ResearchPod

COVID-19 infection can have varying affects an individual’s health. So, in the wake of the pandemic, how can we better determine why some people experience severe illness when contracting COVID-19, and others don’t? 

A research team based at Yale University, USA, have identified a particular gene that may explain the significant variation of the disease, showing great promise for improved outcomes for those who contract COVID-19.

Read the Research Features article here

Read the original research here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35262710/

Professor Eriks Rozners and colleagues at Binghamton University in New York, USA, are using innovative nucleic acid chemistry to modify RNA-based technologies such as RNA interference and CRISPR to enhance their utility in molecular biology. These technologies suffer from off-target effects that limit their clinical utility.

By replacing phosphates in the backbone with amides, the team aims to improve the stability, specificity, and uptake of these technologies by cells to make them more suitable for in vivo applications.

Read the original article: doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.2c00769

Read more in Research Outreach

In today’s business environment where a company is judged as much for its moral code as its commercial output, it might seem like integrity is highly prized and indeed, demanded.  However, dishonesty isn’t just tolerated – it’s contagious.   

An international team led by Leopold Ried from Erasmus University takes an in-depth look at the ethics behind buyer-supplier negotiations and the knock-on effect that dishonesty has to those on the receiving end.

Read their original article: https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1212

Read a summary in the Harvard Business Review here.

Loneliness and social isolation are known to cause several mental health issues, as the COVID-19 pandemic reminded us.  This can cause long-term difficulties and seriously impact the brain and overall brain function.

By studying the different biological and behavioural effects of social isolation on mice, Dr Jing Liang and her team have recently identified a promising therapeutic with the power to reverse these changes, a major development in this field.

Read the original research: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-09814-5

Read the Research Outreach article here

Online dating has surged in recent years, providing unique opportunities for people to meet prospective partners, find lifelong friends, as well as to form alternative connections, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the digitalization of dating may facilitate genuine connections for some, for others, they are presented with a mixture of love, lies, and surprise, as investigated by Dr Ursula Schinzel.

Read her original publication on ResearchGate and via Springer.

You can find her videos on YouTube ,  and academic publications on ResearchGate. Her book, Love in Times of Coronavirus, is available on Amazon, and you can find more about her work through her blog.

The music in this episode is performed by Celia Baron.

Pregnancy and fertility research come with powerful emotive and political connections beyond medicine alone.  Professor Richard Santen, a reproductive endocrinologist and past-president of the Endocrine Society of America shares his decades of experience in research and care for patients reproductive health, and shares his view on  how to reshape perspectives on, and provisions of care for, unexpected pregnancies.

Listeners should be aware that this interview discusses pregnancy, family planning and contraception at length, including abortion, though we do not discuss any legal or moral aspects of what, and when, counts as a person.

Read more from Prof Santen at: https://researchfeatures.com/?s=santen

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shortage of FFRs – Filtering Facepiece Respirators, also known as face masks - raised questions about UV surface disinfection for surfaces, which has not been well studied for effectiveness and is not regulated.

Castine Bernardy, a PhD candidate at the University of New Hampshire, set out to determine if UV is a practical technology for FFR disinfection, and add to the body of knowledge needed to create regulations for UV surface disinfection devices.

Read her original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/aem.01221-22

With the rapid growth of online shopping, e-commerce retailers face shifting operating costs and challenges, including shipping across geographic regions and time periods.  

Research conducted by Yun Fong Lim and Marcus Ang from Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University and Song Jiu from the School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University explores strategies to improve how online stores manage their inventory and orderst. 

Their research concept aims to improve the efficacy of online retailing operations by  predicting future demand for products and replenishing inventory to prevent shortages, while also quickly fulfilling orders as they come in. 

Read their original research: https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2020.0926

Cybersecurity has become increasingly important in recent years, with cyber-related crime on the rise. This had made cybersecurity, risk evaluation, and mitigation increasingly important, particularly for companies wanting to reduce their vulnerabilities to cyber risks and refine their insurance offerings. 

Meng Sun, a PhD Candidate at Simon Fraser University and Senior data scientist investigating risk management in life and general insurance, has created a qualitative and quantitative analyses to consider time series, type of institution, and geographic dependency, particularly in relation to US markets. Ms Sun aims to share her findings of cyber risk to provide risk mitigation insights to different kinds of organisations. Find out more about Ms Sun’s research via her researcher profile, Google Scholar, and LinkedIn. 

Read the original research: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/10/12/224  

Separating the self from non-self cells is an important part how your immune system is supposed to recognise disease, and the same mechanisms are how cancer evades that immune surveillance. 

So, what if that escape route can be closed off?

Dr Alberto Pavan describes his research into how lung cancer can be brought to the attention of immune cells, the molecular signs of treatment success, and how these microscopic changes can hopefully translate to longer, healthier lives for patients

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.1093/oncolo/oyab047