New public health education programs to address workforce needs

Federal initiative awards $3 million to UMass Lowell

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL

LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell has been awarded a $3 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to develop new undergraduate and graduate programs in public health informatics and technology, to educate diverse students for vital jobs.

The grant, one of 10 awarded to minority-serving institutions and other institutions of higher education around the country, is part of the Public Health Informatics & Technology Workforce Development Program, a federal effort to address the gaps in public health capacity that hurt the U.S. response to COVID-19. The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion federal aid package designed to address the public health and economic impacts of the pandemic.

“Tremendous weaknesses in our public health data infrastructure were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said UMass Lowell Public Health Prof. Dan Berlowitz, chair of the department, who is leading the initiative at the university. “Information systems were not there, and data-handling expertise and management were not there for tracking positive tests, contacting people who had been exposed, identifying high-risk populations, and reporting illness and death. And even when they were there, everyone was doing it differently.”

The project will include several other UMass Lowell public health professors, faculty from the Solomont School of Nursing, the Department of Computer Science and the Manning School of Business, allowing the university to develop a new undergraduate public health pathway in health informatics and technology over the next year, as well as a new graduate program and graduate certificates for people already in the workforce.

As part of the federal effort, UMass Lowell will also aim to increase the number of people from underrepresented communities in the public health IT workforce and to educate all students in health equity. 

UMass Lowell is partnering with Middlesex and Northern Essex community colleges as it develops the new undergraduate major to make sure students who graduate from the two-year schools can transfer smoothly to UMass Lowell. All three schools are designated as “minority-serving institutions” by the U.S. Department of Education, Berlowitz said. 

UMass Lowell also will work with community partners throughout the Merrimack Valley to place students in internships and make sure the new programs meet local job needs.

“We could not have received this grant without our educational partners and our strong relationships with community partners,” Berlowitz said.

The new concentration for undergraduate public health majors will combine classes in computer science and public health, as well as business classes, according to UMass Lowell’s Amy Smalarz, assistant teaching professor and undergraduate program coordinator for public health.

“Teaching students how to build those databases, how to organize them and how to use them is a big piece,” she said.

The new graduate degree and certificates offered through UMass Lowell’s Division of Graduate, Online and Professional Studies will draw on courses for the existing master’s degree in health information management with a focus on health informatics.

The community and industry partners on the grant include the city of Lowell Health Department, the city of Lawrence Board of Health, the Greater Lowell Health Alliance, the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Lowell General Hospital, the Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, the UMass Chan Medical School Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science, LLX Solutions, and Academic Public Health Corp.

UMass Lowell is a national research university located on a high-energy campus in the heart of a global community. The university offers its students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs, vigorous hands-on learning and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be leaders in their communities and around the globe. www.uml.edu

Oral hookworm vaccine could save millions around the world

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

 

IMAGE: AN ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF HOOKWORMS INSIDE A HUMAN INTESTINE. view more 

CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

There’s been a significant breakthrough in the development of a vaccine to prevent hookworm infection – a parasite which causes serious disease in tens of millions of people globally.

Trials of the vaccine candidate in mice, led by researchers at The University of Queensland, indicate that it is more than twice as effective than existing alternatives and marks a leap forward in the battle against the highly contagious parasite.

Professor Istvan Toth from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biology said the ease with which the vaccine could be administered –  via tablet, liquid or powder – would be a gamechanger for developing countries.

“Our vaccine candidate can be orally self-administered, bypassing the need for trained medical staff, and means there’s no requirement for special storage, enabling it to reach large, isolated populations,” Professor Toth said.

“Vaccination can be carried out at a significantly reduced cost, which not only improves the health of those affected and at high risk, but also helps improve economic growth in disease-endemic areas.”

Hookworm currently infects around half a billion people globally and lives within the human intestine, using the host’s blood as its source of nourishment, digested through a special set of enzymes.

It’s often found in regions with poor water quality, sanitation, and hygiene – greatly impacting on the physical and cognitive development of children and increasing the risk of mortality and miscarriage.

UQ’s trials in mice showed significant improvements on an alternative vaccine candidate which only achieved a 30 to 50 per cent reduction in the number of worms.

“The UQ-developed vaccine resulted in an impressive 94 per cent worm reduction in mice,” Professor Toth said.

“So not only is our new vaccine candidate easier to deliver, it triggers a staggeringly good immune response.”

Co-author of the paper Dr Mariusz Skwarczynski said the research team targeted the hookworm’s digestion enzyme (APR 1).

“When the function of these enzymes is blocked, the parasite starves,” Dr Skwarczynski said.

“Our vaccine produces antibodies against the hookworm enzymes responsible for the digestion of blood – they simply stop being able to eat properly.”

The researchers plan to continue working on and refining the vaccine candidate in preclinical development settings, to ensure its safety and efficacy, before beginning human clinical trials.

“We’re very optimistic that, along with our colleagues, led by Professor Alex Loukas from James Cook University, we will be able to deliver a successful vaccine that stops this parasite in its tracks,” Dr Skwarczynski said.

The research has been published in Scopus (DOI: 10.3390/vaccines9091034).

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JOURNAL

Vaccines

DOI

10.3390/vaccines9091034 

ARTICLE TITLE

Oral peptide vaccine against hookworm infection: Correlation of antibody titers with protective efficacy

Psychologists create first-ever body-maps of hallucinations

Leicester psychologists have, for the first time, created body-maps of the sensations which arise during hallucinations in people experiencing psychosis.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

 

IMAGE: EXAMPLE OF PARTICIPANT ANNOTATIONS, USED TO CREATE NOVEL BUT SIMPLE MULTIMODAL UNUSUAL SENSORY EXPERIENCE (MUSE) BODY-MAPS. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

Leicester psychologists have, for the first time, created body-maps of the sensations which arise during hallucinations in people experiencing psychosis.

The study, published in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine, provides the most extensive descriptive data to date on the feelings which arise during hallucinations and where individuals reported sensations in the body. University of Leicester researchers also studied the emotions reported during hallucinations, with confusion, fear and frustration being the most common.

Although there was great variation in the localisation of feelings across participants, for each individual feelings were recurrently concentrated in particular body areas. Areas of concentration often held repeated sources of feelings like pain, heat, or tension.

Dr Katie Melvin, of the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour at the University of Leicester and corresponding author for the study, said:

“During a systematic review of existing research, we found indicators of the contributions that multiple senses, emotions and feelings may make to hallucinations.

“We designed a study and developed the novel but simple multimodal unusual sensory experience (MUSE) map method to investigate these features further. MUSE maps involve documenting hallucinations in daily life and include body-mapping. The article shares new insights through body-maps and data on the immediate feeling of hallucinations.

“The range of feelings in the body and around the body (into peri-personal space) were particularly interesting. Participants often described that the method helped them share experiences that were difficult to put into words.

“The methods and outcomes of this study can contribute to advances on how we understand hallucinations and how we can support people who experience them. The next steps for this area of research will be further understanding the embodiment and feeling of hallucinations in different populations and developing interventions to support with this.”

Psychosis is a term which describes experiences where an individual may have difficulties in determining what is real and what is not real.

Research indicates psychosis is associated with experiencing trauma, adverse life events, and stress. People may be given a diagnosis such as schizophrenia. Experiences of perceiving or believing things which those around us do not can also occur in physical health conditions such as brain tumours or acute infections.

Psychosis can have serious adverse outcomes on individuals including distress, lack of sleep, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, difficulties in carrying out daily activities, experiences of discrimination and lost opportunities.

Participants in this study were asked by the research team to prospectively document the feeling and senses of hallucinations for one week prior to an interview.

Novel visual diary methods involving drawing, writing and body-mapping generated 42 MUSE maps, which set out the specific areas across the body – and beyond, in so-called peripersonal space – where participants experienced sensations during hallucinations.

The study found that hallucinations were characterised by numerous feelings arising at once, often including multisensory, emotional, and embodied features. Researchers suggest further uptake of visual, ecological and prospective methods may enhance understandings of lived experiences of hallucinations.

Leicester’s Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour brings together expertise in the fields of Neuroscience, Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Ophthalmology. Researchers work in partnership with University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, and with Leicestershire Partnership Trust.

‘The feeling, embodiment and emotion of hallucinations in first episode psychosis: A prospective phenomenological visual-ecological study using novel multimodal unusual sensory experience (MUSE) maps’ is available in EClinicalMedicine, published by The Lancet.

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JOURNAL

EClinicalMedicine

DOI

10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101153 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The feeling, embodiment and emotion of hallucinations in first episode psychosis: A prospective phenomenological visual-ecological study using novel multimodal unusual sensory experience (MUSE) maps

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Oct-2021

COI STATEMENT

All the authors report no conflicts.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

Teaching robots to think like us

Brain cells, electrical impulses steer robot though maze

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

 

VIDEO: ROBOT EXPERIMENTS. A ROBOT WAS PLACED ON FIELDS WITH OBSTACLES AND WAS DIRECTED TOWARD THE GOAL. view more 

CREDIT: YUICHIRO YADA, SHUSAKU YASUDA, AND HIROKAZU TAKAHASHI

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 26, 2021 -- Can intelligence be taught to robots? Advances in physical reservoir computing, a technology that makes sense of brain signals, could contribute to creating artificial intelligence machines that think like us.

In Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Tokyo outline how a robot could be taught to navigate through a maze by electrically stimulating a culture of brain nerve cells connected to the machine.

These nerve cells, or neurons, were grown from living cells and acted as the physical reservoir for the computer to construct coherent signals.

The signals are regarded as homeostatic signals, telling the robot the internal environment was being maintained within a certain range and acting as a baseline as it moved freely through the maze.

Whenever the robot veered in the wrong direction or faced the wrong way, the neurons in the cell culture were disturbed by an electric impulse. Throughout trials, the robot was continually fed the homeostatic signals interrupted by the disturbance signals until it had successfully solved the maze task.

These findings suggest goal-directed behavior can be generated without any additional learning by sending disturbance signals to an embodied system. The robot could not see the environment or obtain other sensory information, so it was entirely dependent on the electrical trial-and-error impulses.

"I, myself, was inspired by our experiments to hypothesize that intelligence in a living system emerges from a mechanism extracting a coherent output from a disorganized state, or a chaotic state," said co-author Hirokazu Takahashi, an associate professor of mechano-informatics.

Using this principle, the researchers show intelligent task-solving abilities can be produced using physical reservoir computers to extract chaotic neuronal signals and deliver homeostatic or disturbance signals. In doing so, the computer creates a reservoir that understands how to solve the task.

"A brain of [an] elementary school kid is unable to solve mathematical problems in a college admission exam, possibly because the dynamics of the brain or their 'physical reservoir computer' is not rich enough," said Takahashi. "Task-solving ability is determined by how rich a repertoire of spatiotemporal patterns the network can generate."

The team believes using physical reservoir computing in this context will contribute to a better understanding of the brain's mechanisms and may lead to the novel development of a neuromorphic computer.

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The article "Physical reservoir computing with FORCE learning in a living neuronal culture" is authored by Yuichiro Yada, Shusaku Yasuda, and Hirokazu Takahashi. The article will appear in Applied Physics Letters on Oct. 26, 2021. (DOI: 10.1063/5.0064771). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0064771.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Applied Physics Letters features rapid reports on significant discoveries in applied physics. The journal covers new experimental and theoretical research on applications of physics phenomena related to all branches of science, engineering, and modern technology. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/apl.

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JOURNAL

Applied Physics Letters

DOI

10.1063/5.0064771 

ARTICLE TITLE

Physical reservoir computing with FORCE learning in a living neuronal culture

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Oct-2021

 NOT HORSE DEWORMER

Horse hyperimmune antibody may help the fight against COVID-19, Brazilian study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA DE BIOLOGIA ESTRUTURAL E BIOIMAGEM (INBEB)

 

IMAGE: TRIMERIC SPIKE GLYCOPROTEIN INDUCES HIGH LEVEL OF HORSE NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODIES. view more 

CREDIT: GUILHERME DE OLIVEIRA

A study conducted by a consortium of Brazilian researchers has demonstrated that a hyperimmune serum consisting of purified antibody fragments produced in horses may be an efficient approach to combat covid-19. Tests conducted in hamsters improved the animal clinical conditions. The neutralizing activity of the sera developed by the scientists has been proved to be high against the P.1 (Gamma) and P.2 variants. The results have been published in iScience.

The research opens up the possibility for the development of passive immunization or treatment against SARS-CoV-2 infection. “By using the trimeric spike protein of SARS-COV-2 to immunize horses, a cocktail of purified IgG fragments (F(ab’)2) showing very high neutralizing activity was developed. This might be a useful countermeasure against covid-19, with the added advantages of being an affordable alternative that can be produced in horse serum production facilities available worldwide,” says Professor Leda Castilho, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who coordinates the laboratory that produces the recombinant spike protein used for horse hyperimmunization.

The scientists are confident of the efficiency of the new product. “The main finding in our study is that the equine hyperimmune globulins antibodies developed against the spike protein of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 had high neutralizing action against the new variants of the virus, such as the gamma strain. The polyclonal nature explains this high potency, which can be tailored now by using a combination of mutant spike protein from different variants as antigens,” says Professor Jerson L. Silva, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and coordinator of the study.

Equine immunization is a well-known and easily scalable technology proven to generate high titers of neutralizing antibodies, and has been used to treat many diseases, such as rabies, tetanus, and snake envenomation.

Since equine antivenom products are routinely produced in both high and low-income countries, the Brazilian strategy could be easily reproduced in any part of the world and could be rapidly tested as a therapy or passive immunization tool for covid-19.

The study

Previous works on equine hyperimmune sera against SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV had shown positive results for these closely related betacoronaviruses. Another recent study has shown that the recombinant receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein could stimulate antibody production in mice and equines.

In the Brazilian study, the scientists used the recombinant trimeric spike (S) glycoprotein to immunize horses for the production of hyperimmune globulins against SARS-CoV-2. The technique combines the advantages of using an antigen that closely resembles its state on the surface of the native virus with the biosafety advantages related to using a recombinant immunogen.

After developing the horse hyperimmune F(ab’)2 concentrate, the group carried out challenge tests in hamsters, injecting the substance into the animals. The researchers evaluated the pretreatment and treatment after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The results showed the ability of the treatment to reduce viral load in pulmonary tissues, and to improve the animal clinical conditions, as reflected by weight gain. All intervention schemes protected the animals against weight loss in the acute phase of the disease. Non-treated animals showed an increased weight loss, whereas pre-treatment resulted in no body weight reduction.

The next step of the research is to conduct a phase 1/2 clinical trial in humans. The trial protocol has already been approved by Brazilian national ethics committee, and sterile fill and finish is underway to enable quality control and batch release data to be submitted to the Brazilian regulatory agency ANVISA. The clinical trial will investigate as outcomes all safety aspects, as well as duration of hospitalization, viral load, and progression to assisted ventilation.

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Additional information

The research consortium is formed by researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the Vital Brazil Institute, and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

The paper “Polyclonal F(ab’)2 fragments of equine antibodies raised against the spike protein neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants with high potency” is available online in iScience.

Funding

The study was funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation for Virus Network, the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support in the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education (CAPES/MEC) and the National Institute of Science and Technology for Structural Biology and Bioimaging (INBEB).

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JOURNAL

iScience

DOI

10.1016/j.isci.2021.103315 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Polyclonal F(ab’)2 fragments of equine antibodies raised against the spike protein neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants with high potency

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Oct-2021

Neutron star collisions are “goldmine” of heavy elements, study finds

Mergers between two neutron stars have produced more heavy elements in last 2.5 billion years than mergers between neutron stars and black holes.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Most elements lighter than iron are forged in the cores of stars. A star’s white-hot center fuels the fusion of protons, squeezing them together to build progressively heavier elements. But beyond iron, scientists have puzzled over what could give rise to gold, platinum, and the rest of the universe’s heavy elements, whose formation requires more energy than a star can muster.

A new study by researchers at MIT and the University of New Hampshire finds that of two long-suspected sources of heavy metals, one is more of a goldmine than the other.

The study, published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, reports that in the last 2.5 billion years, more heavy metals were produced in binary neutron star mergers, or collisions between two neutron stars, than in mergers between a neutron star and a black hole.

The study is the first to compare the two merger types in terms of their heavy metal output, and suggests that binary neutron stars are a likely cosmic source for the gold, platinum, and other heavy metals we see today. The findings could also help scientists determine the rate at which heavy metals are produced across the universe.

“What we find exciting about our result is that to some level of confidence we can say binary neutron stars are probably more of a goldmine than neutron star-black hole mergers,” says lead author Hsin-Yu Chen, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. 

Chen’s co-authors are Salvatore Vitale, assistant professor of physics at MIT, and Francois Foucart of UNH.

An efficient flash

As stars undergo nuclear fusion, they require energy to fuse protons to form heavier elements. Stars are efficient in churning out lighter elements, from hydrogen to iron. Fusing more than the 26 protons in iron, however, becomes energetically inefficient.

“If you want to go past iron and build heavier elements like gold and platinum, you need some other way to throw protons together,” Vitale says.

Scientists have suspected supernovae might be an answer. When a massive star collapses in a supernova, the iron at its center could conceivably combine with lighter elements in the extreme fallout to generate heavier elements.

In 2017, however, a promising candidate was confirmed, in the form a binary neutron star merger, detected for the first time by LIGO and Virgo, the gravitational-wave observatories in the United States and in Italy, respectively. The detectors picked up gravitational waves, or ripples through space-time, that originated 130 million light years from Earth, from a collision between two neutron stars — collapsed cores of massive stars, that are packed with neutrons and are among the densest objects in the universe.

The cosmic merger emitted a flash of light, which contained signatures of heavy metals.

“The magnitude of gold produced in the merger was equivalent to several times the mass of the Earth,” Chen says. “That entirely changed the picture. The math showed that binary neutron stars were a more efficient way to create heavy elements, compared to supernovae.”

A binary goldmine

Chen and her colleagues wondered: How might neutron star mergers compare to collisions between a neutron star and a black hole? This is another merger type that has been detected by LIGO and Virgo and could potentially be a heavy metal factory. Under certain conditions, scientists suspect, a black hole could disrupt a neutron star such that it would spark and spew heavy metals before the black hole completely swallowed the star.

The team set out to determine the amount of gold and other heavy metals each type of merger could typically produce. For their analysis, they focused on LIGO and Virgo’s detections to date of two binary neutron star mergers and two neutron star – black hole mergers.

The researchers first estimated the mass of each object in each merger, as well as the rotational speed of each black hole, reasoning that if a black hole is too massive or slow, it would swallow a neutron star before it had a chance to produce heavy elements. They also determined each neutron star’s resistance to being disrupted. The more resistant a star, the less likely it is to churn out heavy elements. They also estimated how often one merger occurs compared to the other, based on observations by LIGO, Virgo, and other observatories.

Finally, the team used numerical simulations developed by Foucart, to calculate the average amount of gold and other heavy metals each merger would produce, given varying combinations of the objects’ mass, rotation, degree of disruption, and rate of occurrence.

On average, the researchers found that binary neutron star mergers could generate two to 100 times more heavy metals than mergers between neutron stars and black holes. The four mergers on which they based their analysis are estimated to have occurred within the last 2.5 billion years. They conclude then, that during this period, at least, more heavy elements were produced by binary neutron star mergers than by collisions between neutron stars and black holes.

The scales could tip in favor of neutron star-black hole mergers if the black holes had high spins, and low masses. However, scientists have not yet observed these kinds of black holes in the two mergers detected to date.

Chen and her colleagues hope that, as LIGO and Virgo resume observations next year, more detections will improve the team’s estimates for the rate at which each merger produces heavy elements. These rates, in turn, may help scientists determine the age of distant galaxies, based on the abundance of their various elements.

“You can use heavy metals the same way we use carbon to date dinosaur remains,” Vitale says. “Because all these phenomena have different intrinsic rates and yields of heavy elements, that will affect how you attach a time stamp to a galaxy. So, this kind of study can improve those analyses.”

This research was funded, in part, by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the LIGO Laboratory.

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Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office

Paper: “The relative contribution to heavy metals production from binary neutron star mergers and neutron star-black hole mergers”

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac26c6

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI

10.3847/2041-8213/ac26c6 

ARTICLE TITLE

“The relative contribution to heavy metals production from binary neutron star mergers and neutron star-black hole mergers”

Human influence on 2020 extreme Meiyu rainfall in China – the tug of war between greenhouse gases and aerosols

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

In June and July of 2020, Eastern China was hit by extreme Meiyu rainfall, with a particularly long rainy season and frequent extreme rainfall events. The accumulated Meiyu rainfall in the Yangtze River Valley in 2020 was 54% greater than normal, breaking the record since 1961. Having caused extensive floods and economic and societal losses, it is highly concerned whether human activities have played a role in the occurrence of such extreme events.

 

Human activities have reduced the occurrence probability of persistent heavy Meiyu rainfall events in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Valley as that in observations in 2020 by approximately 46%, according to a study recently published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences. This research reveals the anthropogenic influence on the occurrence of extreme Meiyu rainfall events, particularly the tug of war between greenhouse gases and anthropogenic aerosols.

 

To assess the human influence, scientists used multi-model simulations that participate in the Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). These simulations are driven by different external forcings, e.g., anthropogenic forcing, greenhouse gas forcing and aerosol forcing, and are thus useful tools in attribution studies.

 

“Comparing model simulations with and without anthropogenic forcing, we show that human activities have reduced the probability of persistent heavy rainfall events as that in observations in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in 2020,” said ZHOU Tianjun, the leading and corresponding author on the paper. Zhou is a senior scientist at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

 

The two major anthropogenic forcing components – greenhouse gases and aerosols – had opposite influences, though. On one hand, greenhouse gas emissions would have increased the probability by approximately 44%, as a result of atmospheric warming and moistening. On the other hand, this effect was offset by anthropogenic aerosols, which reduced the probability by approximately 73%, by reducing atmospheric moisture and weakening the East Asian summer monsoon circulation.

 

“The attribution analysis demonstrates that human influences on extreme events rely heavily on the components of external forcing, in particular, the relative contributions of greenhouse gases and aerosols,” added Dr. Wenxia Zhang, the co-author of the study. “It is worth noting that the attribution of present changes is not simply analogous to future climate, with the changing greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions in the future.”

 

With the continuous emissions of greenhouse gases and reductions in aerosols in the future, similar persistent heavy rainfall events are projected to occur more frequently. Higher greenhouse gas emissions are expected to lead to higher occurrence probabilities. Thus, efficient mitigation measures will help to reduce the impacts related to extreme rainfall.

See the article: Zhou T, Ren L, Zhang W. 2021. Anthropogenic influence on extreme Meiyu rainfall in 2020 and its future risk. Science China Earth Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9771-8

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JOURNAL

Science China Earth Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s11430-020-9771-8 

Breastfeeding protects babies from bacteria resistant to antibiotics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

In a study carried out at the University of Helsinki, it was found that infant formula is associated with roughly 70% higher occurrence of genes associated with antibiotic resistance in the gut of newborns, more than the other factors studied. The study also demonstrates that breastfeeding newborns is associated with a reduced proliferation of opportunistic pathogens resistant to antibiotics in the infant, which may lessen the risk of difficult infections.

The increasing prevalence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics constitutes a significant risk to human health. Usually, the occurrence of antibiotic resistance is thought to result from abundant antibiotic use, as exposure to antimicrobial drugs promotes the enrichment of microbes that are resistant to them. However, according to recently obtained evidence, bacterial genes which confer resistance can already be found in abundance in the gut microbiota of newborns and infants even before exposure to antimicrobials. In a joint study, Finnish and American researchers investigated factors linked to the proportion of bacteria carrying genes that confer antibiotic resistance in the gut microbiota of newborns.

Feeding infants with formula significantly affects the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

According to the researchers, the diet of newborns was found to be the primary factor associated with the relative abundance of resistance genes present in the gut. A considerably higher abundance of resistance genes was seen in children whose diet consisted at least partially of infant formula compared to children who were exclusively breastfed or consumed donated breastmilk. At the same time, infant fortifier based on cow’s milk, which is routinely used to improve the diet of breastfed infants, did not have any perceptible effect on the number of resistance genes. The effect of infant formula exposure was markedly more significant than that of antibiotic regimens given to the mother or infant, or of other factors affecting the composition of the gut microbiota, such as delivery mode, the duration of the pregnancy or the infant’s age.

“The results were confirmed and the model further honed by reanalysing the gut microbiota data of more than 600 newborns collected in prior studies. In this dataset too, infant formula was associated with a roughly 70%, increased the occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes in the infant gut, more than the other factors,” says Dr. Katariina Pärnänen, describing the results of her doctoral thesis.

Preterm infants who received infant formula had approximately twice the number of resistance genes in their gut compared to infants who were fed nothing but breastmilk. The effect of formula feeding was particularly pronounced in premature infants and infants who had been exposed to antibiotics.

Bacteria in the gut microbiota differ in breastfed and formula-fed infants

The protective effect of breastmilk against antibiotic resistance, and the corresponding exposing effect of infant formula, appear to be transmitted by certain bacteria found in the gut microbiota. Prior research has shown that a diet based on breastmilk alone increases the number of bifidobacteria, which are beneficial to infant health, in the infant gut. In contrast, infants fed entirely or partially with formula had more bacteria of the Enterobacteriaceae family and other potential pathogens in their intestines, providing an explanation for the larger number of resistance genes. Pärnänen’s research findings indicate that the number of the ESBL and MRSA superbacteria was higher in formula-fed premature infants compared to premature infants whose diet consisted only of breastmilk.

Pärnänen says that the findings shed more light on the health effects of breastmilk.

“Breastmilk is the primary source of nutrition for all infants, and its health benefits are of particular importance to premature infants. The new findings indicate that breastfeeding premature and newborn infants also reduces the proliferation of bacteria resistant to antibiotics in the infant gut, thus potentially reducing the risk of difficult infections, which I consider a particularly important find due to the ever-increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance,” Pärnänen says.

Based on the study, the current practice of improving the diet of premature infants using specifically designed fortifier appears to be safe also in terms of antibiotic resistance. The researchers assume that fortifier given to premature infants does not increase the number of resistant bacteria as much as conventional formula, even though both are dairy-based products. This is due to differences in composition and the method of mixing the fortifier administered to the infants with breastmilk. However, the effect of fortifier could not be comprehensively surveyed in this study due to the small number of infants who received it.

Some researchers specialising in antibiotic resistance believe that bacteria resistant to antibiotics will continue to gain in prevalence even if the use of antibiotics were to be radically curtailed. Consequently, measures not based on reducing antibiotic use can be particularly useful in the fight against superbugs, while breastmilk may turn out to be an exceedingly effective weapon for protecting premature infants and newborns.

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

DOI

10.1093/ajcn/nqab353 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Early-life formula feeding is associated with infant gut microbiota alterations and an increased antibiotic resistance load

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Oct-2021

Fermented soybeans suppress asthma-induced airway inflammation

Osaka City University finds that feeding a fermented soy product called ImmuBalance to asthma model mice significantly reduces eosinophilic-related inflammation in the bronchi

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OSAKA CITY UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: INFLAMMATION IS SUPPRESSED IN THE GROUP TREATED WITH IMMUBALANCE view more 

CREDIT: OSAKA CITY UNIVERSITY

(Osaka, Japan)—Bronchial asthma causes symptoms such as wheezing and cough due to chronic airway inflammation, but there is no fundamental treatment for it, leaving a desire for new prevention and treatment methods. Now a new study reveals that a fermented soy product called ImmuBalance suppresses airway inflammation in animal models of asthma.

Researchers from the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine have found that in a ImmuBalance-treated group of asthma model mice, white blood cells associated with asthma called eosinophils were significantly reduced in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). Also, in addition to a decrease in inflammation and mucus around the bronchi, the team found a suppression of proteins that induce eosinophilic inflammation.

“The relationship between soy intake and allergic diseases has been epidemiologically reported in the past,” explained Hideaki Kadotani, first author of the study, “suggesting that the components of soy may have some anti-allergic effects”

“It was reported that imbalances in the gut microbiota may be involved in immune system and allergic diseases, and fermented dietary fiber, like that found in soy, might have beneficial effects in allergic asthma models.” continues Associate Professor Kazuhisa Asai, supporting author of the study.

In the study, the effects of such an imbalance on asthma were examined by giving ImmuBalance-enriched feed to asthma model mice. In the ImmuBalance-treated group, the number of eosinophils in BALF was significantly reduced, and inflammation around the bronchi and mucus production in the bronchial epithelium was suppressed. Also, the expression of Th2 cytokines and the immunoglobulin serum IgE that induce eosinophilic inflammation in BALF were measured and found to be significantly suppressed when compared to mice fed a normal diet.

“In clinical practice, steroid inhalants are the basis of asthma treatments, yet they are known to have adverse side effects“, states Professor Tomoya Kawaguchi, lead advisor to the study. “Our results suggest that the intake of fermented soybean products should be recommended as a complementary coping strategy to asthma with fewer side effects”

These findings appear in the journal Nutrients.

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JOURNAL

Nutrients

DOI

10.3390/nu13103380 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

The Fermented Soy Product ImmuBalance Suppresses Airway Inflammation in a Murine Model of Asthma

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Sep-2021