More proof that too many medications leads to adversity for older cancer patients

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER

When older adults with cancer take multiple medications — including ordinary drugs like blood pressure pills, supplements, or antacids — it can result in more toxic chemotherapy side effects and even a need to stop cancer treatment, according to new research at the Wilmot Cancer Institute.

The latest study, published in the journal Cancer, provides a cautionary note to both patients and physicians regarding “polypharmacy,” a buzz word describing the concurrent use of multiple medications. It’s extremely common, applying to nearly 92 percent of older adults with cancer.

A key finding: Individuals who had one or more major potential drug interactions also had 59-percent-higher odds of having to stop cancer treatment earlier than recommended.

“It’s possible that polypharmacy affects both the experience and the effectiveness of chemotherapy,” said Erika Ramsdale, M.D., a Wilmot oncologist, geriatrics specialist, data scientist, and senior author of the paper.  

Last year, Ramsdale and colleagues published a descriptive study that laid out the scope of the polypharmacy problem and categorized medication issues in a nationwide sample of 718 adults with a mean age of 77 who had stage 3 or 4 cancer and other health conditions. Read more.

In that first study, researchers showed that the majority of the patients had at least one other serious health concern, often cardiovascular disease. Other details included:

• 70 percent were at risk of drug-drug interactions;
• 67 percent were taking at least one drug that was potentially inappropriate;
• 61 percent of the patients were taking five or more medications before starting chemotherapy;
• and nearly 15 percent were taking 10 or more medications.

Both studies suggest that physicians should carefully screen for medication usage and possible drug interactions upon a new patient’s cancer diagnosis.

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JOURNAL

Cancer

DOI

10.1002/cncr.34642 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of polypharmacy and potential drug-drug interactions with adverse treatment outcomes in older adults with advanced cancer

COI STATEMENT

Supriya G. Mohile received funding from Carevive for projects outside the submitted work. Megan Wells owns stock in AGENUS. Kah Poh Loh reports personal fees from Pfizer Canada Inc. and Seattle Genetics outside the submitted work. Erika E. Ramsdale reports honoraria from Flatiron Health outside the submitted work. The remaining authors made no disclosures.

International Space Station National Laboratory opens technology advancement research announcement

Grant and Award Announcement

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION U.S. NATIONAL LABORATORY

The International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory today released a new research announcement soliciting flight concepts for “Technology Advancement and Applied Research Leveraging the ISS National Lab.” This solicitation is open to a broad range of technology areas including chemical and material synthesis in space, bonding, translational medicine, in-space edge computing and on-demand cloud computing technologies, and the use of ISS remote sensing data to improve geospatial analytics for commercial use.

Space-based technology development and demonstration is a strategic priority for the ISS National Lab, as it provides an opportunity for accelerated technology maturation to enable advancements that improve life on Earth and build commerce in low Earth orbit. Through this research announcement, offerors may propose to use the unique ISS environment to develop, test, or mature products and processes that have a demonstrated potential to produce near-term and positive direct or indirect economic impact.

More specifically, emphasis will be placed on proposals for the testing and space qualification of hardware prototypes and for advancing process improvements, such as (but not limited to):

• Hardware prototype testing: Innovations addressing hardware product development gaps and emerging technology proliferation in the areas of computing, electronics, nanotechnologies, robotics, sensors, communications, remote sensing, and satellite technology.
• Process improvements: Use of the ISS as a test bed for advancing development of facilities for high-throughput investigations, use of space-based data to facilitate modeling of industrial systems, or demonstration of new methodologies for spaceflight research and development.
• Advanced materials: Current advanced materials research that addresses the development of next-generation production methods, the testing of novel materials, and the exploitation of materials with unique properties.
• Translational medicine: Validation of accelerated disease modeling, analyzation of macromolecular structures for drug design, and demonstration of novel drug delivery and diagnostic services.

This research announcement will follow a two-step proposal submission process. Before being invited to submit a full proposal, all interested investigators must submit a Step 1: Concept Summary for review. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, Inc. (CASIS), manager of the ISS National Lab, will host a webinar on Thursday, March 9, 2023, at 2 p.m. EST to discuss ISS facilities and capabilities associated with this research announcement. A recording of the webinar will be made available to the research community through the research announcement webpage.

Step 1: Concept Summaries must be submitted by end of day on April 17, 2023. Step 2: Full Proposals (from those invited to submit) will be due by end of day July 17, 2023.

Flight concepts selected via this research announcement may be awarded funding to enable mission integration and operations support for projects that will be implemented on the ISS. The total set aside funding for this research announcement is approximately $750,000, with an expectation to make three to five awards. To learn more about this opportunity, including how to submit a Step 1: Concept Summary, please visit the research announcement webpage. To learn more about the ISS National Lab and the science that it sponsors, please visit our website at www.ISSNationalLab.org.

Depression & anxiety symptoms linked to vaping nicotine and THC in teens and young adults

American Heart Association Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2023, Abstract 602

Reports and Proceedings

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION

Research Highlights:

• A study of more than 2,500 people ages 13-24 found that nicotine-only vapers, THC-only vapers and dual vapers (of nicotine and THC) were more likely to report anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts when compared with their peers who did not use electronic cigarettes or vape THC.
• Approximately 60% of the nicotine-only, THC-only and dual vapers self-reported that they experienced anxiety symptoms, versus about 40% of participants who never vaped. Anxiety symptoms were more frequently reported among THC-only vapers.
• Over half of the nicotine-only, THC-only and dual vapers self-reported that they experienced symptoms of depression versus 25% of non-vapers.

Embargoed until 3 p.m. CT/4 p.m. ET, Tuesday, February 28, 2023

DALLAS, February 28, 2023 — A survey of more than 2,500 teens and young adults led by the American Heart Association found that vaping nicotine and THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana, was associated with self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. The study’s preliminary findings will be presented at the Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2023, which will be held in Boston, February 28-March 3, 2023, and offers the latest science on population-based health and wellness and implications for lifestyle and cardiometabolic health.

The use of pod-based e-cigarettes has surged among youth and young adults in recent years. Previous studies have identified links between vaping and symptoms of both anxiety and depression among young adults.

“Younger people have long been vulnerable to tobacco use, may experience greater harm from nicotine and other drugs and may be targeted by tobacco advertisers and marketers,” said study author Joy Hart, Ph.D., a professor of communication at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. “E-cigarette devices are still relatively new compared to other tobacco products, such as combustible cigarettes and pipes, so more research is needed to try to better understand the popularity of e-cigarettes, including reasons for vaping and the associated health risks among youth.”

The researchers, several of whom work for the Association, conducted an online survey among 2,505 teens and young adults, ages 13-24, to gauge mental health differences among nicotine-only vapers, THC-only vapers, dual vapers of both nicotine and THC and people who had never vaped any product. The study was focused on 1,921 people who had never vaped or were current vapers, defined as having vaped in the past 30 days. Of those participants, 562 individuals reported they had never vaped, 370 had vaped only nicotine, 159 had vaped only THC, and 830 were dual vapers of nicotine and THC.

The analysis of the participants’ survey responses found:

• Approximately 70% of the THC-only vapers and 60% of the nicotine-only vapers and dual vapers reported experiencing anxiety symptoms — such as worries, flashbacks, panic attacks and situational anxieties— within the past week, compared to about 40% of participants who had never vaped.
• Over half of the nicotine-only vapers, THC-only vapers and dual vapers reported experiencing symptoms of depression — such as difficulty engaging in or being interested in activities normally enjoyed, whether they felt that depression interfered with their ability to do the things they needed to do at work, at school or at home and whether depression interfered with their social life and relationships — within the past week, compared to 25% of non-vapers.
• More than 50% of people in all vaping groups reported having suicidal thoughts within the past 12 months, compared to only one-third of the non-users.
• About a quarter of the dual vapers and nicotine-only vapers started vaping nicotine to calm down or feel less stressed, and one-third of participants in both groups reported that they currently vaped nicotine to cope with feelings of anxiety. In contrast, about half of THC-only vapers started vaping THC and currently vaped THC to relieve anxiety symptoms.
• Around 20% of nicotine-only vapers and dual vapers started vaping to help feel less depressed and currently vaped for this reason. About one-third of THC-only vapers started vaping THC and nearly half currently vaped TCH to feel less depressed.

Dual vapers were significantly more likely than nicotine-only vapers to indicate addiction to nicotine, which was defined in this study as behavior such as waking up at night to vape. Dual vapers of nicotine and THC were also significantly more likely to say they felt less depressed after they started vaping, whereas nicotine-only vapers were more likely to report that vaping had no impact on their feelings of depression. This may be related to dual users’ stronger addiction to these products, rather than the positive impacts of the products on their mental health, the researchers said.

“Although we knew that THC was commonly vaped, we were surprised to have so many dual vapers—more than double the nicotine-only vapers. Dual use may either compound the addictive nature of vaping or attract people who are more prone to addiction, as well as have an impact on symptoms of depression. These findings suggest the importance of addressing the use of THC and the need for building resilience and coping skills for teens and young adults,” Hart said.

The study had limitations: the use of cross-sectional data did not allow researchers to assess whether symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as suicidal thoughts, were caused or exacerbated by the use of the THC and nicotine vapes, or whether the existence of those symptoms had an effect on the use of the vape products; collecting online data via a web-based panel meant that participants may not be representative of all U.S. teens and young adults; and the data were self-reported.

“When better coping skills are developed, there may be fewer temptations to try to manage anxiety symptoms and similar mental health challenges through vaping, as well as better refusal skills if offered an electronic cigarette. Increased priority on more positive behaviors to alleviate tension and manage anxiety symptoms may reduce the likelihood of vaping, possible addiction and the increased risk of negative health outcomes,” said Rose Marie Robertson, M.D., FAHA. Robertson is deputy chief science and medical officer of the American Heart Association, co-director of the Association’s National Institutes of Health/U.S. Food and Drug Administration-funded Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science and senior author on the study. “There is also an urgent need for effective communication campaigns and educational programs to increase understanding among youth and young adults of the risks of using e-cigarettes.”

Future research, Robertson said, is needed to examine the long-term connections between mental health and vaping, whether nicotine-only, THC-only or both nicotine and THC.

“This study showed the striking significance of issues with mental health in users of both nicotine vapes as well as THC vapes, and as new products continue to come on the market, I think that this is something that we will continue to see,” said Loren E. Wold, Ph.D., FAHA. Wold is assistant dean for biological health research in the College of Nursing, a professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine (physiology and cell biology) at The Ohio State University and lead of the writing committee for the Association’s 2022 Statement on Cardiopulmonary Consequences of Vaping in Adolescents. “These products were developed as smoking cessation tools for those that use traditional cigarettes, so I’m very curious now what the implications are with mental health in users who are using these products to help stop smoking.”

Additional co-authors are Jeffrey Willett, Ph.D.; Allison Groom, M.A.; Robyn L. Landry; Angel Bassett, M.A.; Mary Dunn, Ph.D.; Kandi Walker, Ph.D.; Thomas Payne, Ph.D.; and Anshula Kesh, M.P.H., B.D.S. Authors’ disclosures are listed in the abstract.

The study was funded by a grant from the Kaiser Permanente National Community Benefit Fund at the East Bay Community Foundation. Through the American Heart Association Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science, the Association works closely with investigators at institutions across the country to pursue research that adds to the existing knowledge about the health impacts of smoking and nicotine-related products including e-cigarettes, findings that can help inform public health and the regulation of tobacco products.

Statements and conclusions of studies that are presented at the American Heart Association’s scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the Association’s policy or position. The Association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. Abstracts presented at the Association’s scientific meetings are not peer-reviewed, rather, they are curated by independent review panels and are considered based on the potential to add to the diversity of scientific issues and views discussed at the meeting. The findings are considered preliminary until published as a full manuscript in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The Association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Association’s overall financial information are available here.

Additional Resources:

• Multimedia is available on the right column of release link https://newsroom.heart.org/news/depression-anxiety-symptoms-linked-to-vaping-nicotine-and-thc-in-teens-and-young-adults?preview=c30b14f8eb24c1a3519f6e7e9e0d0513
  • Video interview: Rose Marie Robertson, M.D., FAHA, senior author on the study and deputy chief science and medical officer of the American Heart Association and co-director of the Association’s National Institutes of Health/U.S. Food and Drug Administration-funded Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science.
  • Video interview: American Heart Association volunteer expert, Loren E. Wold, Ph.D., FAHA, assistant dean for biological health research in the College of Nursing, a professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine (physiology and cell biology) at The Ohio State University and lead of the writing committee for the Association’s 2022 Statement on Cardiopulmonary Consequences of Vaping in Adolescents.
• AHA news release: Use of e-cigarettes had negative cardiovascular effects similar to smoking cigarettes (October 2022)
• AHA news release: People who vape had worrisome changes in cardiovascular function, even as young adults (October 2022)
• AHA news release: No health benefits among adults who used both e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes (May 2022)
• AHA health information: Quit Vaping – Quit Smoking – Quit Tobacco
• AHA health information: The Ugly Truth About Vaping
• For more news from AHA EPI Lifestyle Conference 2023, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #EPILifestyle23.

The American Heart Association’s EPI/LIFESTYLE 2023 Scientific Sessions is the world’s premier meeting dedicated to the latest advances in population-based science. The meeting will be held Tuesday-Friday, February 28 – March 3, 2023, at the Omni Boston Seaport in Boston, Massachusetts. The primary goal of the meeting is to promote the development and application of translational and population science to prevent heart disease and stroke and foster cardiovascular health. The sessions focus on risk factors, obesity, nutrition, physical activity, genetics, metabolism, biomarkers, subclinical disease, clinical disease, healthy populations, global health and prevention-oriented clinical trials. The Councils on Epidemiology and Prevention and Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health (Lifestyle) jointly planned the EPI/Lifestyle 2023 Scientific Sessions. Follow the conference on Twitter at #EPILifestyle23.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public’s health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

Precarious work associated with high BMI

UIC study published in Obesity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO

A study from the University of Illinois Chicago links precarious work with increases in body mass index.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence that precarious work may contribute to poor health outcomes. 

The UIC scientists who wrote the paper defined precarious work as an accumulation of “unfavorable facets of employment,” such as low wages, insecure employment contracts, irregular hours and lack of union representation.

“Over the last few decades, there has been an increase in the number of Americans engaging in precarious work — we see this with the rise of the ‘gig’ economy or the number of people working for ride-share companies, for example. With millions of Americans now engaging in precarious work, we need to pay closer attention to the health impacts of type of employment, ” said study author Vanessa Oddo, assistant professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences.

To understand the impact of precarious work on BMI, the researchers analyzed 20 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth adult cohort (1996–2016). The average age of the participants was 44.

They looked at seven precarious employment dimensions — material rewards, working time arrangements, employment stability and collective organization, for example — and identified 13 self-reported survey indicators of precarious employment. Computational and statistical models were used to compare these indicators with BMI, a rough indicator of obesity.

Indicators of precarious employment were highest among Latino and Black women with lower education. A 1-point increase in precarious employment was associated with a 2.18-point increase in BMI.

The findings are reported in Obesity.

The researchers say that “these modest changes in BMI may have important implications at the population level, given that small changes in weight affect chronic disease risk.

“Policies and workplace interventions to improve employment quality warrant consideration to protect American workers and mitigate the growing burden of obesity-related chronic diseases in the United States,” the authors write.

Co-authors of the study, titled “Association between precarious employment and BMI in the United States,” are Castiel Chen Zhuang, Jerome A. Dugan, Sarah B. Andrea, Anjum Hajat, Trevor Peckham and Jessica C. Jones-Smith.

The study was primarily supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R00MD012807). Additional support was provided by the National Institute on Aging (R01AG060011) and National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (F31MD013357).

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JOURNAL

Obesity

DOI

10.1002/oby.23591 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Association between precarious employment and BMI in the United States

New research embodies queer history through artifacts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: A PARTICIPANT TRIES THE BUTTONS. view more 

CREDIT: GEORGIA TECH

Gay power.” “I Love You Susan B. Anthony.” “ERA Yes.” These are just a few buttons in the Georgia State University Library LGBTQ Collection, an archive of the Georgia queer community. The buttons represent the politics, identities, causes, and humor of the 1970s Atlanta LGBTQ communities — in short, a snapshot of history.

But how do you archive and convey queer history? It’s a complex question for historians and LGBTQ people, who have been on the margins and often resist categorization. New research from the Georgia Institute of Technology offers a unique framework for understanding queer communities and their histories.

The buttons are from the personal collections of two local queer activists, Lorraine Fontana and Maria Helena Dolan. The researchers created replicas of the historic buttons and paired them with oral history recordings of Fontana and Dolan also in the archive. Participants of the study were encouraged to interact with the buttons through a wearable audio player — touching them, putting them on, and hearing these histories in the activists’ own words. The experience created a tangible connection to queer history and invited the participant into the narrative.

“Buttons are important because not only are they signals of political and social causes, but they're also identity signifiers,” said researcher Alexandra Teixeira Riggs, a digital media Ph.D. student. “When you're putting one on, you're signaling something that you believe in or some part of your identity to another person, and  this has historically been central to queer communities.”

Riggs co-wrote “Button Portraits: Embodying Queer History With Interactive Wearable Artifacts” with advisor Anne Sullivan and Noura Howell, both digital media assistant professors. The paper was published in Interactive Storytelling in December 2022.

Bringing Tangible Narratives to the Archive

Riggs created a  tangible narrative — an experience that uses objects embedded with digital capabilities — to tell these stories. In this case, each button interacted with an audio player containing a Raspberry Pi, or small computer, with a near field communication (NFC) reader in it. When a participant placed the button on the NFC reader, it activated a fragment of Dolan or Fontana’s oral history related to that button. This direct engagement with the button effectively enables the participant to imagine themselves in the narrative and reflect on their connection to that history.

Buttons were the ideal object for tangible narrative because participants could pick them up and pin them on their clothes, creating a sense of intimacy. The button is no longer just a historical artifact, but a part of the participant. The archive’s buttons offered a direct connection to 1970s feminism and queer activism with their political slogans, identity markers, location-specific designs, and other areas that clearly place participants in the historical narrative. Buttons themselves are also often seen as ephemera, or objects usually not preserved in history.

“There's this sense that some materials exist outside of the archive solely in personal collections of communities that don't necessarily consider their materials or stories to be worthy of a collection with a capital C,” Riggs said.

The researchers paired each button with clips from Fontana and Dolan’s oral histories that  corresponded to the buttons’ themes through keywords or contextual meanings. However, the researchers didn’t impose a linear narrative or any type of organization on the buttons. Participants were encouraged to explore the buttons on their own without guidance and experienced the fluidity of queer stories.

Queering the Archive

The design of a nonlinear experience of the buttons is an application of queer theory to the creation of tangible narratives. The theory suggests that queer physical spaces are multidimensional — blurring the lines between past and present, historical figure and participant, and object and body. Tangible narrative invites the participant’s own experience, body, and identity into history and further complicates the idea of the archive.   

It also challenges how archives are inherently organized. By inviting the participant to interact with the buttons on their own and without any discernible order, it effectively queers the experience of the archive or questions how archives are traditionally used and viewed as historic, canonical records fully in the past. 

Riggs hopes to expand the research to queer and trans communities of color and other marginalized groups in the future.

“What I want to do with this project is to allow for a way of expressing design through queer means,” Riggs said. “I want there to be a way for us to relate to archives in a more embodied way than we would in a typical museum setting. Hopefully that leads to more accessibility of these stories and dialogue within queer communities about how we reflect on this history.”

CITATION: Riggs, A.T., Howell, N., Sullivan, A. (2022). Button Portraits: Embodying Queer History with Interactive Wearable Artifacts. In: Vosmeer, M., Holloway-Attaway, L. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13762. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22298-6_2

 

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The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its more than 46,000 students, representing 50 states and more than 150 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

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DOI

10.1007/978-3-031-22298-6_2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

Georgia Tech and collaborators receive grant from The Rockefeller Foundation to improve understanding of the mobile broadband experience

Grant and Award Announcement

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: THE TEAM TAKING MEASUREMENTS OF MOBILE BROADBAND QUALITY FROM THREE DIFFERENT PROVIDERS IN NEW MEXICO AT THE INDIAN PUEBLO CULTURAL CENTER. view more 

CREDIT: GEORGIA TECH

While cellular networks are a key method for internet access, millions of Americans in rural communities and on tribal lands lack basic connectivity access, affecting their ability to search for jobs, access healthcare, and participate in educational opportunities. To make connectivity more equitable, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing open-source software to empower citizens to report on cellular network quality and places without any connectivity.

With a new grant from The Rockefeller Foundation, combined with funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers aim to create CellWatch, a technology ecosystem comprised of a mobile application for network measurements, a community planning dashboard and map, and a cellular quality prediction tool. CellWatch will enable everyday people to take connectivity measurements and merge their data with others in their community. This will allow communities to build maps of coverage and challenge cellular provider claims of coverage that are often misrepresented across Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) maps, preventing communities from applying to available federal funding. The goal is to eventually have informed machine learning algorithms and statistical analysis be able to predict the quality of service in other areas that have not yet been measured and empower communities to improve their own cell coverage.

“Mapping mobile broadband turns out to be a very hard technical problem because quality of coverage depends on complex factors, not just how close you are to a tower,” said Ellen Zegura, a professor in the School of Computer Science.

Zegura is one of three principal investigators on the grant. Her collaborators include Elizabeth Belding, a computer science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Morgan Vigil-Hayes, an assistant professor in computer science at Northern Arizona University. At Georgia Tech, Scott Robertson in the Institute for People and Technology is leading the software development effort and Yao Xie, an associate professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), will be doing machine learning and statistical modeling.

Connectivity Complications

Understanding cell coverage and quality is difficult. The FCC requires all network providers report their coverage areas, but provider maps generally overestimate where coverage exists. While the FCC makes the provider coverage data available to the public, it’s notoriously inaccurate.

It’s even harder for everyday customers to figure out. To challenge a provider’s coverage claim, the FCC has a 100 page document detailing its requirements for citizen reporting including breaking down the coverage grid into hexagons and requiring citizens submit data from multiple hexagons to prove an area is lacking service. There are also requirements for the mix of positive and negative measurement results and the time of day of measurement.

“There’s a huge gap between the FCC requirements document and what regular people understand about connectivity and quality,” Zegura said. “Our goal with CellWatch is to empower everyday citizens to get involved in advocating for high quality internet to their communities to increase access to services, employment, health, and education.”

Creating CellWatch

The researchers involved intend CellWatch to make it accessible for citizens to map their own networks and challenge the FCC through CellWatch’s three-prong project:

• CellWatch Mobile Application: The Android measurement app will be built to comply with FCC requirements so users can successfully challenge provider coverage claims. A backend database will maintain data security and allow aggregation of measurements from different sources.
• CellWatch Community Coordination Tool: This interactive dashboard and map will aid citizens in organizing campaigns to challenge providers while meeting FCC requirements.
• CellWatch Prediction: Machine learning algorithms will predict mobile broadband performance using data collected by CellWatch tools and other public datasets.

All tools will be publicly available and open source to enable access for everyone. Ultimately, CellWatch’s goal is let citizens into the reporting process to democratize coverage and eventually collect enough data that the process can be automated.

“It's hard to know where there's coverage, and you're never going to measure everywhere,” Zegura said. “But if you have taken measured data in some places, you can use machine learning and statistical analysis to make predictions in new locations.”

The information won’t just aid citizens but can also be used to help allocate federal funding to add infrastructure where and when needed. The project is just the start of ensuring all of America has access to reliable network coverage and doesn’t miss out on any opportunities. Out of network will be a thing of the past.

 

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The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its more than 46,000 students, representing 50 states and more than 150 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

Young snapping shrimps’ tiny claws accelerate in water like a bullet

Even the tiniest snapping shrimp claws make cracking pistol pops

Peer-Reviewed Publication

THE COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS

When it comes to a quick draw, few creatures outgun adult snapping shrimp (Alpheus heterochaelis). They stun passing fish and foes with a simple click of a spring-loaded claw, which squirts a high-speed jet that rips through the water, producing a vapour-filled bubble (a cavitation bubble) that then implodes, resulting in a catastrophic shock wave – complete with a sharp popping sound and minute flash of light – to incapacitate their opponent. ‘We can’t see the bubble with our naked eyes, it happens too fast, but we can hear when the bubble collapses’, says Jacob Harrison at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. The adult shrimp’s claws crash together at blisteringly fast speeds up to 30 m s−1 and the entire process is over in less than a millisecond. But at what point in their growth do snapping shrimp develop their hair trigger claws, when are they capable of squirting a jet that can rip water asunder and how does their performance compare with that of their parents? While a graduate student in Sheila Patek’s Duke University laboratory, Harrison become surrogate parent to a troupe of developing snapping shrimp and discovered that the shrimp youngsters are capable of accelerating their upper claws in water as fast as a bullet from a gun and 20 times faster than their parents. They publish their discovery that snapping shrimp youngster’s claws are the fastest accelerating reusable body part in water in Journal of Experimental Biology.

Having collected four snapping shrimp females carrying eggs from the mudflats off Beaufort, North Carolina, USA, Harrison nurtured the shrimp youngsters after hatching, keeping track of their growth, until they began snapping their claws at around the age of 1 month. ‘I couldn’t see it, but I began to hear it’, says Harrison, who filmed the youngster’s claw clicks under a microscope at 300,000 frames s−1 over a 3-week period to capture every detail of the lightning-fast manoeuvre as the crustaceans matured. ‘I had to annoy them with a toothpick, so they would snap’, he chuckles. After filming more than 280 claw snaps, Harrison began painstakingly reconstructing 125 of the manoeuvres to calculate the acceleration of the claws as they crashed closed, the amount of energy used and the power required to produce the water jet.

Incredibly, even the tiniest snapping shrimp – with claws that were only 1mm long and weighing just 0.03mg – could occasionally squirt a jet of water producing an explosive cavitation bubble. ‘I was completely ecstatic! This snapping shrimp was about the length of a staple and it could move fast enough to cavitate water’, exclaims Harrison. And when he calculated the acceleration of the minute top claw as it closed down on the lower claw, Harrison was astonished that it was reaching an acceleration of 580,000m/s2 – as fast as a bullet and ~20 times faster than the adult’s claw – while rotating at more than 1,500,000deg/s (250,000 rpm). ‘It is the fastest recorded acceleration for a repeatable, underwater motion’, says Harrison, although he explains that that Dracula ant jaws accelerate faster in air and firing jelly fish sting cells accelerate faster in water, but they are destroyed each time they are triggered.

Next, Harrison calculated the power required to produce such an impressive explosion, and it came in at ~65,000,000W/kg of muscle, far exceeding the 1200W/kg measured for the most powerful bird flight muscle. Only a catapult, storing energy and then releasing it instantaneously, could produce such an explosive jet of water.

So, snapping shrimp develop the ability to snap their claws closed producing a cavitation bubble a little over a month after they hatch, achieving astonishingly fast accelerations that far exceed those of their parents. But Harrison suspects that the youngsters have to fire a few blanks before they build up to producing cavitation bubbles. ‘Juveniles may be “practicing” their strikes’, he suggests, explaining that the youngsters may need to lock and load a few times to build up until they are capable of reliably releasing their ballistic cavitating water jets.

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IF REPORTING THIS STORY, PLEASE MENTION JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AS THE SOURCE AND, IF REPORTING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A LINK TO:  https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.244645

REFERENCE: Harrison, J. S. and Patek, S. N. (2023). Developing elastic mechanisms: ultrafast motion and cavitation emerge at the millimeter scale in juvenile snapping shrimp. J. Exp. Biol. 226, jeb244645. doi:10.1242/jeb.244645.

DOI:10.1242/jeb.244645

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JOURNAL

Journal of Experimental Biology

DOI

10.1242/jeb.244645 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Developing elastic mechanisms: ultrafast motion and cavitation emerge at the millimeter scale in juvenile snapping shrimp

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Feb-2023

Scientists find human antibodies that can block multiple coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2

Results from a Scripps Research and UNC team pave the way for a vaccine and therapeutic antibodies that could be stockpiled to fight future coronavirus pandemics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: DETAILED STRUCTURAL IMAGERY OF PUBLIC BNABS AND WHERE THEY BIND TO SARS-COV-2 (GREEN HELIX) AND MERS-COV (ORANGE HELIX). THESE BNABS RECOGNIZE THE S2 REGION OF THE VIRAL SPIKE PROTEIN, WHICH IS RELATIVELY CONSERVED AND COULD LEAD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A BROAD CORONAVIRUS VACCINE AND RELATED ANTIBODY THERAPIES. view more 

CREDIT: WITH RELATED COVERAGE AND CREDIT

LA JOLLA, CA—A team of scientists from Scripps Research and the University of North Carolina (UNC) has found antibodies in the blood of certain COVID-19 donors that can block infection from a broad set of coronaviruses—specifically, in people who have recovered from the virus and were then vaccinated. They found this includes not only the COVID-19-causing SARS-CoV-2, but also SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV.

The scientists’ detailed study of the antibodies and their virus binding sites, reported on February 15, 2023, in the journal Immunity, could lead to the development of a broad coronavirus vaccine and related antibody therapeutics. Both could be used against future coronavirus pandemics as well as any future variants of SARS-CoV-2.

“We show here that there are individual human monoclonal antibodies that can be found that protect against all three recent deadly coronaviruses: SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV,” says study co-senior author Raiees Andrabi, PhD, institute investigator in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research.

The other Scripps Research co-senior authors were Dennis Burton, PhD, professor and James and Jessie Minor Chair of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology, and Ian Wilson, PhD, Hansen Professor of Structural Biology and chair of the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology. The co-senior authors from UNC were professor Ralph Baric, PhD, and assistant professor Lisa Gralinski, PhD.

SARS-CoV-2, along with SARS-CoV-1 (the cause of the 2002-04 SARS outbreak) and MERS-CoV (the cause of deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), belong to a broad grouping of coronaviruses known as betacoronaviruses. These viruses mutate at a modestly high rate, creating a significant challenge for the development of vaccines and antibody therapies against them. Thus, in the case of SARS-CoV-2, although existing vaccines have been very helpful in limiting the toll of disease and death from the pandemic, new SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged that can spread even among vaccine recipients.

Over the past two years, however, the Andrabi/Burton and Wilson laboratories have been finding evidence that SARS-CoV-2 and other betacoronaviruses have a vulnerable site that does not mutate much. This site, which is in the S2 region (or base) of the viral spike protein, is relatively conserved on betacoronaviruses that infect a variety of animal species. By contrast, current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines mainly target the viral spike protein’s relatively mutable S1 region, with which the virus binds to host-cell receptors.

The S2 site plays a key role in how betacoronaviruses progress from receptor-binding to the membrane fusion that enables entry into host cells in the respiratory tract. In a study reported last year, the Andrabi/Burton and Wilson laboratories found that some human antibodies can bind to this site on SARS-CoV-2 in a way that apparently disrupts viral fusion and blocks infection. The existence of such a vulnerable site raises the possibility of targeting it to provide both long-lasting and broad protection against betacoronaviruses. Therefore, the researchers, for the new study, made a more comprehensive search for anti-S2 antibodies in blood samples from human volunteers.

These volunteers were individuals who had recovered from COVID-19, had been vaccinated, or had recovered from COVID-19 and then had been vaccinated. Somewhat to the researchers’ surprise, they found that antibodies to the vulnerable S2 site were present in the vast majority of volunteers in the latter group—people who had recovered from COVID-19 and then had been vaccinated—but at a much lower frequency in the others. Overall, the researchers identified and characterized 32 of these S2-targeting antibodies.

In lab virus neutralization studies and in virus-challenge studies with mice at UNC, the researchers found that several of these antibodies provide protection of unprecedented breadth— not only against SARS-CoV-2 but also SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV betacoronaviruses.

“In principle, a vaccination strategy that can induce such antibodies is likely to provide broad protection against a diverse spectrum of betacoronaviruses,” says Burton.

Structural studies of several of the antibodies when bound to S2 illuminated their common binding sites and modes of binding, providing key information that should aid the development of future vaccines targeting this region.

“Targeted rational vaccine strategies could take advantage of this molecular information of the interactions of these antibodies with the S2 domain to inform the design of pan-betacoronavirus vaccines” says Wilson. 

Indeed, the researchers have already applied their findings to the initial design and testing of a potential “pan-betacoronavirus” vaccine candidate, which if successful could be stockpiled to limit future pandemics. The investigators also envision a therapeutic mix of different S2-targeting antibodies, perhaps as a cocktail with antibodies to other spike regions, that could be taken to prevent infection by a novel betacoronavirus or to reduce disease in those already infected.

“Broadly neutralizing anti-S2 antibodies protect against all three human betacoronaviruses that cause deadly disease” was co-authored by Panpan Zhou, Ge Song, Hejun Liu, Meng Yuan, Wan-ting He, Nathan Beutler, Xueyong Zhu, Longping Tse, David Martinez, Alexandra Schäfer, Fabio Anzanello, Peter Yong, Linghang Peng, Katharina Dueker, Rami Musharrafieh, Sean Callaghan, Tazio Capozzola, Oliver Limbo, Mara Parren, Elijah Garcia, Stephen Rawlings, Davey Smith, David Nemazee, Joseph Jardine, Yana Safonova, Bryan Briney, Thomas Rogers, Ian Wilson, Ralph Baric, Lisa Gralinski, Dennis Burton, and Raiees Andrabi.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (UM1 AI44462, AI036214, 5T32AI007384, U54 CA260543, U54 CA260543, AI157155, R21 AI145372), IAVI, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-004923), the John and Mary Tu Foundation, and the James B. Pendleton Charitable Trust.

 

About Scripps Research

Scripps Research is an independent, nonprofit biomedical institute ranked one of the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation by Nature Index. We are advancing human health through profound discoveries that address pressing medical concerns around the globe. Our drug discovery and development division, Calibr, works hand-in-hand with scientists across disciplines to bring new medicines to patients as quickly and efficiently as possible, while teams at Scripps Research Translational Institute harness genomics, digital medicine and cutting-edge informatics to understand individual health and render more effective healthcare. Scripps Research also trains the next generation of leading scientists at our Skaggs Graduate School, consistently named among the top 10 US programs for chemistry and biological sciences. Learn more at www.scripps.edu.

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JOURNAL

Immunity

DOI

10.1016/j.immuni.2023.02.005