SPACE

Webb spotlights gravitational arcs in ‘El Gordo’ galaxy cluster

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

 

IMAGE: WEBB’S INFRARED IMAGE OF THE GALAXY CLUSTER EL GORDO (“THE FAT ONE”) REVEALS HUNDREDS OF GALAXIES, SOME NEVER BEFORE SEEN AT THIS LEVEL OF DETAIL. EL GORDO ACTS AS A GRAVITATIONAL LENS, DISTORTING AND MAGNIFYING THE LIGHT FROM DISTANT BACKGROUND GALAXIES. **DOWNLOAD THE FULL-RESOLUTION VERSION FROM THE SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA. SCIENCE: JOSE DIEGO (INSTITUTO DE FÍSICA DE CANTABRIA), BRENDA FRYE (UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA), PATRICK KAMIENESKI (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY), TIM CARLETON (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY), AND ROGIER WINDHORST (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY). IMAGE PROCESSING: ALYSSA PAGAN (STSCI), JAKE SUMMERS (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY), JORDAN D’SILVA (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA), ANTON KOEKEMOER (STSCI), AARON ROBOTHAM (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA), AND ROGIER WINDHORST (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY).

A new image of the galaxy cluster known as “El Gordo” is revealing distant and dusty objects never seen before, and providing a bounty of fresh science. The infrared image, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, displays a variety of unusual, distorted background galaxies that were only hinted at in previous Hubble Space Telescope images.

El Gordo is a cluster of hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was 6.2 billion years old, making it a “cosmic teenager.” It’s the most massive cluster known to exist at that time. (“El Gordo” is Spanish for the “Fat One.”)

The team targeted El Gordo because it acts as a natural, cosmic magnifying glass through a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Its powerful gravity bends and distorts the light of objects lying behind it, much like an eyeglass lens.

“Lensing by El Gordo boosts the brightness and magnifies the sizes of distant galaxies. This lensing effect provides a unique window into the distant universe,” said Brenda Frye of the University of Arizona. Frye is co-lead of the PEARLS-Clusters branch of the Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS) team and lead author of one of four papers analyzing the El Gordo observations.

The Fishhook

Within the image of El Gordo, one of the most striking features is a bright arc represented in red at upper right. Nicknamed “El Anzuelo” (The Fishhook) by one of Frye’s students, the light from this galaxy took 10.6 billion years to reach Earth. Its distinctive red color is due to a combination of reddening from dust within the galaxy itself and cosmological redshift due to its extreme distance.

By correcting for the distortions created by lensing, the team was able to determine that the background galaxy is disk-shaped but only 26,000 light-years in diameter – about one-fourth the size of the Milky Way. They also were able to study the galaxy’s star formation history, finding that star formation was already rapidly declining in the galaxy’s center, a process known as quenching.

“We were able to carefully dissect the shroud of dust that envelops the galaxy center where stars are actively forming," said Patrick Kamieneski of Arizona State University, lead author on a second paper. "Now, with Webb, we can peer through this thick curtain of dust with ease, allowing us to see firsthand the assembly of galaxies from the inside out."

The Thin One

Another prominent feature in the Webb image is a long, pencil-thin line at left of center. Known as “La Flaca” (the Thin One), it is another lensed background galaxy whose light also took nearly 11 billion years to reach Earth.

Not far from La Flaca is another lensed galaxy. When the researchers examined that galaxy closely, they found a single red giant star that they nicknamed Quyllur, which is the Quechua term for star.

Previously, Hubble has found other lensed stars (such as Earendel), but they were all blue supergiants. Quyllur is the first individual red giant star observed beyond 1 billion light-years from Earth. Such stars at high redshift are only detectable using the infrared filters and sensitivity of Webb.

“It's almost impossible to see lensed red giant stars unless you go into the infrared. This is the first one we’ve found with Webb, but we expect there will be many more to come,” said Jose Diego of the Instituto de Física de Cantabria in Spain, lead author of a third paper on El Gordo.

Galaxy Group and Smudges

Other objects within the Webb image, while less prominent, are equally interesting scientifically. For example, Frye and her team (which includes nine students from high school to graduate students) identified five multiply lensed galaxies which appear to be a baby galaxy cluster forming about 12.1 billion years ago. There are another dozen candidate galaxies which may also be part of this distant cluster.

“While additional data are required to confirm that there are 17 members of this cluster, we may be witnessing a new galaxy cluster forming right before our eyes, just over a billion years after the big bang,” said Frye.

A final paper examines very faint, smudge-like galaxies known as ultra-diffuse galaxies. As their name suggests, these objects, which are scattered throughout the El Gordo cluster, have their stars widely spread out across space. The team identified some of the most distant ultra-diffuse galaxies ever observed, whose light traveled 7.2 billion years to reach us.

“We examined whether the properties of these galaxies are any different than the ultra-diffuse galaxies we see in the local universe, and we do actually see some differences. In particular, they are bluer, younger, more extended, and more evenly distributed throughout the cluster. This suggests that living in the cluster environment for the past 6 billion years has had a significant effect on these galaxies,” explained Timothy Carleton of Arizona State University, lead author on the fourth paper.

“Gravitational lensing was predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago. In the El Gordo cluster, we see the power of gravitational lensing in action,” concluded Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University, principal investigator of the PEARLS program. “The PEARLS images of El Gordo are out-of-this-world beautiful. And, they have shown us how Webb can unlock Einstein's treasure chest.”

The paper by Frye et al. has been published in the Astrophysical Journal. The paper by Kamieneski et al. has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. The paper by Diego et al. has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The paper by Carleton et al. has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Two of the most prominent features in the image include the Thin One, highlighted in box A, and the Fishhook, a red swoosh highlighted in box B. Both are lensed background galaxies. The insets at right show zoomed-in views of both objects.

CREDIT

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA. Science: Jose Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria), Brenda Frye (University of Arizona), Patrick Kamieneski (Arizona State University), Tim Carleton (Arizona State University), and Rogier Windhorst (Arizona State University). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Jake Summers (Arizona State University), Jordan D’Silva (University of Western Australia), Anton Koekemoer (STScI), Aaron Robotham (University of Western Australia), and Rogier Windhorst (Arizona State University).

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/acd929 

 

Unveiling the mechanism underlying orofacial movements during reward processing in animals

Findings of a recent collaborative study can provide deep insights into the neuronal mechanisms of spontaneous orofacial movements related to reward processing in animals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUJITA HEALTH UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: OROFACIAL MOVEMENTS ARE KNOWN TO STRONGLY CORRELATE WITH BRAIN-WIDE NEURONAL ACTIVITIES IN MICE. IN A NEW STUDY, RESEARCHERS FROM JAPAN FIND THAT IN MICE UNDERGOING REWARD-BASED TRAINING, ACCUMBAL D1 RECEPTOR-DEPENDENT AND -INDEPENDENT NEURONAL SIGNALS CONVERGE IN THE WHISKER PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX (WM1) AND REGULATE VARIOUS “UNINSTRUCTED” OROFACIAL MOVEMENTS. THESE FINDINGS CAN HAVE IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS IN THE FIELDS OF NEUROSCIENCE, MENTAL HEALTHCARE, AND ANIMAL MEDICINE. THE IMAGE WAS ILLUSTRATED BY HIROKO UCHIDA. view more 

CREDIT: PROF. TAKAYUKI YAMASHITA, ASSOCIATE PROF. TAKASHI NAKANO, AND PROF. JUNICHIRO YOSHIMOTO FROM FUJITA HEALTH UNIVERSITY. IMAGE SOURCE LINK: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.1016/J.CUB.2023.07.013

In animals, movements such as locomotion or grooming are known to influence neuronal activity within the cerebral cortex. Moreover, recent studies also suggest that these changes in neuronal activity are not confined to a specific area but are pervasive throughout cortical and subcortical regions of the brain. Interestingly, in animals trained for reward-based learning tasks, such spontaneous movements—despite being uninstructed and unnecessary—may be aligned to task events and may significantly contribute to neuronal activity during the task.

In particular, movement of orofacial parts, such as the nose and whiskers, is known to strongly correlate with brain-wide neuronal activities in mice. For instance, mice that undergo stimulus-reward association training move their whiskers and exhibit orofacial movements following a reward-predicting cue. However, the underlying mechanism by which the brain generates and coordinates these “uninstructed” movements remains largely unknown.

Now, however, a team of researchers from Fujita Health University, led by Prof. Takayuki Yamashita along with co-author Wan-Ru Li of the Department of Physiology, reveal interesting insights behind these orofacial movements in mice. The study was a collaborative effort of members of the International Center for Brain Science (ICBS) at Fujita Health University, including Prof. Takayuki Yamashita, Associate Prof. Takashi Nakano, and Prof. Junichiro Yoshimoto. The study, published in the Current Biology journal on August 2, 2023, reveals the neuroscience involved in these highly characteristic orofacial movements.

To study the underlying mechanisms, the researchers first analyzed the whisker movement data of mice. While mice well-trained for licking water reward showed rapid whisker movements immediately after reward-predicting cue presentation, the untrained, novice mice did not exhibit such movements. On examining whether these task-aligned whisker movements were specific to a task involving whisker sensation, the researchers also observed similar whisker movements even in tasks involving sound-reward associations.

Although the above tasks involve a water reward, the team further conducted experiments to induce uninstructed orofacial movements without giving a liquid reward. More specifically, the team stimulated the dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA)—a region in the murine midbrain that plays an important role in the motivation and reward system. The team then discovered that stimulating VTA DA neurons triggers orofacial movements.

Talking about the results, Prof. Yamashita says, “Dopamine neurons in the VTA are very popular cells among neuroscientists who are interested in reward processing of our brain, and a lot of papers have been published on their role. But our study is the first to report that their activity can trigger orofacial movements. ”

Further, extensive experimentation involving machine learning revealed two distinct orofacial movements observed during reward-based learning tasks — transient orofacial actions upon reward expectation and active, sustained orofacial movements upon receiving a reward. The study also helped elucidate the causal role of the whisker primary motor cortex (wM1)—a region in the mouse brain that plays a key role in regulating whisker movements—in triggering these motions.

“Two distinct neuronal signal flows are involved in making these two types of orofacial movements. One is the mesolimbic DA pathway, which is famous for constituting our motivational behavior. This is essential for orofacial movements upon reward acquisition. The other is a kind of bypassing pathway signaling reward-predicting cue information speedily to motor command neurons in the brain. This rapid signaling is independent of mesolimbic DA but needed to induce quick, transient orofacial actions upon reward expectation,” explains Prof. Yamashita.

“Our findings reveal that these two distinct signals converge in the wM1 but elegantly drive two distinct motions,” adds co-author Wan-Ru Li. 

According to the researchers, this is presumably the first recorded observation of such a phenomenon and can have key clinical implications. For instance, understanding how facial movements correlate with internal states can lead to improved diagnostic and treatment strategies for mental health conditions which often involve atypical emotional responses and facial expressions.    

Moreover, this newfound knowledge on differential orofacial movements in mice could lead to advancements in understanding animal emotions and help create more compassionate and suitable environments for laboratory animals, pets, and animals in different settings like zoos or farms, ultimately enhancing animal welfare.

We surely hope that this study serves as a milestone for animal welfare, mental health, and neuroscience research.

 

***

 

Reference

Title of original paper: Neural mechanisms underlying uninstructed orofacial movements during reward-based learning behaviors

Journal: Current Biology

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.07.013

 

About Fujita Health University

Fujita Health University is a private university situated in Toyoake, Aichi, Japan. It was founded in 1964 and houses one of the largest teaching university hospitals in Japan in terms of the number of beds. With over 900 faculty members, the university is committed to providing various academic opportunities to students internationally. Fujita Health University has been ranked eighth among all universities and second among all private universities in Japan in the 2020 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. THE University Impact Rankings 2019 visualized university initiatives for sustainable development goals (SDGs). For the “good health and well-being” SDG, Fujita Health University was ranked second among all universities and number one among private universities in Japan. The university became the first Japanese university to host the "THE Asia Universities Summit" in June 2021. The university’s founding philosophy is “Our creativity for the people (DOKUSOU-ICHIRI),” which reflects the belief that, as with the university’s alumni and alumnae, current students also unlock their future by leveraging their creativity.

Website: https://www.fujita-hu.ac.jp/en/index.html

 

About Professor Takayuki Yamashita from Fujita Health University

Dr. Takayuki Yamashita serves as a Professor at Fujita Health University, Japan. Yamashita has obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2007. After working as a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and as an associate professor at Nagoya University from 2017 to 2020, he assumed full professorship at Fujita Health University in 2020. He is currently investigating information flows among brain circuits to coordinate animal behavior. Prof. Yamashita has over 25 publications to his credit, including those that appeared in journals like Science, Nature Neuroscience, and Neuron.

Website: https://www.yamashitalab.org

 

Funding Information

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grants (17H05744, 18K19496, 21H00215, and 23H04685), JST FOREST Program (JPMJFR204H) to T.Y.; Research grants from Naito Foundation, Takeda Science Foundation, and Fujita Health University to T.Y.; and JNNS30 Commemorative Research Grant to J.Y.

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2023.07.013 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Neural mechanisms underlying uninstructed orofacial movements during reward-based learning behaviors

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Aug-2023

ALL IS ALCHEMY

Nature’s kitchen – how a chemical reaction used by cooks helped create life on Earth

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THE NEAR-SHORE ENVIRONMENT IS WHERE MOST ORGANIC CARBON IS BURIED. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

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• Maillard reaction locks away 4 million tonnes of organic carbon a year  

• Process helped stabilise conditions for complex life to evolve  

A chemical process used in the browning of food to give it its distinct smell and taste is probably happening deep in the oceans, where it helped create the conditions necessary for life.  

Known as the Maillard reaction after the French scientist who discovered it, the process converts small molecules of organic carbon into bigger molecules known as polymers. In the kitchen, it is used to create flavours and aromas out of sugars.  

But a research team led by Professor Caroline Peacock at the University of Leeds argues that on the sea floor, the process has had a more fundamental effect, where it has helped to raise oxygen and reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, to create the conditions for complex life forms to emerge and thrive on Earth.  

Source of organic carbon  

Organic carbon in the oceans mostly comes from microscopic living organisms. When those organisms die, they sink to the sea floor and are consumed by bacteria. That decay process uses oxygen and releases carbon dioxide into the ocean which eventually ends up in the atmosphere.   

As a result of the Maillard reaction, the smaller molecules are converted into larger molecules. Those larger molecules are harder for microorganisms to breakdown and remain stored in the sediment for tens of thousands - if not millions - of years.  

The scientists describe this as the “preservation of organic carbon”.  

That long-term storage or preservation of organic carbon on the seabed had major consequences for conditions that developed on the surface of the Earth. It limited the release of carbon dioxide, allowing more oxygen to reach the Earth’s atmosphere and limited variation in the warming of the Earth’s land surface over the last 400 million years to an average of about five degrees Celsius.  

‘Too slow to have any impact’  

Dr Oliver Moore, first author in the study and a Research Fellow in Biogeochemistry in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, said: “It had been suggested back in the 1970’s that the Maillard reaction might occur in marine sediments, but the process was thought to be too slow to impact the conditions that exist on Earth.  

“Our experiments have shown that in the presence of key elements, namely iron and manganese which are found in sea water, the rate of reaction is increased by tens of times.  

“Over Earth’s long history, this may have helped create the conditions necessary for complex life to inhabit the Earth.”  

As part of the study, the scientists modelled how much organic carbon has been locked into the seabed because of the Maillard reaction. They estimate it has resulted in around 4 million tonnes of organic carbon each year being locked into the seabed. That is the equivalent weight of around 50 London Tower Bridges.  

To test their theory, the researchers looked at what happened to simple organic compounds when mixed with different forms of iron and manganese in the laboratory at 10 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the seabed.  

Analysis revealed that the “chemical fingerprint” of the laboratory samples - which had undergone the Maillard reaction - matched those from sediment samples taken from seabed locations around the world.  

That “fingerprint” analysis was conducted at the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, the UK’s synchrotron which generates intense beams of light energy to reveal the atomic structure of samples.  

Dr Burkhard Kaulich, Principal Beamline Scientist of the Scanning X-ray Microscopy beamline (I08-SXM) at Diamond Light Source, said: “Our advanced I08-SXM instrumentation with its high stability, energy and optical resolution was developed and optimised to help probe carbon chemistry and reactions which take place in environmental systems.   

“We are very proud to have been able to contribute to a better understanding of the fundamental chemical processes involved in the creation of complex life forms and climate on Earth.”   

Professor Peacock, from Leeds, said: “It’s immensely exciting to discover that reactive minerals such as those made from iron and manganese within the ocean have been instrumental in creating the stable conditions necessary for life to have evolved on Earth.”  

The lessons learned from a better understanding of the Earth’s geochemical processes could be used to harness new approaches to tackling modern-day climate change.  

Dr James Bradley, an environmental scientist at Queen Mary University of London and one of the authors of the paper, said: “Understanding the complex processes affecting the fate of organic carbon that is deposited on the seafloor is crucial to pinpointing how Earth’s climate changes in response to both natural processes and human activity, and helping humanity better manage climate change, since the application and long-term success of carbon capture technologies relies on carbon being locked away in stable forms rather than being transformed into carbon dioxide.”    

The study, “Long-term organic carbon preservation enhanced by iron and manganese”, is published today (Wednesday, Aug 2) in the scientific journal Nature and can be downloaded from the link when the embargo lifts: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06325-9 

Note to Editors 

Please contact David Lewis in the press office at the University of Leeds - d.lewis@leeds.ac.uk or pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk - with any requests to talk to the researchers or for more information. 

When the embargo lifts, the paper can be downloaded from the Nature website by clicking on the link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06325-9 

The doi of the publication is: 10.1038/s41586-023-06325-9 

Dr Oliver Moore

CREDIT

University of Leeds

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06325-9 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Long-term organic carbon preservation enhanced by iron and manganese

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Aug-2023

 

An ancient grain unlocks genetic secrets for making bread wheat more resilient

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)

 

IMAGE: PAINTING OF TRITICUM MONOCOCCUM SHOWING THE DOMESTICATED (LEFT) AND WILD (RIGHT) EINKORN WHEAT SPIKES. 70X50CM, WATERCOLOR ON PAPER. view more 

CREDIT: © 2023 ROBYN PALESCANDOLO FOR KAUST’S CENTER FOR DESERT AGRICULTURE.

Building on the Middle East’s reputation as one of the historical birthplaces of cereal crop domestication, a KAUST-led team has compiled the first complete genome map of an ancient grain known as einkorn[1].

The 5.2-billion-letter-long sequence provides a window into the evolutionary origins of different wheat species. It could help farmers and crop breeders to develop bread wheat varieties with enhanced disease resistance, higher yields and improved hardiness.

“By understanding the genetic diversity and evolutionary history of einkorn, researchers can now leverage its potential for future breeding efforts and the development of more resilient and nutritious wheat varieties,” says Hanin Ahmed, one of the study’s first authors, and a former Ph.D. student at KAUST.

Einkorn is one of the world’s oldest domesticated grains, dating back more than 10,000 years to the fertile regions of the Middle East, where its cultivation began. Known as Triticum monococcum, einkorn is still consumed today, cherished for its unique flavor profile and numerous nutritional benefits. However, its significance in global food production over the millennia has gradually declined as the popularity of bread wheat soared.

Bread wheat varieties generally produce higher yields, making them more economically viable for large-scale commercial agriculture. Yet, compared to its wild cousins, modern bread wheat has a reduced genetic diversity — and many breeders are now concerned about how existing crops will fare in the face of climate change and new disease threats.

Enter einkorn. Because the ancient grain has maintained a larger gene pool, it could hold the genetic secrets needed to develop bread wheat that can continue to feed the world’s growing population.

To unlock those secrets, a team led by Simon Krattinger and Jesse Poland from KAUST, deployed a combination of DNA sequencing technologies to create high-quality genome assemblies for wild and domesticated einkorn varieties alike.

Researchers had previously assumed that the evolution of wheat was a steady process with limited mixing of different wheat species. But, according to Krattinger: “Our genomic analyses now show that the history of wheat is much more complex and involved a lot of mixing and gene flow between different wheat species,” including einkorn, which likely grew in close proximity to other wheat varieties, leading to DNA mixing between the two closely related species that remains evident to this day.

Just as the human genome contains sequences from our Neanderthal cousins, so too is the modern bread wheat genome littered with remnants of einkorn DNA.

Indeed, the introduction of einkorn genes in the past may have played a role in assisting bread wheat to adapt to changing climatic conditions, Krattinger notes. And if history is any indication, the same could hold true for the future, especially with the aid of modern molecularly guided breeding techniques.

“Our lab’s resources will help to precisely transfer beneficial genes from einkorn into bread wheat,” Krattinger says.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06389-7 

ARTICLE TITLE

Einkorn genomics sheds light on evolutionary history of the oldest domesticated wheat.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Aug-2023

 

Moderna is safest, most effective mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 for older adults, study shows

A study of older U.S. adults led by researchers at Brown University found that the risk of negative effects of both mRNA vaccines is exceptionally low, but lowest with the Moderna vaccine.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — While mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 have been found to be safe and effective for the general population, in-depth evidence about safety and effectiveness for older adults and individuals with chronic health conditions is more limited.

To address that gap, a team led by Brown University researchers conducted the largest head-to-head comparison study of the two mRNA vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. The results, published in JAMA Network Open, showed that for older adults, the Moderna vaccine was associated with a slightly lower risk of adverse events than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

“The results of this study can help public health experts weigh which mRNA vaccine might be preferred for older adults and older subgroups, such as those with increased frailty,” said lead study author Daniel Harris, an epidemiologist and research scientist in the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research at the Brown University School of Public Health.

The study looked at more than six million older adults, with the average age of 76 years, who were vaccinated against COVID-19 using one of the two mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. The vaccines have subtle differences in manufacturing, administration and immune response.

The study confirmed that for older adults in both vaccine groups, the risk of serious adverse events was very low. The researchers also observed that for these older adults, the Moderna vaccine was associated with a 4% lower risk of pulmonary embolism, which is a sudden blockage in blood vessels of the lungs, and a 2% lower risk of thromboembolic events, defined as several conditions related to blood clotting.

The Moderna vaccine was also associated with a 15% lower risk of diagnosed COVID-19 compared to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Harris emphasized that the risk of adverse events from a natural infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is substantially higher than the risk of adverse events from either mRNA vaccine. But now that over 70% of the global population has received one type of COVID-19 vaccine and vaccine supply is less of a concern, he said there is a need for detailed information about vaccine effects and safety to guide decision-making.

“Immunization with either mRNA vaccine is substantially better and safer than not being vaccinated at all,” Harris said. “But in an ideal world where we can have a choice between which vaccine product is used, we wanted to see whether one vaccine was associated with better performance for older adults and those with increased frailty.”

Harris said there is also a need to understand vaccine performance in real-world populations. He noted that older adults, who often have chronic health conditions, tend to be excluded from clinical trials or represented in small numbers. This is especially important considering that older adults, especially those in nursing homes, had a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19. Older adults with frailty can also have differences in their immune responses to vaccines, Harris said, making it important to understand how these vaccines work for frail older adults compared to their non-frail counterparts.

This research was part of a project called the IMPACT Collaboratory, led by researchers at Brown University and Boston-based Hebrew SeniorLife, which is enabling massive monitoring of the long-term safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines for Medicare beneficiaries, in collaboration with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.

“Because we had these real-world data and a cohort that included millions of older adults, we were able to tease apart potentially very small differences in vaccine safety and effectiveness and perform analyses on important clinical subgroups,” Harris said.

According to the research team, the improved safety of the Moderna vaccine for some adverse events, like pulmonary embolism, could have been due to its greater protection against COVID-19, especially for non-frail older adults.

“We think that these two things, safety and effectiveness, are interrelated,” Harris said. “The slightly reduced risk of pulmonary embolism and other adverse events that we saw in individuals who received Moderna may be because the Moderna vaccine was also more effective at reducing COVID-19 risk.”

However, the study was unable to definitively conclude whether the differences in adverse events were due to safety or effectiveness, and the researchers recommended additional research in this area. The study also only looked at the first dose of the mRNA vaccines, so another potential next step could involve similar comparisons for subsequent vaccinations.

“You can imagine regularly updating these types of analyses as new vaccines are developed,” Harris said. “Depending on which one comes out on top, even on a very small scale, that may have big implications at the population level and render a preference for that particular vaccine.”

Additional Brown University collaborators included Kaley Hayes, Andrew R. Zullo, Vincent Mor, Preeti Chachlani, Yalin Deng and Stefan Gravenstein.

The work was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under award number U54AG063546, which funds NIA Imbedded Pragmatic Alzheimer’s Disease and AD-Related Dementias Clinical Trials Collaboratory (the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory). Supplemental funding was provided under grant numbers 4193U54AG063546-S07 and 3U54AG063546-S08.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.26852 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Comparative Risks of Potential Adverse Events Following COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination Among Older US Adults

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Aug-2023

COI STATEMENT

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The funder had no role in the design and conduction of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Drs. Hayes and Zullo receives salary support via grant funding from Sanofi (awarded to and administered by Brown University). Dr Hayes has received consulting fees from the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health. Drs. Djibo and McMahill-Walraven receive salary support via contracts and grant funding from which receives salary support from FDA Sentinel initiative (Sentinel Program and BEST Programs); NIH Impact Collaboratory; TherapeuticMD; Managed Care Pharmacy’s (AMCP) Biologics and Biosimilars Collective Intelligence Collaborative (BBCIC); Reagan-Udall’s Foundation Innovation in Medical Evidence and Development Surveillance (IMEDS) multi-site research service agreements funded by Abbvie, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer awarded to and administrated by CVS Health. Drs. Djibo and McMahill-Walraven report CVS Stocks and Stock options. Dr Gravenstein has received consulting fees from Sanofi, Janssen, Pfizer, Seqirus, and GlaxoSmithKline. They have received payment/honoraria from Sanofi, Seqirus, and Janssen for presentations. They have participated on an advisory board at Janssen, Pfizer, Sanofi, Reviral, and Vaxart. All other authors have no actual or potential conflicts of interest to report.

Comparative risks of potential adverse events following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination among older adults

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this study of 6.3 million older U.S. adults, the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine was associated with a slightly lower risk of several adverse events compared with BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech), possibly due to greater protection against COVID-19. Future research should seek to formally disentangle differences in vaccine safety and effectiveness and consider the role of frailty in assessments of COVID-19 vaccine performance.

Authors: Daniel A. Harris, Ph.D., of the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island, is the corresponding author. 

 To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.26852)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.26852?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=080223

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open