Beyond the Abstract

The placenta is a transient organ of pregnancy that supports fetal growth and organ development. Placental dysfunction underlies many developmental defects, but this connection is poorly understood. Furthermore, many neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder, are linked to altered brain development and are more common in men than women for unknown reasons. In this episode, Derek and Dan talk about a new paper that explores a new role for the placenta in autism spectrum disorder and how secreted placental hormones can influence brain development and even explain certain sex differences in autism. Understanding how early developmental events can affect sex-specific development gives insight to potential therapeutic interventions for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Vacher et al. Placental endocrine function shapes cerebellar development and social behavior. Nature Neuroscience, October 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41593-021-00896-4

The information presented here is not medical advice. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

Bone marrow stem cell transplants are some of the most important tools in treating diseases like leukemia and multiple myeloma. However, harvesting enough stem cells for transplantation is often a big issue for doctors. Finding new ways to elicit stem cell mobilization from the bone marrow to improve harvesting could go a long way in improving treatment. Today's episode of Beyond the Abstract features work by scientists who find a surprising role for pain nerves, known as nociceptive neurons, in promoting stem cell mobilization. Ellen and Derek discuss how they stumbled upon this finding and how there might be more to a chili pepper than meets the eye.

Gao et al. Nociceptive nerves regulate haematopoietic stem cell mobilization. Nature, January 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03057-y

The information presented here is not medical advice. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a devastating autoimmune disease that result from the immune system attacking parts of the nervous system. For a long time, MS has been treated with broad immunosuppression using corticosteroids that puts the patient at risk for infections, but this might soon change. In today's Beyond the Abstract episode, Derek and Dan talk about a new paper that uses a novel mRNA vaccine to prevent and even treat MS, brought to you in part by BioNTech (the same company that helped develop the COVID-19 vaccine).

Krienke et al. A noninflammatory mRNA vaccine for treatment of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Science, January 2021. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay3638

The information presented here is not medical advice. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

High cholesterol and clogged arteries are the main cause of heart attacks. While modern medicine has developed ways to keep cholesterol down, these medications must be taken daily in order to be effective and come with their own list of side effects. This is where CRISPR comes in. Scientists have now developed a way to safely and durably reduce cholesterol in monkeys with a single injection of CRISPR gene therapy. In this episode, Dan and Derek discuss how this new therapy actually works, some of the interesting history behind it, and why it might be coming to a clinic near you sooner than you think...

Musunuru et al. In vivo CRISPR base editing of PCSK9 durably lowers cholesterol in primates. Nature, May 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03534-y

The information presented here is not medical advice. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

When patients have low oxygen levels, doctors use various types of breathing machines to deliver oxygen to the lungs - but it's not always effective. Now, scientists have taken inspiration from a small fish called the loach and developed a method to deliver oxygen through... the butt. This is particularly pertinent in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, where physicians have struggled to find adequate ways to oxygenate patients in respiratory failure due to viral pneumonia. In this episode, Ellen and Derek discuss a new, rather eccentric paper that delivers oxygen anally in order to treat respiratory failure. This technology could prove to be a useful method in effectively treating hypoxia and respiratory failure.

Okabe et al. Mammalian enteral ventilation ameliorates respiratory failure. Med, June 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.medj.2021.04.004

The information presented here is not medical advice. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

Mitochondria are known as the powerhouse of the cell because of their important function in producing energy. During cell division (also known as mitosis), a cell has to duplicate everything from its DNA to proteins to organelles - including mitochondria - and distribute them equally between two cells. However, no one really knows how exactly these mitochondria get distributed. In this episode, Dan and Derek discuss a new paper from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Janelia Research Campus where they find that a network of actin rotates around the cell like a ferris wheel during mitosis in order to distribute mitochondria equally. This discovery of how cells distribute mitochondria may have important implications for understanding and treating mitochondrial diseases.

See video of an actin wave distributing mitochondria here.

Moore et al. Actin cables and comet tails organize mitochondrial networks in mitosis. Nature, March 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03309-5. PMID: 33658713

The information presented here is not medical advice. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy has revolutionized cancer treatment by engineering our own immune cells to recognize and fight cancers that are resistant to treatments like radiation and chemotherapy. But can we use CAR T cells to treat other diseases too, like cardiac fibrosis? Cardiac fibrosis, or scarring of the heart, is common following heart attacks or prolonged hypertension. At some point, many patients require heart transplants. In this episode of Beyond the Abstract, Dan and Derek discuss how scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have created a new, cell-based therapy to fight against this scarring in the heart by taking a few tricks from the fields of cancer biology and immunology.

Aghajanian et al. Targeting cardiac fibrosis with engineered T cells. Nature, September 2019. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1546-z. PMID: 31511695.

The information presented here is not medical advice. Please follow all guidelines from the CDC in regards to social distancing. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.

Why do some diseases affect more men than women, or more women than men? Science has been unable to explain many of these sex-biased diseases until just recently. In this episode of Beyond the Abstract, Derek invites Dan Weiner, an MD/PhD student at Harvard Medical School, to talk about a recent breakthrough in neuropsychiatric and autoimmune genetics and how the key to these sex-biased differences may actually lie in our immune system.

Kamitaki et al. Complement genes contribute sex-biased vulnerability in diverse disorders. Nature, June 2020. PMID: 32499649. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2277-x

This week on Beyond the Abstract, Derek and Ellen talk about Derek's newest first-author publication in Developmental Biology. They discuss the role of myosin in Sertoli cells and how mutations can affect male fertility. More importantly, Ellen recounts a science celebrity sighting from our time working at the NIH.

This article was featured as the cover article of the February 2021 issue of Developmental Biology.

Sung et al. Mutations in non-muscle myosin 2A disrupt the actomyosin cytoskeleton in Sertoli cells and cause male infertility. Developmental Biology, February 2021. PMID: 33188738. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2020.11.003

Do declining antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 mean long-lasting immunity is impossible? What do mutations in the virus mean for vaccine effectiveness? Can we use sewage water to monitor the pandemic? On this episode of Beyond the Abstract, Derek and Ellen talk about three recent papers related to these important COVID-19 issues.

Note: Since recording this episode, there have been more documented cases of severe allergic reactions to the vaccine. However, the number of cases relative to the number of vaccinations is still extremely low indicating the vaccine is generally safe. Currently, it is thought that polyethylene glycol (a chemical ingredient in the vaccine) is the culprit behind the reactions, but this has not been confirmed. You can read more about this in Science and on the CDC Website. Please consult your physician if you have concerns about getting the vaccine.

On January 10th, the day prior to publication of this episode, COVID-19 cases in the US crossed 22 million with over 200,000 new cases that day.

Ward et al. Declining prevalence of antibody positive to SARS-CoV-2: a community study of 365,000 adults. medRxiv, October 2020. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.26.20219725v1

Plante et al. Spike mutation D614G alters SARS-CoV-2 fitness. Nature, 2020. PMID: 33106671

Peccia et al. Measurement of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater tracks community infection dynamics. Nature Biotechnology, 2020. PMID: 32948856

The information presented here is not medical advice. Please follow all guidelines from the CDC in regards to social distancing. Consult your physician on any questions regarding your personal health.