Scientists claim that overeating is not the primary cause of obesity

Perspective published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition argues the root causes of the obesity epidemic are more related to what we eat rather than how much we eat

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR NUTRITION

Rockville, MD (September 8, 2021) – Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that obesity affects more than 40% of American adults, placing them at higher risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. The USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020 - 2025 further tells us that losing weight “requires adults to reduce the number of calories they get from foods and beverages and increase the amount expended through physical activity.”

This approach to weight management is based on the century-old energy balance model which states that weight gain is caused by consuming more energy than we expend. In today’s world, surrounded by highly palatable, heavily marketed, cheap processed foods, it’s easy for people to eat more calories than they need, an imbalance that is further exacerbated by today’s sedentary lifestyles. By this thinking, overeating, coupled with insufficient physical activity, is driving the obesity epidemic. On the other hand, despite decades of public health messaging exhorting people to eat less and exercise more, rates of obesity and obesity-related diseases have steadily risen.

The authors of “The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model: A Physiological Perspective on the Obesity Pandemic,” a perspective published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, point to fundamental flaws in the energy balance model, arguing that an alternate model, the carbohydrate-insulin model, better explains obesity and weight gain. Moreover, the carbohydrate-insulin model points the way to more effective, long-lasting weight management strategies.

According to lead author Dr. David Ludwig, Endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Professor at Harvard Medical School, the energy balance model doesn’t help us understand the biological causes of weight gain: “During a growth spurt, for instance, adolescents may increase food intake by 1,000 calories a day. But does their overeating cause the growth spurt or does the growth spurt cause the adolescent to get hungry and overeat?”

In contrast to the energy balance model, the carbohydrate-insulin model makes a bold claim: overeating isn’t the main cause of obesity. Instead, the carbohydrate-insulin model lays much of the blame for the current obesity epidemic on modern dietary patterns characterized by excessive consumption of foods with a high glycemic load: in particular, processed, rapidly digestible carbohydrates. These foods cause hormonal responses that fundamentally change our metabolism, driving fat storage, weight gain, and obesity.

When we eat highly processed carbohydrates, the body increases insulin secretion and suppresses glucagon secretion. This, in turn, signals fat cells to store more calories, leaving fewer calories available to fuel muscles and other metabolically active tissues. The brain perceives that the body isn’t getting enough energy, which, in turn, leads to feelings of hunger. In addition, metabolism may slow down in the body’s attempt to conserve fuel. Thus, we tend to remain hungry, even as we continue to gain excess fat.

To understand the obesity epidemic, we need to consider not only how much we’re eating, but also how the foods we eat affect our hormones and metabolism. With its assertion that all calories are alike to the body, the energy balance model misses this critical piece of the puzzle.

While the carbohydrate-insulin model is not new—its origins date to the early 1900s—The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition perspective is the most comprehensive formulation of this model to date, authored by a team of 17 internationally recognized scientists, clinical researchers, and public health experts. Collectively, they have summarized the growing body of evidence in support of the carbohydrate-insulin model. Moreover, the authors have identified a series of testable hypotheses that distinguish the two models to guide future research.

Adoption of the carbohydrate-insulin model over the energy-balance model has radical implications for weight management and obesity treatment. Rather than urge people to eat less, a strategy which usually doesn’t work in the long run, the carbohydrate-insulin model suggests another path that focuses more on what we eat. According to Dr. Ludwig, “reducing consumption of the rapidly digestible carbohydrates that flooded the food supply during the low-fat diet era lessens the underlying drive to store body fat. As a result, people may lose weight with less hunger and struggle.”

The authors acknowledge that further research is needed to conclusively test both models and, perhaps, to generate new models that better fit the evidence. Toward this end, they call for constructive discourse and “collaborations among scientists with diverse viewpoints to test predictions in rigorous and unbiased research.”

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Reference
Ludwig DS, Aronne LJ, Astrup A, de Cabo R, Cantley LC, Friedman MI, Heymsfield SB, Johnson JD, King JC and Kruass RM, et al. The carbohydrate-insulin model: a physiological perspective on the obesity pandemic. Am J Clin Nutr, nqab270.

About The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
The most highly rated peer-reviewed, primary research journal in nutrition and dietetics, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) publishes the latest research on topics in nutrition such as obesity, vitamins and minerals, nutrition and disease, and energy metabolism. Visit us online at academic.oup.com/ajcn or follow us on Twitter @AJCNutrition. #AJCN

About the American Society for Nutrition
ASN is the preeminent professional organization for nutrition research scientists and clinicians around the world. Founded in 1928, the society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition. ASN advances excellence in nutrition research and practice through its publications, education, public affairs, membership programs, and annual meeting, Nutrition. Visit ASN online at nutrition.org.

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

DOI

10.1093/ajcn/nqab270 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The carbohydrate-insulin model: a physiological perspective on the obesity pandemic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Sep-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors reported no funding received for this article.

 

What was really the secret behind Van Gogh’s success?

Creative exploration followed by exploitation can lead to a career’s greatest hits

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE RESEARCHERS USED ALGORITHMS FOR IMAGE RECOGNITION TO MINE DATA FROM 800,000 VISUAL ARTS IMAGES COLLECTED FROM MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES, WHICH COVER THE CAREER HISTORIES OF 2,128 ARTISTS, INCLUDING VINCENT VAN GOGH. THIS SALIENCY MAP VISUALIZES THE IMPORTANT PIXELS THAT THE MODEL USED TO PREDICT VAN GOGH'S POST-IMPRESSIONISM ART STYLE. view more 

CREDIT: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Before developing his famed “drip technique,” abstract artist Jackson Pollock dabbled in drawing, print making and surrealist paintings of humans, animals and nature.

According to a new study from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University,this period of exploration followed by exploitation of his new drip technique set up Pollock for a “hot streak,” or a burst of high-impact works clustered together in close succession. In Pollock’s case, this was a three-year period from 1947 to 1950, during which he created all his drippy, splattered masterpieces that he is still famous for today.

By using artificial intelligence to mine big data related to artists, film directors and scientists, the Northwestern researchers discovered this pattern is not uncommon but, instead, a magical formula. Hot streaks, they found, directly result from years of exploration (studying diverse styles or topics) immediately followed by years of exploitation (focusing on a narrow area to develop deep expertise).

The research will be published on Sept. 13 in the journal Nature Communications.

With this new understanding about what triggers a hot streak, institutions can intentionally create environments that support and facilitate hot streaks in order to help their members thrive.

“Neither exploration nor exploitation alone in isolation is associated with a hot streak. It’s the sequence of them together,” said Dashun Wang, who led the study. “Although exploration is considered a risk because it might not lead anywhere, it increases the likelihood of stumbling upon a great idea. By contrast, exploitation is typically viewed as a conservative strategy. If you exploit the same type of work over and over for a long period of time, it might stifle creativity. But, interestingly, exploration followed by exploitation appears to show consistent associations with the onset of hot streaks.”

Wang is a professor of management and organizations Kellogg School and of industrial engineering and management sciences in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. He also is director of the Center for Science of Science Innovationand a core member of the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems.

Inspired by Van Gogh

In 2018, Wang and his colleagues published a paper in Nature, characterizing hot streaks in artistic, cultural and scientific careers. After establishing that these hot streaks do occur, Wang was motivated to discover what triggers them. He found a clue while visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

Van Gogh experienced an artistic breakthrough from 1888-1890, during which he painted his most famous works, including The Starry Night, Sunflowers and Bedroom in Arles. Before that, however, his work was less impressionistic and more realistic. He also tended to use somber earth tones rather than the bright, sweeping colors, for which he is best known today.

“If you look at his production before 1888, it was all over the place,” Wang said. “It was full of still-life paintings, pencil drawings and portraits that are much different in character from the work he created during his hot streak.”

Mining data from artists, scientists, filmmakers

In the new study, Wang’s team developed computational methods using deep-learning algorithms and network science and then applied these methods to large-scale datasets tracing the career outputs of artists, film directors and scientists.

For artists, Wang’s team used algorithms for image recognition to mine data from 800,000 visual arts images collected from museums and galleries, which cover the career histories of 2,128 artists, including Pollock and Van Gogh. For film directors, the team collected data sets from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), which included 79,000 films by 4,337 directors. For scientists, the team analyzed the career histories of 20,040 scientists by combining publication and citation datasets from the Web of Science and Google Scholar.

Wang and his collaborators quantified a hot streak within each career based on the impact of works produced, measured by auction price, IMDB ratings and academic paper citations. Then, they correlated the timing of hot streaks with the creative trajectories of each individual. Looking at careers four years before and after the hot streak, the researchers examined how each individual’s work changed around the beginning of a hot streak.

Combination of creative experimentation, implementation is ‘powerful’

The team found that when an episode of exploration was not followed by exploitation, the chance for a hot streak was significantly reduced. Similarly, exploitation alone — that was not preceded by exploration — also did not guarantee a hot streak. But when exploration was closely followed by exploitation, the researchers noted the probability of a hot streak consistently and significantly increased.

“We were able to identify among the first regularities underlying the onset of hot streaks, which appears universal across diverse creative domains,” Wang said. “Our findings suggest that creative strategies that balance experimentation with implementation may be especially powerful.”

“This knowledge can help individuals and organizations understand the different types of activities to engage in — such as exploring new domains or exploiting existing knowledge and competencies — and the optimal sequence to use in order to achieve the most significant impact,” added study co-author Jillian Chown, an assistant professor of management and organizations at Kellogg School.

On average, a hot streak lasts about five years. After that, the researchers found, individuals return to “normal” and no longer follow any pattern of exploration or exploitation.

The study, “Understanding the onset of hot streaks across artistic, cultural and scientific careers,” was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (award numbers FA9550-15-1-0162, FA9550-17-1-0089 and FA9550-19-1-0354).

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-25477-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Understanding the onset of hot streaks across artistic, cultural, and scientific careers

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Sep-2021

 

Researchers find the dynamics behind the remarkable August 2018 Greenland polynya formation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: A REMARKABLE POLYNYA OCCURRED NORTH OF GREENLAND DURING AUGUST 2018. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO FROM NASA WORLDVIEW APPLICATION, PART OF THE NASA EARTH OBSERVING SYSTEM DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEM (EOSDIS)

A polynya is a region of open water that is surrounded by sea ice. These areas fluctuate throughout seasons, and weather events can influence their size and development. Extremely high wind in February 2018 led to a polynya that developed in the Wandel Sea off the coast of Greenland. Climatologists have never observed such a pronounced polynya since the beginning of the satellite era. Then, six months later, in August 2018, a polynya appeared again. A team of scientists, wanting to learn more about this unusual event, applied a comprehensive dataset to investigate the effects of atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean on the August polynya formation.

“We found that the thinnest sea ice cover in August since 1978 and the modest southerly wind were responsible for the formation and maintenance of this polynya.” said leading author Prof. Chang-Qing Ke. with Nanjing University.“Sea ice drift patterns have become more responsive to atmospheric forcing due to thinning of sea ice cover with climate change.”

Prof. Ke, alongside several other polynya researchers published their full results in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. The study suggests that the regional wind has a profound influence on Arctic polynyas. Likewise, high wind played an essential role in the February polynya formation.

However, during the summer, thermodynamic effects are also critical to polynya formation. Understanding and predicting Arctic polynya formation requires more precise knowledge of both the dynamic (e.g., wind-induced sea ice drift) and thermodynamic (e.g., upwell heat) processes during polynya development.

This is a challenging task because Arctic regions are remote and lack plentiful surface observations. Scientists are mostly limited to applied satellite or model data. For further research, more in-situ satellite data is needed for detailed investigations into summer polynyas. This additional data should help better predict the thermodynamic effects on the time of opening and extent of the polynyas.

 

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JOURNAL

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s00376-021-0136-9 

ARTICLE TITLE

Thinner Sea Ice Contribution to the Remarkable Polynya Formation North of Greenland in August 2018

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Jun-2021

 

The world's languages may be so similar because of how humans talk about language

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

The languages of the world are all unique, but also share important similarities. These mostly lie in the grammatical elements each of the approximately 7000 human languages contain, the word parts and rules that speakers can use to build a sentence. Traditionally, linguists either assume that the explanation for these similarities is that all people are born with a blueprint for these grammatical categories in their genetics or that they emerge from other cognitive capacities (for example, all people have an understanding of time so human languages can develop past tense or future tense).

A problem with these accounts is that they can only explain part of the grammatical similarities of the world's languages and also that they do not explain where grammar came from.

In a new paper recently published in Frontiers in Communication, linguists Stef Spronck and Daniela Casartelli from the University of Helsinki propose a radical new theory: these grammatical similarities are due to the way in which humans talk about language. The authors noted that in many languages sentences that reflect people's speech or thought, known as 'reported speech', can develop new meanings that closely resemble grammatical categories. This means that the sentence 'He said: "I will go"' in some languages can become the main way to express meanings such as 'He was about to go', 'He might go', 'As for him, he will go'. Each of these interpretations have no clear connection with the meaning of reported speech, but use a sentence structure that derives from reported speech. The meanings associated with these non-speech interpretations of reported speech correspond to common grammatical categories in the languages of the world, which linguists call 'aspect', 'modality', 'topic' and others.

Similar examples include instances in which the ‘saying’ sentence on the left below is used as the main or only strategy to express the meaning on the right:

-    She said ‘I will go’ means She WANTS to go
-    He believes saying they will go is the only way to express He believes THAT they will go (so the word ‘say’ is interpreted as the complementiser ‘that’)
-    It says ‘I will go’ means It IS ABOUT TO go
-    We say ‘You will go’ is the only way to express We MAKE you go
-    You say ‘we will go’ means You FEAR we will go  
-    Saying me, I go is the only way to express AS FOR ME, I go

Dr Stef Spronck, one of the authors of the study, says: "Observations about expressions of saying being used to express a wide variety of meanings (including those above and others) have been made in the linguistic literature before for individual languages and areas, but our study shows that they in fact occur all around the world in languages that have not been in contact. We propose that such observations can be explained by the hypothesis that saying clauses (reported speech) are an important source for a wide, but also quite regular range of meanings that constitute core parts of grammar and the meaning of some verbs and thus have played a central role in the constitution of language."

"Humans talk about other people's thoughts and statements all the time, from the moment we first learn to speak. It determines our cultures, the way we see the world and who we trust. A phenomenon that is so fundamental to human existence likely leaves its trace on languages and our study shows that this goes far beyond simple sentences of reported speech. We propose that in the evolution of language talking about language was a way of forming some of the first complex language structures and that from these structures new types of grammar could develop. This would explain why we see reported speech with so many different functions in our world-wide sample, but at the same time also find the same functions over and over again. Many of these new 'non-speech' functions could be seen as a type of grammatical category. Our hypothesis is not meant to replace traditional cognitive explanations of grammar, but provides a new story for the emergence of grammatical categories, particularly those that are traditionally more difficult to explain."

 

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Communication

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.624486 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

In a Manner of Speaking: How Reported Speech May Have Shaped Grammar

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2021

AZTECS IN SPACE

Affordable housing in outer space: 

Scientists develop cosmic concrete from space dust and astronaut blood

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

 

IMAGE: MOON AND MARS BIO COMPOSITES view more 

CREDIT: DR. ALED ROBERTS | RESEARCH FELLOW FUTURE BIOMANUFACTURING RESEARCH HUB MANCHESTER INSTITUTE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

Transporting a single brick to Mars can cost more than a million British pounds – making the future construction of a Martian colony seem prohibitively expensive. Scientists at The University of Manchester have now developed a way to potentially overcome this problem, by creating a concrete-like material made of extra-terrestrial dust along with the blood, sweat and tears of astronauts.

In their study, published today in Materials Today Bio, a protein from human blood, combined with a compound from urine, sweat or tears, could glue together simulated moon or Mars soil to produce a material stronger than ordinary concrete, perfectly suited for construction work in extra-terrestrial environments.

The cost of transporting a single brick to Mars has been estimated at about US$2 million, meaning future Martian colonists cannot bring their building materials with them, but will have to utilise resources they can obtain on-site for construction and shelter. This is known as in-situ resource utilisation (or ISRU) and typically focusses on the use of loose rock and Martian soil (known as regolith) and sparse water deposits. However, there is one overlooked resource that will, by definition, also be available on any crewed mission to the Red Planet: the crew themselves.

In an article published today in the journal Materials Today Bio, scientists demonstrated that a common protein from blood plasma – human serum albumin – could act as a binder for simulated moon or Mars dust to produce a concrete-like material. The resulting novel material, termed AstroCrete, had compressive strengths as high as 25 MPa (Megapascals), about the same as the 20–32 MPa seen in ordinary concrete.

However, the scientists found that incorporating urea – which is a biological waste product that the body produces and excretes through urine, sweat and tears – could further increase the compressive strength by over 300%, with the best performing material having a compressive strength of almost 40 MPa, substantially stronger than ordinary concrete.

Dr Aled Roberts, from The University of Manchester, who worked on the project, said that the new technique holds considerable advantages over many other proposed construction techniques on the moon and Mars.

“Scientists have been trying to develop viable technologies to produce concrete-like materials on the surface of Mars, but we never stopped to think that the answer might be inside us all along”, he said.

The scientists calculate that over 500 kg of high-strength AstroCrete could be produced over the course of a two-year mission on the surface of Mars by a crew of six astronauts. If used as a mortar for sandbags or heat-fused regolith bricks, each crew member could produce enough AstroCrete to expand the habitat to support an additional crew member, doubling the housing available with each successive mission.

Animal blood was historically used as a binder for mortar. “It is exciting that a major challenge of the space age may have found its solution based on inspirations from medieval technology”, said Dr Roberts.

The scientists investigated the underlying bonding mechanism and found that the blood proteins denature, or “curdle”, to form an extended structure with interactions known as “beta sheets” that tightly holds the material together.

“The concept is literally blood-curdling,” Dr Roberts explained.

ENDS

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JOURNAL

Materials Today Bio

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtbio.2021.100136 

ARTICLE TITLE

Blood, sweat and tears: extraterrestrial regolith biocomposites with in vivo binders

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Sep-2021

 

Media beautifies the image of coronavirus

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA

 

IMAGE: FIRST IMAGES OF SARS-COV-2. A, B, C, D: SOME OF THE FIRST IMAGES PRESENTED WITH FALSE COLOURS PUBLISHED ON 13/FEBRUARY/2020 BY THE NIAD. E: FIRST PUBLIC-DOMAIN MODEL DESIGNED IN 3D PUBLISHED ON 30/GENER/2020 BY CDC. view more 

CREDIT: SOURCE: MODIFIED BY ANDREU-SÁNCHEZ, C., MARTÍN-PASCUAL, M.Á., (2021). THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE IMAGES REPRESENTING THE SARS-COV-2 CORONAVIRUS AFFECT PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF THE VIRUS. PLOS ONE 16(8):E0253738.

According to a study by the Instituto de Radio Televisión Española and the UAB conducted during the COVID-19 lockdown, black and white images of SARS-CoV-2 make the virus seem more infectious. The results, published on PLoS ONE, demonstrate that colour and three-dimensional images of SARS-CoV-2 in the media has favoured the perception of the virus as a beautiful, but not quite realistic or contagious virus.

The Covid-19 pandemic has produced an increase in the amount of scientific information provided by the media. In many cases, the information related to this crisis is accompanied by images representing SARS-CoV-2. In a previous study, researchers discovered that despite having access to real images of the virus, the majority of images in the media were coloured, three-dimensional illustrations of the coronavirus.

In order to discover how the attributes of the images representing SARS-CoV-2 affected viewers’ perception of the virus, researchers from the Instituto de Radio Televisión Española and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona conducted a study, now available in PLoS ONE, in which different images of SARS-CoV-2 were presented. Participants were asked about parametres such as beauty, scientific nature, realism, peception of infectiousness, fear, and the didactic nature of the images. The study also covered formal characteristics such as colour vs. black and white, 2D vs. 3D and photo vs. illustration and how these affect perceptions of the virus.

The study concludes that the beauty of the coronavirus images is more likely to be seen in colour and three-dimensional images. And these are the images that ared most used when informing about SARS-CoV-2, despite the fact that the real images of coronavirus are black and white, two-dimensional photographs. In this sense, the research discusses the role media has in distributing images that beautify the virus with the aim of informing about the pandemic.

Researchers also found a negative correlation between the beauty detected in the images and their didactic value. The more beautiful the images were perceived as being, the less educational they seemed to spectators.

The results of this study can be applied directly to the scientific communication sector, in the design of communication plans and protocols in situations in which the behaviour of the population as a whole is key.

Doctor Miguel Ángel Martín-Pascual from the Instituto de Radio Televisión Española and lecturer at the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, as well as autor of this study, considers that “the media has a great responsibility in providing the correct information to its audience, including the images used. There is a need to evaluate whether beautified images of coronavirus not corresponding to real photographs of the same virus is a practice that, far from being educational for the audience, could actually be understood as a way of visually presenting fake news. Presenting beautified images of what according to the director of WHO is considered to be our public enemy number one, should give us something to think about”.

Doctor Celia Andreu-Sánchez, who also took part in this study as member of the Neuro-Com group of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, explains that “our results lead us to consider the possibility that the viewers’ perception of the images representing SARS-CoV-2 could have influenced their behaviour as well as their emotional states”. She continues to say that this is why “we suggest that scientific communicators take heed of this study when communicating scientific content related to public health in the future, in which the behaviour of the population is essential”.

This study was conducted as a result of a collaboration between the Instituto de Radio Televisión Española and the Neuro-Com Research Group of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

The research was conducted by Celia Andreu-Sánchez from the Neuro-Com group of the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and by Miguel Ángel Martín-Pascual from the Instituto de Radio Televisión Española and the UAB Neuro-Com group.

 

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0253738 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The attributes of the images representing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus affect people’s perception of the virus

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Aug-2021

 

Biomanufacturing partnership boosts Canada’s life-saving treatment and vaccine capacity

The Ottawa Hospital, the University of Alberta and BioCanRx collaborate to manufacture vaccines, gene therapies, cell therapies and more

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA FACULTY OF MEDICINE & DENTISTRY 

As Canada seeks to rebuild its biomanufacturing sector and support made-in-Canada solutions to global health challenges, The Ottawa Hospital, the University of Alberta and BioCanRx have collaborated to create Canada’s first full-service, end-to-end biomanufacturing solution for academic and industrial clients. 

The three organizations have signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance collaboration between:

• The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre (BMC), which has a 15-year track record of biomanufacturing and is home to Canada’s only hands-on biomanufacturing training program
• Alberta Cell Therapy Manufacturing (ACTM), which has some of the most advanced biomanufacturing facilities in Canada    
• BioCanRx, a Canada-wide research network focused on developing and translating life-saving biotherapies and immunotherapies for cancer 

The partners are already collaborating to manufacture many therapies and vaccines, including:

• A potentially curative gene therapy for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, an inherited disorder that is more common in Québec
• Mesenchymal stem / stromal cells for septic shock, a deadly condition that occurs when the immune system overreacts to an infection          
• COVID-19 vaccines, in partnership with Entos Pharmaceuticals

“Canada has some of the best scientific minds in the world working to develop new therapies and vaccines, but they have been limited by our lack of domestic biomanufacturing capacity,” said Dr. Duncan Stewart, Executive Vice-President of Research at The Ottawa Hospital and a professor at the University of Ottawa. “This new partnership, which combines areas of strength across the country, will greatly enhance Canada’s ability to produce life-saving medical treatments and vaccines.”

“For Canada to play a key role in new breakthrough therapies and vaccines, we must invest in multiple facilities across the country, and foster collaboration,” said Dr. Greg Korbutt, Scientific Director of ACTM and Professor of Surgery at the University of Alberta. “This agreement sets the stage for that, a Canadian biomanufacturing ecosystem.”

“This partnership will not only scale up our domestic biomanufacturing capacity, but include hands-on GMP training to meet the astounding demand for biomanufacturing personnel," said Dr. Stéphanie Michaud, President and CEO of BioCanRx. "More importantly, it serves to support our 'made-in-Canada' approach focused on expanding access to clinical trials for potentially life-saving cancer treatments, right here, in Canada.”

“Canada has deep biopharma research experience, so it's great to see expansion in the biomanufacturing sector. Hopefully, Canada continues to invest in initiatives such as this,” said Entos CEO John Lewis. “Accessing the facilities and expertise at ACTM and The Ottawa Hospital has significantly helped propel our COVID-19 vaccine candidate into clinical trials.”

Photos and video are available for media. 

About The Ottawa Hospital's Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre

The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre (BMC) is the most experienced and successful facility of its kind in Canada, having manufactured more than a dozen different cell and virus-based products for human clinical trials in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. With eight manufacturing suites and 40 full-time staff, BMC offers a full range of services to both academic and corporate partners, all done according to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards. BMC also leads Canada’s only hands-on training program in biomanufacturing, in partnership with Algonquin College, the University of Ottawa and Mitacs. Founded in 2006, BMC has been supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund, BioCanRx and generous donors to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. www.ohri.ca/bmc.   

About Alberta Cell Therapy Manufacturing

The University of Alberta’s ACTM facility helps bring new vaccines and cell-therapies to patients. Purpose built for biomanufacturing to regulatory Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) requirements, this 10,000-square foot multi-purpose facility contains 6 separate cleanrooms, a quality control lab and a soon to be completed fill-finish suite. This combined with ACTM’s expert GMP staff help research and industry clients translate cell-based therapies from bench to bedside.

About BioCanRx

BioCanRx, Canada’s Immunotherapy Network, is a network of scientists, clinicians, cancer stakeholders, academic institutions, NGOs and industry partners working together to accelerate the development of leading-edge immune oncology therapies for the benefit of patients. Our vision is to cure patients and enhance the quality of life of those living with cancer. BioCanRx invests in leading edge immune oncology research translating world-class technologies from the lab into early phase clinical trials. BioCanRx provides researchers with access to funding, expertise, training and manufacturing facilities and is a leader in the translation, manufacture and adoption of cancer immunotherapies. The network is committed to training and developing the talent needed for a thriving health biotechnology sector in Canada. BioCanRx receives funding from the federal government’s Networks of Centres of Excellence, and support from industry, the provinces and charities. The network is hosted by the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. https://biocanrx.com/   

Toward better space health:

 Understanding the effects of microgravity on P-glycoprotein

Scientists study how space travel may affect the expression and functions of an important membrane protein in our body

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CACTUS COMMUNICATIONS

 

IMAGE: ASTRONAUTS IN LONG-TERM MISSIONS, SUCH AS IN THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION OR IN FUTURE DEEP SPACE EXPEDITIONS, HAVE TO ENDURE THE MANY ADVERSE SIDE EFFECTS OF MICROGRAVITY. view more 

CREDIT: NASA-IMAGERY FROM PIXABAY

Deep space is most likely going to be humanity’s final frontier, and space travel will undoubtedly become much more common in the future. However, space is a very hostile environment not only because of the technical difficulties that entail going there, but also because of the detrimental effects that constant microgravity has on the human body. Some examples of these are bone loss, muscle atrophy, and liver and kidney problems, as well as space motion sickness.

It should come as no surprise that astronauts resort to various drugs to ameliorate the symptoms caused by microgravity. Unfortunately for them, microgravity has been noted to have a significant impact on the pharmacokinetics of certain drugs, which could lead to altered efficacy and unexpected outcomes. In particular, delivering an accurate amount of a drug to the brain has become a key problem in space health.

In a recent effort to shed some light onto this issue, a team of scientists from Beijing Institute of Technology, China, studied the effects that microgravity has on P-glycoprotein (P-gp), an important efflux transporter. Their results are detailed in their paper published in Space: Science and Technology, on 17 Jun 2021.

P-glycoprotein is an ATP-dependent efflux pump that expels foreign substances out of cells. Presenting in the liver, kidneys, and intestines, this biomolecule can have a significant effect on drug metabolism, absorption, distribution, and excretion. Most importantly, P-gp is highly expressed in the capillary endothelial cells that create the blood–brain barrier and regulates the entry of many drugs into the brain. Thus, understanding how microgravity affects the expression and function of P-gp is important for future space missions.

The researchers employed a frequently adopted model to understand the effects of simulated microgravity (SMG) on P-gp in rats. In this model, the Morey–Holton model, microgravity is simulated by suspending rats by the tail so that their hind legs remain elevated, creating a head-down tilt that mimics many of the effects of real microgravity.  Rats were divided into three groups: a control group and two other groups in which SMG was maintained for 7 and 21 days (7d-SMG and 21d-SMG, respectively), through which the impacts of different microgravity durations are expected to be studied.

The team first performed experiments to determine the levels of P-gp expression and the efflux function of P-gp. They found P-gp expression and function to be significantly higher in the 21d-SMG group compared with 7d-SMG group and CON, highlighting the impacts of long-term microgravity exposure being different from the short-term ones. Afterwards, they looked for proteins that interact with P-gp and were expressed at significantly different levels between the three groups. Through a label-free proteomics strategy, they identified 26 proteins interacting with P-gp that were common to both SMG groups. Most of these differentially expressed proteins regulated ATP hydrolysis-coupled transmembrane transport, among other functions. Finally, interaction analyses hinted at many other potential proteins that P-gp might interact with, including heat shock proteins, sodium/potassium ATP enzymes, ATP synthase, microtubule-associated proteins, and vesicle fusion ATPase.

Considering that most astronauts have reported taking drugs that are substrates of P-gp, clarifying the roles of P-gp and the proteins it interacts with under a microgravity environment may be necessary to preserve their health in future missions. “As far as we know, this is the first report on P-gp function and its interacting proteins in the rat brain under simulated microgravity. Our findings might be helpful not only for further studies on nerve system stability, but also for the safe and effective use of P-gp substrate drugs during space travel,” highlights Prof. Yuling Deng, who led the study.  

Much remains to be clarified on how prolonged microgravity affects our body. Still, the results of this study pave the way to a more complete understanding of this issue. Let us hope further research will be conducted so that no adverse effects of being in space catch future astronauts off guard.

 

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Reference

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34133/2021/9835728

Authors: Yujuan Li1, Lili Huang1, Javed Iqbal2, and Yulin Deng1

Affiliations:

1. School of Life Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology

2. Department of Biology, Government College Mankera, University of Sargodha

 

About Professor Yulin Deng

Dr. Yulin Deng obtained B.Sc and M.Sc degrees from Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), China, in 1983 and 1986, respectively. He then obtained a Ph.D. degree from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, in 1997. He is currently Dean and Professor of the School of Life Science at BIT. His research interests lie in neuroscience, space biology, and biological analysis technology. Prof. Deng has received several awards and honors from both BIT and the Beijing government. Since 2015, he is also a member of the International Academy of Astronautics.

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DOI

10.34133/2021/9835728 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Investigation on P-Glycoprotein Function and Its Interacting Proteins under Simulated Microgravity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jun-2021

COI STATEMENT

All authors declare no possible conflicts of interests.