Do You Really Need Antibiotics? This Test Can Tell

11/24/2016

We’re in the middle of an antibiotic crisis that public health experts have been warning about for years. While antibiotics are a miracle of modern medicine, they’re being over used and abused — 30% of prescriptions are unnecessary, a new study found and yet doctors continue to prescribe them inappropriately and the agricultural industry relies on them to keep animals plump. Such overuse is leading to smarter bacteria that are evolving into super bugs that can resist nearly every antibiotic drug available today.

To avoid a world of rampant, untreatable bacterial infections, experts say cutting back on unnecessary use of antibiotics is critical. That includes prescribing the drugs only for bacterial infections, against which they work, and not for viral infections. But because people with bacterial infections—people with cold symptoms, say—tend to feel similarly to those with viral infections—with flu symptoms—many doctors still prescribe the drugs for both.

Now, scientists at Stanford University and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report on a blood test that can distinguish between bacterial and viral infections. The test looks at the proteins made by seven genes; in the presence of bacteria, four of the genes become more active, while in the presence of viruses, three of them churn out more proteins. By measuring this, the test can tell with reliable certainty whether an infection is caused by a bacteria or virus.

This was a viruses was a surprise to the researchers. “The notion that there are just seven targets with really excellent accuracy was pretty shocking,” says Dr. Timothy Sweeney, a researcher at Stanford University and lead author of the paper, which was published in Science Translational Medicine.

Previous studies identified dozens or hundreds of genes that were associated with either bacterial or viral infections, but those analyzed a single set of data from a group of patients. Sweeney and his team combined publicly available data from nearly two dozen groups of people with documented infections. These ranged from cases of the common cold to hemorrhagic viral fevers, to ear infections and septic shock. Teasing apart the genetic signatures of these people led to the narrowed set of seven genes that showed consistently different activity in the presence of bacteria and viruses.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about a third of the 154 million prescriptions that doctors write for antibiotics are unnecessary, and likely do more harm in terms of promoting bacterial resistance, than good in treating infections. The reasons for that include patients who demand drugs to treat their symptoms, even if they aren’t caused by bacteria, doctors who are too pressed for time to educate their patients about the difference between bacterial and viral infections, and a better-safe-than-sorry mentality to protect hospitalized patients, from dangerous, potentially fatal infections like sepsis.

“We don’t really have a good test where we can say you don’t have an infection so we can safely withhold antibiotics,” says Sweeney.

This panel of seven genes may change that, but it will take a few years before it becomes reliable enough to use in the clinic. While Sweeney and his colleagues tested the panel in a group of nearly 100 children with infections, more testing in more patients is needed to verify the panel’s accuracy. For now, the test also takes four to six hours — too long when the patient might be suffering from sepsis, which can progress quickly within hours.

The goal is to perfect the technology to scan the blood for the seven genes’ profile in about an hour. “A lot of people said we need a test like this, and we hope our test, or one like it, will help to reduce the crazy over use of antibiotics that is threatening not just medicine but whole parts of our society based on our inability to treat certain infections,” says Sweeney.

Source: Time

Lab Surfing, a community connecting young laboratory professionals

11/23/2016

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A group of residents identified the need to improve connectivity and communication among Young Scientists in Laboratory Medicine. In a constant evolving profession, scientists are permanently searching for learning opportunities. Exchange programmes become essential and scientists are using more and more this kind of projects.

Lab Surfing grew up motivated by this idea with three main objectives: Connect YS, Improve Communication and make Exchange Programmes easier.

The Lab-Surfing community is made up of students, residents, fellows and researchers in laboratory medicine and clinical biochemistry.

All with a common interest: to improving communication between colleagues around the world.

How it works?

Lab Surfing is a community with a main goal: Connect young laboratory professionals such as residents, fellows, researchers and students from all around the globe.

You can use Lab Surfing to find colleagues in different cities, to host exchange fellows, to search for Lab/City information & opportunities or chat with other scientists.

When you are traveling, it is always helpful to know someone you can trust on to find accommodation, or valuable city and hospital information. Any service is useful and imagination is the only limit.

How do we connect?

Using the search engine you’ll find colleagues who are registered in the destination of interest. You can make individual or group queries.

Lab-Surfing doesn’t offer scholarships, it only facilitates contact with local, national and international colleagues to help you plan and accomplish exchange programs.

How to complete your profile in 5 simple steps?

Go to: http://www.lab-surfing.com/en/
Create a profile with your Facebook account.
Edit your profile with your personal information and picture!
Choose your coordinates (house, Laboratory, city monument) to show on the map.
Tell us more about you on the “Review”: work, area of interest, personal interest, etc.
Write a travel experience.
Now you are ready to use Lab-Surfing!

Blood test may help identify fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

11/22/2016

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Study authors say the findings could facilitate early intervention to improve the health of infants and children who were prenatally exposed to alcohol.

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a severe form of a spectrum of mental and physical disabilities called fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) that can affect children’s development with long-lasting consequences. In the United States and Western Europe, it’s estimated that 2 to 5 percent of school-age children are affected by FASD. In some parts of the world, the number is higher.

Children and adults affected by FASD may experience a range of symptoms, from physical changes like a small head and subtle differences in facial characteristics to learning difficulties and behavioral issues.

Despite widespread prevention guidelines, drinking during pregnancy still occurs, in part because roughly half of pregnancies in the United States are unplanned and many women may not realize that they need to stop consuming alcohol before harm occurs.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Rajesh Miranda, PhD, professor in the Texas A&M College of Medicine and co-senior author of the study, “but we might not realize the full scope because infants born with normal-looking physical features may be missed, making many cases difficult to diagnose early.”

Seeking to develop a predictive test using biomarkers, researchers looked at birth outcomes for 68 pregnant women enrolled in the study at two perinatal care clinics in western Ukraine. The team obtained detailed health and alcohol consumption histories and second and third trimester blood samples from each woman. The results indicated that moderate to high levels of alcohol exposure during early pregnancy resulted in significant differences in some circulating small RNA molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs) in maternal blood. These differences were particularly notable in mothers whose infants showed some physical or neurobehavioral signs of alcohol effects in the first 12 months of life.

“Collectively, our data indicate that maternal plasma miRNAs may help predict infant outcomes and may be useful to classify difficult-to-diagnose FASD subpopulations,” Miranda said.

Part of the reason FASD can be difficult to diagnose is because infants with similar amounts of prenatal alcohol exposure may have vastly different outcomes.

“Although it is generally true that binge-drinking during pregnancy presents the greatest risk, not all women who consume substantial amounts of alcohol in pregnancy will have a child who is clearly affected,” said Christina Chambers, PhD, professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine, principal investigator on the Ukraine project and co-senior author.

“That’s why we examined specific biomarkers in the mother’s blood in the second and third trimester of her pregnancy to determine if they are useful in identifying children who could benefit from early interventions.”

Although FASD cannot be cured, early diagnosis is vital. “Early diagnosis is important because it permits early intervention to minimize the harm due to prenatal alcohol exposure,” said Wladimir Wertelecki, MD, research team leader in Ukraine. “Good nutrition, better perinatal health care, lowering stress levels and infant care interventions can all improve the outcome of alcohol-affected pregnancies.”

The scientists said their next steps will include repeating the investigation in other, larger samples of mothers and infants, and determining if these early markers are predictive of longer term developmental outcomes for children exposed to alcohol.

“If we can reset developmental trajectories earlier in life, it is a lot easier than trying to treat disabilities later in life,” Miranda said. “We hope this work will lead to a test that can allow health care providers to identify the mothers and infants most at risk and provide them with extra care for the best outcome possible.”

Co-authors of the paper include: Sridevi Balarama, and Alexander M. Tseng, Texas A&M Health Science Center; and Lyubov Yevtushok, and Natalya Zymak-Zakutnya, Omni-Net Ukraine Birth Defects Prevention Program.

Funding for this research came, in part, from the National Institutes of Health (U01AA014835, U24AA014811, R01AA013440) and the Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

Source: UC San Diego

Imaging technique reveals movement of genetic material within nucleus

11/21/2016

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This computer rendering shows the skeletonized structure of heterochromatin (red represents a thin region while white represents a thick region), a tightly packed form of DNA, surrounding another form of DNA-carrying material known as euchromatin (dark blue represents a thin region and yellow represent the thickest) in a mouse's mature nerve cell. / Credit: Berkeley Lab, UCSF

Researchers used powerful X-ray microscope at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) to study differentiating neurons as they mature. Using X-rays, images were taken from many angles to create a three-dimensional composite image from two-dimensional images, showing the changing structure of chromatin during the maturation of olfactory neurons of mice.

Chromatin functions to package DNA so that it can fit inside of a cell, and forms chromosomes. In the video above, take a trip through the nucleus of a cell; in the video below, DNA reorganization in the nucleus a mouse cell is illustrated.

The investigators were also able to take measurements of the packing inside of a type of chromatin, heterochromatin, and revealed more about the role of a protein that aids in the packaging of heterochromatin, and its localization to the nucleus.

“It’s a new way of looking at the nucleus where we don’t have to chemically treat the cell,” explained Carolyn Larabell, the Director of the National Center for X-ray Tomography (NCXT), a collaboration of Berkeley Lab and UC San Francisco (UCSF). “Being able to directly image and quantify changes in the nucleus is enormously important and has been on cell biologists’ wish list for many years.”

She added that Chromatin is “notoriously sensitive” to chemical stains and additives frequently used in biological imaging protocols that highlight regions of interest in a sample. “Until now, it has only been possible to image the nucleus indirectly by staining it, in which case the researcher has to take a leap of faith that the stain was evenly distributed.”

Larabell, who is also a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and a UCSF professor, explained that it had been thought that chromatin existed as a group of disconnected islands, but the latest report indicated that chromatin is compartmentalized into two areas of “crowding” that comprise a continuous network throughout the nucleus.

Source: LabRoots

Low Vitamin D linked with higher asthma risk

11/14/2016

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In the study, researchers analyzed information collected from more than 25,000 adults ages 18 to 79, and more than 9,700 children ages 6 to 17, who took part in a yearly U.S. national health survey conducted between 2001 and 2010. The participants were asked whether they had been diagnosed with asthma or experienced wheezing (a symptom of asthma) in the past year. The participants also had a test to determine the level of vitamin D in their blood.

Overall, of the study participants, 68 percent of the children and 70 percent of the adults had levels of vitamin D that were lower than what’s usually considered adequate for healthy people (30 nanograms per milliliter), which is known as vitamin D insufficiency. In addition, about 1,200 children and 1,800 adults had been diagnosed with asthma. The disease involves inflammation and a narrowing of the airways, both of which make it difficult to breathe.

Children with vitamin D insufficiency were 1.35 times more likely to have asthma compared with children with adequate levels of vitamin D, the researchers found. Adults with vitamin D insufficiency were not at increased risk for an asthma diagnosis, but they were more likely to say they experienced wheezing in the past year, compared with those who had adequate levels of vitamin D.

The exact reason behind the link is not known, but it’s thought that vitamin D decreases levels of inflammation in the body, said Yueh-Ying Han, a research assistant professor in pulmonary medicine, allergy and immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who presented the new findings this week at the meeting of the American Public Health Association in Denver. It’s also possible that vitamin D improves people’s response to drugs that treat asthma, Han told Live Science.

The researchers also found that the portion of people with vitamin D insufficiency dropped from about three-quarters of participants in 2001 to about two-thirds of participants in 2010. Around that same time, the prevalence of asthma also dropped, from 8.2 percent in 2007-2008 to 7.4 percent in 2009-2010.

The findings agree with previous studies that found a link between vitamin D levels and asthma. For example, some studies have found that children whose mothers consume higher amounts vitamin D during pregnancy have a lower risk of asthma than children whose mothers consume lower amounts of vitamin D. Other studies have found that, among kids with asthma, those with low vitamin D levels have worse symptoms than those with higher vitamin D levels.Still, because the new study was conducted at a single point in time, it cannot prove that low vitamin D levels cause asthma. Future studies are needed to determine if providing vitamin D supplements to children with asthma can lead to improvements in their symptoms, Han said.

In fact, the researchers are currently conducting a study in which children with asthma who have vitamin D insufficiency are given either a daily vitamin D supplement or a placebo. The researchers want to see whether vitamin D supplements reduce asthma attacks or hospital visits due to asthma.

A review study published in September found that vitamin D supplements lowered the risk of asthma attacks in children and adults with the condition, but did not seem to improve daily symptoms of asthma.

It’s important to note that people with asthma should not take vitamin D as a replacement for their current asthma treatment, Han said. But because vitamin D supplements are relatively safe, they are recommended for general health in people who do not get adequate levels of this vitamin, Han said.

Source: Live Science

Immune cells may facilitate tumor growth by forming primitive vascular channels

11/14/2016

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The research reveals that macrophages can “drill” through tumors to create new vessel-like structures for delivering oxygen and nutrients as tumors grow.

“This may represent a whole new therapeutic target for treating tumors,” said TSRI Professor Martin Friedlander, senior author of the new study, which was published November 11 in the journal Scientific Reports.

A Different Kind of Vessel

Blood vessels are normally built by endothelial cells. In cancer, tumor cells can induce endothelial cells to build new vessels to bring in blood rich with oxygen and nutrients, a process called angiogenesis.

Recent research has revealed that not all vessels are lined by endothelial cells. In cancer, vessel-like structures can be created by a non-endothelial cell type. This phenomenon, called “vascular mimicry,” has been observed in several types of solid tumors, including glioblastoma, breast cancer and melanoma, and has been attributed to a sub-population of cells within the tumor called cancer stem cells.

Yet the scientists in this study found that macrophages can form vascular mimicry channels in tumors, as well as in other low-oxygen environments. Although macrophages are key cells of the immune system that recognize and attack foreign invaders and cancer cells, macrophages can be re-programmed within the tumor environment to promote tumor growth.

The scientists in the new study presented a new and unrecognized structural role for macrophages in the formation of a vascular mimicry network connected to the systemic circulation.

“These conduits have an architecture distinct from that of traditional blood vessels,” said Faith H. Barnett, a cancer researcher and neurosurgeon at Scripps Clinic who served as co-first author of the study with Mauricio Rosenfeld.

Using an intravenously injected dye to delineate the established vasculature as well as the newly formed vascular mimicry conduits, the researchers found that macrophages quickly migrate to oxygen-deprived environments and form these vessel-like channels. Experiments spearheaded by Barnett and Rosenfeld showed that these tubular structures are lined with cells that express macrophage cell surface markers.

“Macrophages are capable of forming a three-dimensional network,” said Rosenfeld.

These vessel-like channels appeared too small to carry red blood cells, but the researchers believe that the low oxygen concentrations within tumors drive macrophages to form this network of channels to transport dissolved oxygen and glucose.

A Possible Cancer Target

The findings could explain why current drugs to slow angiogenesis do not slow tumor growth in some patients. Friedlander said future cancer therapies could starve tumors by combining current vessel-targeting drugs with drugs to influence macrophage activity.

“There may be an opportunity to intervene therapeutically,” Friedlander said.

In addition to providing a new approach to cancer, Friedlander added that future studies could focus on better understanding how macrophages influence retinal angiogenesis and blood flow in the eye—a key concern for people with diseases like age-related wet macular degeneration, where leaky vessels can cause vision loss.

The researchers added that this study would not have been possible without TSRI’s core facilities scientists, who aided with electron microscopy, confocal imaging, in vivo mouse efforts and quantitative analysis.

In addition to Friedlander, Barnett and Rosenfeld, authors of the study, “Macrophages form functional vascular mimicry channels in vivo,” were Malcolm Wood, William Kiosses, Yoshihiko Usui, Valentina Marchetti and Edith Aguilar, all of TSRI at the time of the study.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant R01EY011254).

Source: Labroots

Urine of pregnant women could be used to predict fetal growth and birth weight

11/04/2016

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Dr Mireille Toledano, co-lead author of the research from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: “We used a technique called NMR spectroscopy to identify, for the first time, a panel of 10 urinary metabolites in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy that were associated with greater fetal growth and increased birth weight. These metabolites included steroid hormones and important biological building blocks called branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs).”

BCAAs are essential nutrients that are vital during pregnancy as an energy source for the growing fetus. In this study, changes in BCAAs and other metabolites detected in the urine were able to explain 12% of the variation seen in birth weight, independent of other known predictors such as parent’s own weight and maternal smoking or alcohol intake.

Dr Muireann Coen, co-lead author from the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London, added: “We found that a 50% increase in the mother’s level of individual BCAAs equated to a 1-2.4% increase in birth weight, or 5-11 grams. When we made comparisons with the lifestyle and environmental exposures of the women in our study we found that the variability between BCAA profiles of individual mothers could be partially explained by levels of physical activity, vitamin D, coffee consumption and smoking exposure, suggesting them to be potential areas of intervention to promote a healthy birth weight.”

The research team from Spain at ISGlobal, collected urine samples and lifestyle questionnaire data from over 800 pregnant women, aged 28-33 years old, from two locations in Spain (Gipuzkoa and Sabadell), making it the most comprehensive study of urinary metabolites and fetal weight outcomes to date. The two locations in Spain differed in socio-demographic factors, with women in Gipuzkoa reported to be more educated, from a higher social class and generally healthier than women from Sabadell. This distinction allowed for useful comparisons to be made between women from different backgrounds and different geographical location.

Although the researchers found an association between several lifestyle factors and the metabolomic signature detected in the mother’s urine, it is not clear from this study if one is the cause of the other, or if any specific lifestyle factor is associated with an individual metabolite. In observational studies like this it is not possible to rule out other factors and an experimental trial would be needed to test cause and effect. This proof-of principle study highlights the value metabolic profiling of pregnant women could have on personalizing pregnancy plans to improve fetal growth outcomes.

More information: Maternal urinary metabolic signatures of fetal growth and associated clinical and environmental factors in the INMA study, BMC Medicine, DOI: 10.1186/s12916-016-0706-3

Source: medicalxpress.com

Free Webinar: Embarking on Clinical Research, Best Practices for Today’s Laboratory Scientists

11/03/2016

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You are cordially invited to join the second educational webinar for scientists and laboratorians brought to you by the IFCC Task Force Young Scientists. This educational programme is focused on Clinical Laboratory Research, Dos and Donts of Clinical Lab Research, and Challenges from a Clinical Lab Research Case Study. By attending this session, attendees will gain a better understanding of how to conduct a successful clinical laboratory research.

Friday, November 11th, 2016 – 8:00 a.m. EST

United States: Friday, Nov 11th, 2016. 8:00 a.m. EST
France: Friday, Nov 11th, 2016. 2:00 p.m. CET
Japan: Friday, Nov 11th, 2016. 10:00 p.m. JST
Belgium: Friday, Nov 11th, 2016. 2:00 p.m. CET
India: Friday, Nov 11th, 2016. 6:30 p.m. IST
China: Friday, Nov 11th, 2016. 9:00 p.m. CST

Speakers

Dr. Danni Li. Assistant. Professor. Director of Clinical Chemistry. University of Minnesota Medical Center Fairview, US
Dr. Ryunosuke Ohkawa. Assistant Professor Analytical Laboratory Chemistry, Field of Applied Laboratory Science, Graduate School of Health Care Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Japan
Prof. Damien Gruson. Chef de service, Biochimie Médicale Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, Belgium

Click Here to Register for the Complimentary Webinar

Zika Damages Male Fertility, in Mice Anyway

11/02/2016

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mice testes — The testicles of male mice showed cellular damage and shrinkage three weeks after Zika infection. On the left is a healthy mouse testicle; on the right, a testicle following Zika infection. Prabagaran Esakky / Washington University in St. Louis

There’s no evidence it can do the same thing in human men, but the virus has thrown many surprises at scientists over the past year. As researchers so often say, more study is needed.

“This is the only virus I know of that causes such severe symptoms of infertility,” said Dr. Kelle Moley, a fertility specialist at Washington University in St. Louis who helped lead the study. “There are very few microbes that can cross the barrier that separates the testes from the bloodstream to infect the testes directly.”

Mumps is one of the most notorious causes of male infertility. The virus can cause pain and swelling in the testicles and can damage fertility in a small percentage of men. Ebola virus can also get into semen and stay in the testes for months.

Zika has already been shown to cross the placenta and infect developing human fetuses. It causes severe brain damage and other birth defects when it does.

The virus also can, rarely, damage the central nervous system of human adults — causing brain inflammation and an unusual paralyzing side effect of many infections called Guillain Barre syndrome. It can also get into semen — it is transmitted sexually. And it’s been shown to stay in men’s semen for months.

So the team at Washington University decided to see if it was damaging the testes as it hung out there for months. It does, at least in the mice they tested. “What we found was that by day seven you could already detect the virus there and it was cleared by day 21,” Moley said. “But you could see a progressive destruction of the cells in the testes. So by day 21 the testes was about a tenth of the size of what it originally was. As a result there was no sperm.”

And when they mated the mice, those with Zika-damaged testes had fewer offspring, the report in the journal Nature. The mice are altered in the lab so their immune systems are suppressed, so the experiment doesn’t precisely reflect what happens in natural circumstances.

Now it’s time to check out some Zika-infected men, says Michael Diamond, who also worked on the study.

“What we don’t know is does it also cause the same level of injury?” he asked. And if a man doesn’t have symptoms, can his testicles be damaged? Most people infected with Zika virus have very mild symptoms or none at all. “Does the degree of severity of infection correlate with injury?” Diamond asked.

Zika has swept across swatches of South America, Central America and the Caribbean. It’s causing small outbreaks in Miami. Florida has more than 200 home-grown cases of Zika and around 800 cases carried into the state by travelers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 4,000 Zika cases in the 50 U.S. states and more than 28,000 in territories — mostly Puerto Rico. More than 950 pregnant women have been infected in the states and 2,000 in territories.

Source: NBC News

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