November 2022

Inflammatory Bowel Disease And Immunonutrition

You are standing in line at the most well-known fast-food in your city. You are already thinking how you are going to take a bite from that delicious sandwich and your stomach is rumbling. Have you ever thought of the idea that the sounds your stomach is making might not be a sign of your cravings, but one last call for help? Studies show that the so called “western diet” containing high levels of carbohydrates and fatty acids contributes to the genesis of one of the most widespread 21st century’s diseases: the inflammatory bowel disease (I.B.D.). And so, that delicious sandwich you have been dreaming of the whole day might become a triggering factor in the activation of the immune cells. This activation leads to an immune response followed by the inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). As a result, the microbiota of the GIT is strongly affected and it leads to dysbiosis- meaning lack of benefic bacteria diversity but incoming growth of pathobionts like E. Coli. Now that we have a brief idea of what I.B.D. is, you must be wondering: what about the treatment? So far, there are three known approaches. The first one is represented by the PROBIOTICS. They are beneficial intestinal microbes which are administered in order to rejuvenate the microbiota of the GIT. Unfortunately, the desired effect of the probiotics is different from what is really happening in the gut. Our GITs are particularly different from one another and by that I mean that we all have various types of beneficial bacteria which are considered as “self” in an immune response. However, by administering a probiotic, which is a rather “one size fits all” approach due to the fact that the containing bacteria might be different from the ones of the patient, we generate an immune response in which the drug is considered “non self”. If our body rejects the probiotic, it will fail to replenish the stocks of beneficial bacteria. The second approach is represented by the administration of PREBIOTICS. How can a letter make such a difference in treating I.B.D.? First of all, the prebiotics differ from probiotics not only by one letter, but by the concept of how they act on the microbiota. A prebiotic is “a substrate that is selectively used by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit”. Basically, prebiotics offer to the existing bacteria in the microbiota a substrate on which they could prosper. The third approach consists of administering VITAMIN D. Patients with I.B.D. have shown a deficiency of the sunshine vitamin which is correlated to the dysbiosis. Vitamin D has an important role in maintaining the homeostasis of the intestinal barrier and the microbiota, thus a lack of this vitamin will lead to a worsened outcome in patients with I.B.D. Has this summary incited your appetite for science? If so, read the entire article linked below: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/imm.12939?fbclid=IwAR0E2FyrrwfGcp7THzkO0t3e9BFdkBUCtpJsPbW3Hw3x5if_OHF0L2DlAGo Catalina Sabina Cremeneanu – SOMS Wisp of Science

Inflammatory Bowel Disease And Immunonutrition Read More »

Artificial Intelligence And Its Impact On Histopathology

What is the meaning of life? Are robots going to take over humanity? I’m sure I am not the only one kept up at night by such obscure thoughts.  We can’t possibly answer the first question in due time, that would only create unnecessary head scratchers, but for the second one I can only say this: probably not…yet?  A paper published in the American Journal of  Surgical Pathology describes the impact of deep learning assistance on the histopathological review of lymph nodes for metastatic breast cancer, which further sheds some light into how exactly artificial intelligence (AI) is going to either help or replace human labour.   The charm of creating intelligence preoccupied humankind all the way back to the time when Talos protected Europa from invaders. Nowadays, state-of-the-art computing resources allow Google to make progress in a branch of AI called deep learning. This software attempts to mimic the activity in layers of neurons in the cortex. It basically learns to recognize patterns in digital representations of sounds, images, and other data. Moreover, it is proving to be of great help in the medical field, already surpassing specialists in speed and accuracy. In pathology, reviewing lymph nodes for breast cancer metastases can be a truly tiring job; that’s where the Lymph Node Assistant (LYNA) comes especially in handy, considering the difficulty and, most of all, the importance of detecting early micrometastases.   The study, a bout of strength between humans and machines: 6 pathologists completed a simulated diagnostic task in which they reviewed lymph nodes both with and without the assistance of LYNA. The use of LYNA made the task easier and halved average slide review time. Moreover, algorithm assistance significantly increased the detection of micrometastases (from 83% to 91%). It is important to note that algorithm assisted pathologists actually proved higher accuracy than both the algorithm and the pathologist alone. Why is that? The perks of AI have already been recognized: some can even exceed a pathologist’s sensitivity for detecting individual cancer foci in digital images. However, this gain in sensitivity comes at the cost of increased false positives. Also, it is limited to the task for which they have been specifically trained. On the other hand, the pathologist’s experience and understanding of the clinical context proves invaluable for discerning false results. Hence, combining the sensitivity of the software with the specificity of humans actually brings the best of both worlds to accurate results.   We have barely begun to understand the strengths and weaknesses of these algorithms, so the potential clinical utility has not yet been thoroughly examined; still, the future looks bright! Even though shows like “Black Mirror” paint a gruesome outlook for the distant future, one cannot deny the beauty and the necessity of technology in our lives, especially since we are lucky enough to be witnessing fiction slowly turning into reality. But next time you want to jokingly hit your Roomba or toy with your Google Home, you may want to think again…they might remember. Follow this link to read more on this particular subject: https://journals.lww.com/ajsp/fulltext/2018/12000/Impact_of_Deep_Learning_Assistance_on_the.7.aspx  Silvia Dumitriu – SOMS Wisp of Sciene

Artificial Intelligence And Its Impact On Histopathology Read More »

The Relationship Between Social Media And Depression

It is well known that social media has a major impact on our lives, but how does it really affect us? A study made by the University of Amsterdam revealed that the passive use of social media (also called PSMU – passive social media use) leads to depression-like symptoms such as loneliness and fatigue. Even though scrolling through social media feeds is a time-consuming routine, a lot of people do this every day. The study was made with 125 students, measuring how they felt seven times a day for 14 days. They were asked to complete a 12 item questionnaire at fixed times, thing made possible by an app on their phones. The study concentrated on three periods of time: short-term (2 hours), medium-term (from one inquiry to the other) and long-term (the entire 14 days). The surprising thing with this study is that PSMU did not predict depression symptoms; it was quite the other way around: a negative mood lead to an escalation in social media use. The short-term timeframe revealed that PSMU also came with ‘a loss of interest, concentration problems, fatigue and loneliness’. The link between focusing and social media is interesting as well: students who experience less concentration problems tend to spend less time on social media at a given timeframe, the opposite being likewise (more concentration problems resulted in more time spent on social media). It is not yet known if PSMU is the cause of those symptoms or if it’s the other way around. George Aalbers, (UvA Research Master’s graduate in Psychology and lead author of the study) underlines the fact that the relation between social media and general well-being is more complicated than ‘social media make people depressed’. He claims that specific PSMU is correlated with specific depression symptoms, but the link between the two is not fully known yet. The next thing to do, as researchers declare, is to reproduce the discovery in a clinical context, the results being able to show an unmistakable correlation between PSMU and depression symptoms. Do you want to learn more about this? If your answer is ‘yes’, check the article below: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxge0000528 Vina Gabriela – SOMS Wisp of Science

The Relationship Between Social Media And Depression Read More »

Mitochondrial DNA Inherited From Fathers, Not Just Mothers

Mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell, but who really powers the transmission of this amazing organelle? Taosheng Huan (a geneticist from the USA) recently identified a case that has changed the way we look at mitochondrial inheritance: a four-year-old boy that carries mitochondrial DNA both from the mother, as well as from the father. Until know, scientists thought that mitochondrial DNA is inherited almost exclusively from the mother. The reason for this exclusiveness is unknown, but one theory suggests that the mitochondria found in sperm are more prone to mutation than their counterpart in the egg. Moreover, certain molecular mechanisms found in the egg can destroy the mitochondria if they manage to “leak” from the male gamete. If these mechanisms fail, then the paternal mitochondria will be passed on to the egg. Following this discovery, Huang and his team went further and found 17 individuals from three unrelated families, who inherited mitochondrial DNA from their fathers. They concluded that both the maternal and paternal DNA was synchronized during fertilization which resulted in children with mixed mitochondria. Researchers have also found one interesting aspect: children who possessed mitochondrial DNA from their grandfathers. This fascinating pattern of inheritance is explained as it follows: the mother inherited DNA from her grandfather and passed it on to the child, with no implications from the biological father. Preliminary results show that 1 in every 5000 people presents mixed mitochondrial DNA, making this anomaly more frequent than we thought. This discovery opens up the possibility of various treatments and applications in the medical field, such as assisted reproductive technology. Huang’s team was part of the “three-parent” baby project in 2016 in which nuclear DNA from a mother with mitochondrial disease was transferred to an egg with healthy mitochondria which was then fertilized. Instead of using a foreign egg, paternal mitochondria could replace the affected maternal mitochondria. However, given the fact that mitochondria from the sperm can mutate more easily, multiple problems can appear in the evolution of the embryo. Alongside the biological difficulties, the ethics of these artificial procedures lead to various debates. While there is still a lot to be known about this process, it has already changed the way we describe mitochondria and its inheritance. This topic is too big to be covered in just a few words, so I invite you to satisfy your thirst of knowledge by accessing this link: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/13039 . Karim Cherry – SOMS Wisp of Science

Mitochondrial DNA Inherited From Fathers, Not Just Mothers Read More »

0
    0
    You don't have any products/memberships