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Researchers with the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern have identified a new protein implicated in cell death that provides a potential therapeutic target that could prevent or delay the progress of neurodegenerative diseases following a stroke.
Scientists from the departments of pathology, neurology, biochemistry, and pharmacology at UTSW have identified and named AIF3, an alternate form of the apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF), a protein that is critical for maintaining normal mitochondrial function. Once released from mitochondria, AIF triggers processes that induce a type of programmed cell death.
In a study published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, the UT Southwestern team collaborated with researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and found that, following a stroke, the brain switches from producing AIF to producing AIF3. They also reported that stroke triggers a process known as alternative splicing, in which a portion of the instructions encoding AIF is removed, resulting in the production of AIF3. Defective splicing can cause disease, but modifying the splicing process may offer potential for new therapies.
In both human brain tissue and mouse models developed by researchers, AIF3 levels were elevated after a stroke. In mice, the stroke-induced production of AIF3 led to severe progressive neurodegeneration, hinting at a potential mechanism for a severe side effect of stroke observed in some patients. Stroke has been recognized as the second most common cause of dementia, and it is estimated that 10 percent of stroke patients develop post-stroke neurodegeneration within one year.
The molecular mechanism underlying AIF3 splicing-induced neurodegeneration involves the combined effect of losing the original form of AIF in addition to gaining the altered AIF3, leading to both mitochondrial dysfunction and cell death.
“AIF3 splicing causes mitochondrial dysfunction and neurodegeneration,” says senior author Yingfei Wang, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and neurology and a member of the O’Donnell Brain Institute. “Our study provides a valuable tool to understand the role of AIF3 splicing in the brain and a potential therapeutic target to prevent or delay the progress of neurodegenerative diseases.”
The findings are important for understanding the aftereffects of stroke, which strikes nearly 800,000 U.S. residents annually. Stroke kills one person every four minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and about one in every six deaths from cardiovascular disease is attributed to stroke — with ischemic strokes accounting for about 87 percent of all cases. Leading causes of stroke include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, and diabetes. Stroke also disproportionately affects certain populations and occurs more often in men, though more women than men die from stroke. CDC figures show Black people have twice the risk of first-time stroke than white people and a higher risk of death. Hispanic populations have seen an increase in death rates since 2013, while other populations have not.
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Materials provided by UT Southwestern Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The new guidance on mask-wearing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday says that masks can be shed for some relatively safe outdoor activities, especially by fully vaccinated people, because the virus does not spread readily outdoors.But there are many circumstances where the new guidance still calls for masks to be worn outdoors, especially by unvaccinated people.Here are some examples from the C.D.C.’s new guidance:Everyone can do without a mask when …Walking, running, hiking or biking outdoors, alone or with members of the same household.Attending a small outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated family and friends.Fully vaccinated people can do without a mask when …Attending a small outdoor gathering with a mixture of fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people.Dining outdoors at a restaurant with people from several households.For these kinds of activities, unvaccinated people should still wear masks and maintain social distance, the C.D.C. says.Everyone should still wear a mask when …Attending a crowded outdoor event, like a parade, sporting event or live performance.Doing almost anything indoors that involves contact with people who are not members of your household. Examples include dining indoors at a restaurant; going to the movies, an indoor concert or theatrical performance; attending full-capacity worship services; traveling on an airline flight or riding mass transit; singing in a chorus indoors; taking part in an indoor exercise class; visiting a shopping mall or museum; getting a haircut or manicure; or attending an indoor social gathering.Though most of these activities are much safer for fully vaccinated people than for the unvaccinated, the C.D.C. guidance says that everyone should still wear a mask to protect themselves and others. People are not likely to know the vaccine status of those around them, the guidance says, and it is not yet clear whether fully vaccinated people can still spread the virus while not becoming ill themselves. Unvaccinated people should also maintain social distance, the guidance says.

Armed with degrees in biomedicine and engineering, she wanted to administer health care. Her Covid-19 death came just five days before her father’s.This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Erica Chang, who was born in Flushing, Queens, graduated from Texas A&M University in 2019 with dual degrees. She was a rising star in the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. She had contemplated a career in medicine, possibly as a doctor. But when the coronavirus struck, she decided instead to focus on how to better deliver care.“She made the career change to become a project manager,” the society said in a statement, “seeing the need for process improvements in the health care system, especially during a pandemic.”Ms. Chang, who lived in Katy, Texas, just west of Houston, died on April 6 of complications of Covid-19, said Khanh Vu, the chief executive and executive director of the society. She was 24.Her parents were also infected. Her father, Chi-Kai Chang, died of the coronavirus five days later. He was 57.Among their survivors are her mother, Ling Wang, a homemaker, and her younger brother, Felix, who graduated from the University of Houston and recently enrolled in nursing school in Texas. He was attending school and was the only member of the immediate family not infected by the virus.Erica Chang was born on April 26, 1996, the daughter of immigrants from Taiwan. Her father graduated from engineering school and served in the military there before immigrating to New York, where he ran a laundry with his brother in Brooklyn. He married in 1994, worked for a bank for a decade and transplanted the family to Houston in 2007.After graduating from Hightower High School in Missouri City, south of Houston, which offers a concentrated program in medical sciences, Ms. Chang enrolled at Texas A&M.She earned degrees in biomedicine and industrial engineering in 2019 before joining the staff of Fused Industries, an industrial, civil and commercial construction company in Houston, as an engineer.“She became an engineer because she just enjoys efficiency and problem solving,” Mr. Vu said. “Beyond that she was an extremely empathetic person who cared for everyone’s well-being and what’s best for them.”In 2019, as a college senior, she served as chairwoman of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers’ national conference. She managed a virtual version of the conference last year and was a collegiate representative on the society’s board.Her online memorial service on April 25 echoed with tearful remembrances from friends.Hamzah Khanout, an engineer, recalled Ms. Chang’s “passion, determination, enthusiasm, optimism and kindness.” Shekhar Mitra, the president of InnoPreneur, a consultancy for start-ups, and a former senior vice president of Procter & Gamble, said, “She will be remembered forever for her inclusive leadership style and her empathy and caring for all who collaborated with her.”

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightGetty ImagesThe US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that fully vaccinated Americans do not need to wear a mask when they are outdoors.Those who have received all required jabs can ditch their face coverings if alone or in small groups of vaccinated people, the new guidelines say.But the CDC left in place its guidance to don a mask indoors and in crowded settings or venues.Over 95 million Americans have been fully vaccinated thus far.Following the CDC announcement on Tuesday, President Joe Biden celebrated the new guidance as “extraordinary progress”.US says vaccinated people can meet without masksWhy are Americans so angry about masks?The mask-wearing city that bucked the trend “Our scientists are convinced by the data that the odds of getting or giving the virus to others is very, very low,” Mr Biden said. “The bottom line is clear: if you’re vaccinated you can do more.” The president also urged Americans who have not yet received their shot to do so, calling it a “patriotic” act. “Vaccines are about saving your life but also the lives of the people around you – but they’re also about helping us get back closer to more normal living.”Health officials presented the new safety guidelines at Tuesday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing.”Small- and medium-sized gatherings for people who are outside and vaccinated can safely be done without a mask,” said CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky. This includes exercising or dining outdoors.She said that determining whether to wear a mask in larger outdoor gatherings would depend on other concerns like how well-ventilated a venue is and how much space is left between people.The guidelines are for the fully vaccinated – which means two weeks after a person’s final vaccine jab.image copyrightBRENDAN SMIALOWSKIEvidence suggests that, although Covid-19 infections can happen outdoors, the risks of transmission are very low. Early studies also indicate that fully vaccinated people are much less likely to spread the virus.Dr Walensky said mask guidance for the fully vaccinated was intended largely “to protect the unvaccinated”.”We really do want people who are unvaccinated to limit interactions with people, to go back to the basic principles of increased ventilation, spacing,” she said.Health officials have noted that the case count in the US is stabilising as the rate of vaccinations continues to grow, and on Tuesday, they called for more people to sign up for vaccinations. Nearly 141 million Americans – about 42% of the total population – have received at least one vaccine dose as of 26 April, according to the CDC.

The Marcellus Formation straddles the New York State and Pennsylvania border, a region that shares similar geography and population demographics. However, on one side of the state line unconventional natural gas development — or fracking — is banned, while on the other side it represents a multi-billion dollar industry. New research takes advantage of this ‘natural experiment’ to examine the health impacts of fracking and found that people who live in areas with a high concentration of wells are at higher risk for heart attacks.
“Fracking is associated with increased acute myocardial infarction hospitalization rates among middle-aged men, older men and older women as well as with increased heart attack-related mortality among middle-aged men,” said Elaine Hill, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Public Health Sciences, and senior author of the study that appears in the journal Environmental Research. “Our findings lend support for increased awareness about cardiovascular risks of unconventional natural gas development and scaled-up heart attack prevention, as well as suggest that bans on hydraulic fracturing can be protective for public health.”
Natural gas extraction, including hydraulic fracking, is a well-known contributor to air pollution. Fracking wells operate around the clock and the process of drilling, gas extraction, and flaring — the burning off of natural gas byproducts — release organic compounds, nitrogen oxide, and other chemicals and particulates into the air. Additionally, each well requires the constant transportation of equipment, water, and chemicals, as well as the removal of waste water from the fracking process, further contributing to air pollution levels. Fracking wells remain in operation for several years, prolonging exposure to people who work at the wells sites and those who live nearby.
Instead of the typical single source of industrial air pollution, such as a factory or power plant, fracking entails multiple well sites spread across a large, and often rural, geographic area. In 2014, there were more than 8,000 fracking well sites in Pennsylvania. Some areas of the state have a dense population of fracking wells — three Pennsylvania counties have more than 1,000 sites. Contrast that with New York State, which has essentially banned the process of hydraulic fracking since 2010.
Exposure to air pollution is recognized as a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Other research has shown that the intensity of oil and gas development and production is positively associated with diminished vascular function, blood pressure, and inflammatory markers associated with stress and short-term air pollution exposure. Light and noise pollution from the continuous operation of the wells are also associated with increasing stress, which is another contributor to cardiovascular disease.
The research team decided to measure the impact of fracking on cardiovascular health by studying heart attack hospitalization and death rates in 47 counties on either side of the New York and Pennsylvania state line. Using data from 2005 to 2014, they observed that heart attack rates were 1.4 to 2.8 percent higher in Pennsylvania, depending upon the age group and level of fracking activity in a given county.
The associations between fracking and heart attack hospitalization and death were most consistent among men aged 45-54, a group most likely to be in the unconventional gas industry workforce and probably the most exposed to fracking-related air pollutants and stressors. Heart attack deaths also increase in this age group by 5.4 percent or more in counties with high concentrations of well sites. Hospitalization and mortality rates also jumped significantly in women over the age of 65.
Fracking is more concentrated in rural communities, which the authors speculate may further compromise cardiovascular heath due to the trend of rural hospital closures. People who suffer from cardiovascular disease in these areas may be at increased risk of adverse health outcomes, including death, due to less access to care. The authors suggest that more should be done to raise awareness about fracking-related risks for cardiovascular disease and physicians should keep a closer eye on high risk patients who reside in areas with fracking activity. They also contend that the study should inform policymakers about the tradeoffs between public health and the economic activity generated by the industry.
“These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on the adverse health impact of fracking,” said Alina Denham, a Ph.D. candidate in Health Policy at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and first author of the study. “Several states, including New York, have taken the precaution of prohibiting hydraulic fracturing until more is known about the health and environmental consequences. If causal mechanisms behind our findings are ascertained, our findings would suggest that bans on hydraulic fracturing can be protective for human health.”
The study was funded with support from the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director.
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Materials provided by University of Rochester Medical Center. Original written by Mark Michaud. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Aerosol products used in the home now emit more harmful volatile organic compound (VOC) air pollution than all the vehicles in the UK, new research shows.
A new study by the University of York and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science reveals that the picture is damaging globally with the world’s population now using huge numbers of disposable aerosols — more than 25 billion cans per year.
This is estimated to lead to the release of more than 1.3 million tonnes of VOC air pollution each year, and could rise to 2.2 million tonnes by 2050.
The chemicals now used in compressed aerosols are predominantly volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals which are also released from cars and fuels. The report says the VOCs currently being used in aerosols are less damaging than the ozone-depleting CFCs they replaced in the 1980’s. However, in the 80’s when key international policy decisions were made, no-one foresaw such a large rise in global consumption.
In the presence of sunlight, VOCs combine with a second pollutant, nitrogen oxides, to cause photochemical smog which is harmful to human health and damages crops and plants.
In the 1990s and 2000s by far the largest source of VOC pollution in the UK was gasoline cars and fuel, but these emissions have reduced dramatically in recent years through controls such as catalytic converters on vehicles and fuel vapour recovery at filling stations.

Arum Han, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, and his collaborators have designed an experimental system that shows exposure of SARS-CoV-2 to a very high temperature, even if applied for less than a second, can be sufficient to neutralize the virus so that it can no longer infect another human host.
Applying heat to neutralize COVID-19 has been demonstrated before, but in previous studies temperatures were applied from anywhere from one to 20 minutes. This length of time is not a practical solution, as applying heat for a long period of time is both difficult and costly. Han and his team have now demonstrated that heat treatment for less than a second completely inactivates the coronavirus — providing a possible solution to mitigating the ongoing spread of COVID-19, particularly through long-range airborne transmission.
The Medistar Corporation approached leadership and researchers from the College of Engineering in the spring of 2020 to collaborate and explore the possibility of applying heat for a short amount of time to kill COVID-19. Soon after, Han and his team got to work, and built a system to investigate the feasibility of such a procedure.
Their process works by heating one section of a stainless-steel tube, through which the coronavirus-containing solution is run, to a high temperature and then cooling the section immediately afterward. This experimental setup allows the coronavirus running through the tube to be heated only for a very short period of time. Through this rapid thermal process, the team found the virus to be completely neutralized in a significantly shorter time than previously thought possible. Their initial results were released within two months of proof-of-concept experiments.
Han said if the solution is heated to nearly 72 degrees Celsius for about half a second, it can reduce the virus titer, or quantity of the virus in the solution, by 100,000 times which is sufficient to neutralize the virus and prevent transmission.
“The potential impact is huge,” Han said. “I was curious of how high of temperatures we can apply in how short of a time frame and to see whether we can indeed heat-inactivate the coronavirus with only a very short time. And, whether such a temperature-based coronavirus neutralization strategy would work or not from a practical standpoint. The biggest driver was, ‘Can we do something that can mitigate the situation with the coronavirus?'”
Their research was featured on the cover of the May issue of the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

Researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago have designed a completely novel potential treatment for COVID-19: nanoparticles that capture SARS-CoV-2 viruses within the body and then use the body’s own immune system to destroy it.
These “Nanotraps” attract the virus by mimicking the target cells the virus infects. When the virus binds to the Nanotraps, the traps then sequester the virus from other cells and target it for destruction by the immune system.
In theory, these Nanotraps could also be used on variants of the virus, leading to a potential new way to inhibit the virus going forward. Though the therapy remains in early stages of testing, the researchers envision it could be administered via a nasal spray as a treatment for COVID-19.
The results were published April 19 in the journal Matter.
“Since the pandemic began, our research team has been developing this new way to treat COVID-19,” said Asst. Prof. Jun Huang, whose lab led the research. “We have done rigorous testing to prove that these Nanotraps work, and we are excited about their potential.”
Designing the perfect trap
To design the Nanotrap, the research team — led by postdoctoral scholar Min Chen and graduate student Jill Rosenberg — looked into the mechanism SARS-CoV-2 uses to bind to cells: a spike-like protein on its surface that binds to a human cell’s ACE2 receptor protein.

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Surrey investigated whether the daily consumption of a prebiotic food supplement could improve overall wellbeing in a group of 18 to 25 year-olds. The study found that those who received a daily dose of prebiotics improved mental wellbeing by reducing anxiety levels and had better gut health than the control group.
Researchers studied a group of 64 healthy female participants with no current or previous clinical diagnoses of anxiety. Participants received either a daily dose of the prebiotic galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) or a placebo for 28 days.
All those involved in the trial completed surveys about their health experiences, including mood, anxiety and sleep quality and provided a stool sample for gut microbiome sequencing analysis.
Dr Kathrin Cohen Kadosh, Reader in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Surrey and Head of the Social Brain and Development Lab, said:
“This new research marks a significant step forward in that we were able to show that we can use a simple and safe food supplement such as prebiotics to improve both the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria in the gut and to improve mental health and wellbeing in young women.”
Dr Nicola Johnstone, Research Fellow from the University of Surrey, said:
“This is an exciting study that brings together different dimensions in mental health research; finding prebiotic effects in a sub-clinical group shows promise for translational clinical research on multiple markers of mental health.”
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Materials provided by University of Surrey. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus no longer need to wear masks outdoors if they’re walking, running, hiking or biking alone, with members of their household, or if they attend small outdoor gatherings, federal health officials announced on Tuesday.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped short of telling those people that they could shed their masks altogether in outdoor settings — citing the worrying risk that remains for transmitting the coronavirus, unknown vaccination levels among people in crowds and the still high-caseloads in some regions of the country.Federal health officials and President Biden were announcing the updated advice on Tuesday, linking the news with the administration’s public campaign to get most American adults vaccinated by summer and trying to offer reassurances that some semblance of normal life can return.But the C.D.C. is maintaining advice on other safety measures, saying vaccinated adults should continue wearing masks and staying six feet apart in large public spaces, like outdoor performance or sports events, indoor shopping malls and movie theaters, where the vaccination and health status of others would be unknown. And they still should avoid medium and large gatherings, crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, officials said.“I welcome less restrictive guidelines about masking outdoors,” said Linsey Marr, an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech. “We know that transmission outdoors is much less likely to occur than indoors, because the virus cannot accumulate in the air outdoors. It’ll become rapidly diluted.”But the guidelines themselves, which outline different masking recommendations for a variety of scenarios, seem overly complex, she said. “I can’t remember this. I would have to carry around a sheet of paper — a cheat sheet with all these different stipulations.” She added: “I worry that this is not as helpful as it could be.”Americans have been whipsawed on the issue of mask-wearing advice since the beginning of the pandemic, when top health officials said people did not need them — in part because of severe shortages of protective gear for health care workers on the front lines.And mask restrictions since then have been a patchwork from state to state, despite growing evidence of a mask’s protection for individuals and those around them. Many states have already lifted restrictions they had put in place for indoor and outdoor activities. Others like New York, however, have maintained mask-wearing requirements even for outdoor spaces, citing the threat of potentially more contagious variants.But the pace of vaccinations has helped influence some easing of those limits. So far, about 42 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 29 percent have received both doses of the two vaccines requiring double shots.Centers for Disease Control and PreventionThe vaccines are highly effective at preventing people from becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus.“Scientifically the vaccines are good enough that it’s highly unlikely that someone who’s vaccinated is going to be exposed to enough virus outdoors to have a breakthrough infection,” Dr. Marr said.Early evidence also suggests that vaccinated people may be significantly less likely to transmit the virus, but the exact risks are not yet known.Some experts also wondered if the new directives were confusing, by establishing different standards for those who are vaccinated and those who are not, even though it is impossible to know who is who.“It’s not like you can go up to someone in public and say, ‘You don’t have a mask on – are you vaccinated?’” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “Those who aren’t vaccinated will promptly take their mask off outdoors because no one can check.”But, she said, that is probably fine, since the risk of transmission in outdoor settings is very low, absent close or prolonged contact with someone.Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University, said the relaxed guidelines signal that “if you’re outside in a group of individuals who you know well, then it is safe to be without a mask if you were vaccinated. I don’t think that it goes so far as to change what our behavior needs to be in outdoor settings where we don’t know people, and we can’t distance.”Masking and distancing are still generally recommended when gathering with unvaccinated people from more than one other household or with an unvaccinated person who is at high risk of severe illness from Covid, or who lives with a vulnerable person.And there are scenarios in which wearing a mask outdoors can still be an important social signal, Dr. Carnethon said. For instance, no vaccine has yet been authorized for children under 16. “And when we’re going to require children to wear masks, at school and on the playground when they’re at school,” she said, “I think that it is responsible for the adults in the situation to model that behavior and normalize mask wearing even when outside.”A growing body of research indicates that the risk of spreading the virus is far lower outdoors than indoors. Viral particles disperse quickly outdoors, experts say, meaning brief encounters with a passing walker or jogger pose very little risk of transmission.But most if not all of the research about viral transmission outside was done before the vaccine was available.A recent systematic review of studies that examined the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses among unvaccinated individuals concluded that fewer than 10 percent of infections occurred outdoors and that the odds for indoor transmission were 18.7 times higher than outdoors. (The odds of super-spreading events were 33 times higher indoors.)