carrying candidates able to deliver therapy to an affected part of the retina with astounding accuracy.
“Vision loss has a huge impact on quality of life. It has long been near the top of the greatest fears of people, alongside cancer and Alzheimer’s disease,” said senior author Leah Byrne, Ph.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology at Pitt. “But the field of vision restoration has entered a new era, where many patients have received effective treatment for the very first time. Because of that, the potential of our new platform is thrilling — it will allow us to translate emergent therapies that are already working for some patients into the clinic much more rapidly.”
Even though blinding genetic disorders that affect the retina are considered rare, approximately 1 in every 3,000 people worldwide carries one or more copies of broken genes that cause retinal degeneration and loss of vision. For centuries, many people with inherited blindness were all but guaranteed to spend a portion of their lives in darkness.
Now, with several gene therapies already on the market in Europe and the U.S., and dozens more entering clinical trials, hope for people with inherited blindness is within reach, but a key obstacle remains: ensuring that vectors, or inactivated viruses carrying the therapeutic genetic code, enter the exact cells that scientists are targeting. The retina is composed of hundreds of millions of cells that are arranged into a series of layers, so precisely targeting the vector to a specific location within that universe is not a trivial task.
To approach the problem, researchers developed a computational platform called scAAVengr, which uses single-cell RNA sequencing to quickly and quantitatively evaluate — among dozens of options — which adeno-associated virus vector, or AAV, is best suited for the task of delivering a gene therapy to a specific part of the retina.
The traditional approach of evaluating AAVs is painstakingly slow, requiring several years and many experimental animals. It is also not very precise, since it doesn’t directly measure if AAVs not only entered the cells but also delivered their gene therapy cargo.
In contrast, scAAVengr uses single-cell RNA sequencing, which detects if the cargo arrives at its destination safely. And with scAAVengr, that process takes months, not years.
The platform’s uses aren’t just limited to the retina — the researchers showed that it works just as well for the identification of AAVs that target other tissues, including the brain, heart and liver.
“A rising tide lifts all boats, and we hope that this technology propels gene therapy treatments not just in the field of vision restoration but for other purposes,” said Byrne. “Rapidly developing fields of gene editing and optogenetics all rely on efficient gene delivery, so the ability to quickly and strategically choose the delivery vectors would be an exciting leap forward.”
Other authors of this research include Bilge Öztürk, Ph.D., Molly Johnson, B.S., Serhan Turunç, Ph.D., Jing He, B.S., Sara Jabalameli, P.S.M., Zhouhuan Xi, B.S., William R. Stauffer, Ph.D., and José-Alain Sahel, M.D., all of Pitt; Michael Kleyman, Ph.D., and Andreas Pfenning, Ph.D., both of Carnegie Mellon University; Meike Visel, Ph.D., David Schaffer, Ph.D., and John Flannery, Ph.D., all of the University of California Berkeley; Valérie Dufour, Ph.D., Simone Iwabe, Ph.D., Felipe Pompeo Marinho, Ph.D., and Gustavo Aguirre, Ph.D., all of the University of Pennsylvania.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (F32EY023891, R24EY-022012, R01EY017549, P30EY001583, UG3MH120094, DP2MH113095), The UPMC Immune Transplant and Therapy Center, Foundation Fighting Blindness, Ford Foundation, Research to Prevent Blindness and the Van Sloun Fund for Canine Genetic Research.

A new kind of fiber developed by researchers at MIT and in Sweden can be made into clothing that senses how much it is being stretched or compressed, and then provides immediate tactile feedback in the form of pressure, lateral stretch, or vibration. Such fabrics, the team suggests, could be used in garments that help train singers or athletes to better control their breathing, or that help patients recovering from disease or surgery to recover their breathing patterns.
The multilayered fibers contain a fluid channel in the center, which can be activated by a fluidic system. This system controls the fibers’ geometry by pressurizing and releasing a fluid medium, such as compressed air or water, into the channel, allowing the fiber to act as an artificial muscle. The fibers also contain stretchable sensors that can detect and measure the degree of stretching of the fibers. The resulting composite fibers are thin and flexible enough to be sewn, woven, or knitted using standard commercial machines.
The fibers, dubbed OmniFibers, are being presented this week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s User Interface Software and Technology online conference, in a paper by Ozgun Kilic Afsar, a visiting doctoral student and research affiliate at MIT; Hiroshi Ishii, the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; and eight others from the MIT Media Lab, Uppsala University, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.
The new fiber architecture has a number of key features. Its extremely narrow size and use of inexpensive material make it relatively easy to structure the fibers into a variety of fabric forms. It’s also compatible with human skin, since its outer layer is based on a material similar to common polyester. And, its fast response time and the strength and variety of the forces it can impart allow for a rapid feedback system for training or remote communications using haptics (based on the sense of touch).
Afsar says that the shortcomings of most existing artificial muscle fibers are that they are either thermally activated, which can cause overheating when used in contact with human skin, or they have low power efficiency or arduous training processes. These systems often have slow response and recovery times, limiting their immediate usability in applications that require rapid feedback, she says.
As an initial test application of the material, the team made a type of undergarment that singers can wear to monitor and play back the movement of respiratory muscles, to later provide kinesthetic feedback through the same garment to encourage optimal posture and breathing patterns for the desired vocal performance. “Singing is particularly close to home, as my mom is an opera singer. She’s a soprano,” she says. In the design and fabrication process of this garment, Afsar has worked closely with a classically trained opera singer, Kelsey Cotton.