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Social entrepreneurs honored for lifesaving innovations

The American Heart Association’s Impact with Heart awards showcase two equitable health organizations funded by its venture capital and venture philanthropy programs

American Heart Association

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DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2025 – An organization that developed a health monitor to continuously track blood oxygen levels and one that launched a digital health platform to provide peer support to people recovering from addiction are the recipients of the 2025 Impact with Heart awards from the American Heart Association. The Association, a global force changing the future of health for all, annually recognizes leaders in innovative entrepreneurship that supports equitable health outcomes.

According to the just released American Heart Association 2025 Heart Disease & Stroke Statistics report, heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the U.S. and globally. Data in the report finds that health risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease – including obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes – are increasing at alarming rates especially among underrepresented groups.

"The American Heart Association is dedicated to changing the future of health and driving equitable health outcomes across all communities," said American Heart Association Chief Executive Officer Nancy Brown. "Through events like Impact with Heart, we can celebrate entrepreneurial excellence while also forging new collaborations that will further the fight against cardiovascular disease particularly among people and communities most at risk. At the American Heart Association our future is about improving yours."

Brown said the Impact with Heart celebration showcases innovative and effective projects to drive equitable health. The event brings together local community based, entrepreneurial organizations supported by the American Heart Association’s Social Impact Funds and EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator™. Attendees had the opportunity to engage with the founders of several participating and funded organizations and learn how these entrepreneurs are driving sustainable, scalable changes in their local communities.

The year’s third annual event took place Jan. 29 at The Ailey Studios in New York City. CNBC network television Senior Personal Finance Correspondent Sharon Epperson served as mistress of ceremonies and Season 2 American Idol winner Ruben Studdard shared his personal health journey.

Two trailblazing organizations whose work embodies the spirit of innovation and impact were honored with Impact with Heart awards:

• Sober Sidekick headquartered in Marina Del Ray, California, was recognized for its groundbreaking digital health engagement platform which uses an "Empathy Algorithm" to provide peer support for people recovering from addiction. The organization was founded by Chris Thompson as a personal project while he was in the early stages of sobriety. His experience overcoming addiction fuels his mission to empower others through this decentralized mental health tool. The organization has received equity-based venture capital funding from the American Heart Association Social Impact Funds and has provided support to over 341,000 people to date.
• OxiWear is located in Arlington, Virginia, and is a participant in the American Heart Association’s EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator. The company’s lifesaving FDA-approved medical wearable device provides continuous, real-time oxygen monitoring and emergency alerts for people with pulmonary conditions. The tool was developed by company founder Shavini Fernando after she was diagnosed with severe pulmonary hypertension.

“It often takes years for the best practices in medicine to translate into commercially available, broadly adopted standards of care, and sometimes breakthrough advancements never reach patients at all,” said Marsha Jones, volunteer board chair of the American Heart Association and former executive vice president and chief diversity officer for The PNC Financial Services Group. said. “The American Heart Association is working to change that by strategically investing in organizations to accelerate the scale and spread of their innovations. We’re proud to recognize this year’s Impact with Heart recipients and support their efforts as part of our mission to be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.”

The American Heart Association Social Impact Funds, launched in 2018, support community-based solutions that reduce social and economic barriers to equitable health for all. The investment strategy complements the work of the Association’s strategic goal to address nonmedical, social and economic barriers that cause many people to develop heart disease and have shorter, unhealthier lives. By providing   equity-based investments to emerging for profit businesses and philanthropic grants to nonprofit organizations, the Social Impact Funds support the sustainability and spread of evidence-based solutions across diverse markets and issues. The Social Impact Funds are part of American Heart Association Ventures.

The EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator provides philanthropic support to social and digital health entrepreneurs and organizations that are driving change through health justice in their communities and specifically target food insecurity, transportation, access to health care, STEM, youth education and more.

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About the American Heart Association®

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. Dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities, the organization has been a leading source of health information for more than one hundred years. Supported by more than 35 million volunteers globally, we fund groundbreaking research, advocate for the public’s health, and provide critical resources to save and improve lives affected by cardiovascular disease and stroke. By driving breakthroughs and implementing proven solutions in science, policy, and care, we work tirelessly to advance health and transform lives every day. Connect with us on heart.org, on Facebook, X or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

AKA; SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

 

Groundwater in the arctic is delivering more carbon into the ocean than was previously known

University of Texas at Austin

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An aerial image of the study site in Kaktovik Lagoon of northern Alaska.

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Credit: Credit: Nathan Sonderman

A relatively small amount of groundwater trickling through Alaska’s tundra is releasing huge quantities of carbon into the ocean, where it can contribute to climate change, according to new research out of The University of Texas at Austin.

Researchers found that although the groundwater only makes up a fraction of the water discharged to the sea, it’s liberating an estimated 230 tons of organic carbon per day along the almost 2,000-kilometer coastline of the Beaufort Sea in summer. This quantity of carbon is on par with what free-flowing rivers in the area release during summer months.

“This study shows that there’s humongous amounts of organic carbon and carbon dioxide released via fresh groundwater discharge in summer,” said Cansu Demir, who led the research while she was completing her doctoral degree at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. She is now a postdoctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The research was published recently in Geophysical Research Letters.

As the tundra continues to thaw and the flow of submarine groundwater ratchets up, Demir said that the outflow of carbon from shore to sea could effectively make ocean surface waters a carbon source to the atmosphere. The CO2 released via groundwater could also contribute to ocean acidification.

The study is first to use direct observations to show that fresh water is being discharged into the submarine environment ocean where the coast meets the sea. Before this research, the existence of fresh submarine groundwater discharge in this area of the Arctic was thought to be very limited, Demir said.

The study is also the first to isolate freshwater — which could be made up of rainwater, snow melt, thawed shallow ground ice, and potentially some permafrost thaw — from the total groundwater discharge. Previous studies of groundwater discharge in the Artic included recirculated saltwater, which seeped into the ground from the coast.

Using direct observations, numerical modeling, thermal and hydraulic techniques, researchers found that during the summer, fresh groundwater entering the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska is equal to 3-7% of the total discharge from three major rivers in that area. This volume of water is surprisingly high, according to Demir, who said it’s comparable to fresh groundwater discharge amounts in the temperate regions of lower latitudes. And although the volume of groundwater is proportionally small to the overall river flow, it holds a comparable amount of carbon.

“In that small amount of water, that groundwater carries almost the same amount of organic carbon and nitrogen as rivers,” she said.

Groundwater travels beneath the surface through soils and sediments as it makes its way to the coast, picking up organic matter, inorganic matter, and nutrients on its journey. When it interacts with permafrost, it can receive especially large volumes of carbon. Permafrost is akin to a subterranean estuary – holding large volumes of water and organic matter. When the ice melts and becomes part of the groundwater flow, it can bring a huge quantity of carbon along with it.

“The Arctic coast is changing in front of our eyes,” said Bayani Cardenas, a co-author of this study and professor at the Jackson School’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “As permafrost thaws, it turns into coastal and submarine aquifers. Even without this thawing, our studies are among the first to directly show the existence of such aquifers.”

In addition to contributing to global climate change, this huge influx of carbon and nitrogen could have major impacts for Arctic coastal ecology, Demir said. For example, ocean acidification could lead to increased vulnerability of some of the organisms that live on and under the seafloor, such as crustaceans, clams, and snails.

As permafrost continues to thaw under climate change, the amount of freshwater making its way to the sea underground will potentially increase, delivering even more greenhouse gases into coastal waters.

Micaela Pedrazas (left) and Cansu Demir (right) install a piezometer along the beach of Kaktovik Lagoon.

Credit

Credit: Bayani Cardenas/Jackson School of Geosciences

Emily Bristol samples groundwater through a piezometer in Simpson Lagoon.

Credit

Credit: Tyson McKinney/Jackson School of Geosciences

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Journal

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2024GL109142 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Coastal Supra-Permafrost Aquifers of the Arctic and Their Significant Groundwater, Carbon, and Nitrogen Fluxes

Why maggots love the texture of decaying fruit

AS THEY LOVE PUTRIFYING  FLESH

Gustatory organs in fruit flies enable them to taste the texture of food

PLOS

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Larvae navigate and prefer older, rotting fruit compared to fresh fruit.

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Credit: Nikita Komarov, modified using Adobe Illustrator 2024 from Komarov N, et al., 2025, PLOS Biology, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A study led by Nikita Komarov and Simon Sprecher at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, has discovered neurons in the fly larva mouth that allow the taste of food texture. Published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology on January 30th, the study found that the fly peripheral taste organ has neurons with texture-tasting mechanoreceptors that derive their ability from the painless gene.

Most research on food sensation has focused on tastes like sweetness or saltiness. But preferences for food often depend on their texture; some might like the flavor of mushrooms, but not the rubbery feeling in their mouths. While tasting flavors requires chemical sensation, tasting texture requires mechanical sensation, and it is unclear whether taste organs like the tongue have this capacity. The new study addressed this issue in fruit fly larvae, commonly called maggots, because of the simplicity of their nervous system and the available genetic tools.

The researchers established that maggots will not eat food that is too hard or too soft, but if it is just right—corresponding to days old decaying fruit—they dig in. Hypothesizing that this ability to sense food texture takes place in the peripheral taste organs, the researchers selectively disabled taste neurons in the larva mouth. As a result, the maggots lost their sense of taste texture and tried eating food that was softer or harder than their usual preference. Further experiments revealed that the painless mechanoreceptor gene is required for this sense. Lastly, they found that the C6 neuron in the maggot taste organ can sense both sugar and mechanical stimulation, meaning that the same neuron can taste food texture and food substance. Taste sensation and signal integration is thus quite different from other systems, and investigations beyond fruit flies are needed to fully understand taste perception in mammals, including humans.

The authors add, “Food texture remains a neglected attribute of overall food fitness. We find - with the power of Drosophila genetics - that at least the hardness of food is a crucial aspect of the overall gustatory profile. Excitingly the same neurons that sense chemicals in the taste system can in some cases sense texture.”

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002730

Citation: Komarov N, Fritsch C, Maier GL, Bues J, Biočanin M, Avalos CB, et al. (2025) Food hardness preference reveals multisensory contributions of fly larval gustatory organs in behaviour and physiology. PLoS Biol 23(1): e3002730. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002730

Author countries: Switzerland, Republic of Korea

Funding: This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant 310030_219348 and IZKSZ3_218514 to SGS. The funder had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation.

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Journal

PLOS Biology

DOI

10.1371/journal.pbio.3002730 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

ANIMAL TESTING

Antibody treatment prevents severe bird flu in monkeys

University of Pittsburgh

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PITTSBURGH, Jan. 30, 2025 – A prophylactic antibody-based immune therapy protects monkeys against severe disease caused by H5N1 avian flu, University of Pittsburgh and NIH Vaccine Research Center researchers report today in Science.

The broadly neutralizing antibody, which recognizes a relatively stable region of the bird flu virus, is less prone to losing its efficacy than antibodies targeting influenza’s more mutation-prone structures. This feature ensures that the immune protection can withstand the possible emergence of virus variants, akin to the SARS-CoV-2 mutants that evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide lasting protection against a globally spreading airborne infection.

“This type of prevention can be very useful in controlling infection outbreaks and containing the bird flu pandemic,” said co-corresponding author Douglas Reed, Ph.D., associate professor of immunology at Pitt’s School of Medicine and the Center for Vaccine Research. “In our testing, the antibody performed beautifully. The antibody could be useful as a prophylactic of severe disease in vulnerable populations, and it also helped us establish the testing threshold for antibody levels in blood, which would be useful for judging the immune protection generated by a universal flu vaccine.”

While, as of January 2025, only one reported case of H5N1 infection in the U.S has resulted in death, the World Health Organization has reported over 950 cases globally since 1997, with more than half of them fatal. And the concern for wider spread continues to grow. In addition to spreading among cattle in the U.S., H5N1 has spread from wild birds to mammals around the world, including sea lions in South America and mink in Europe. Genetic analysis of two human samples from North America suggested that the virus is adapting and getting better at causing disease and spreading in mammals.

Pitt researchers have long been concerned about the possible spread of avian flu from animals to humans, and have been developing and testing prophylactic interventions – vaccines and protective antibodies -- in animal models closely resembling humans. In a study published in iScience in 2023, the group reported on further refinements of their aerosol monkey model that closely mimics the symptoms of severe infection with H5N1 in humans, including acute respiratory distress syndrome – a life-threatening lung injury that can occur upon exposure to bird flu.

One special concern about developing a prophylactic against influenza infections lies in the virus’s propensity to quickly adapt to new conditions and environments, the researchers note. Because seasonal flu viruses change and avoid immune responses built up in prior years, an effective seasonal flu vaccine must be reformulated yearly to match the dominant strain. Antibodies targeting the hemagglutinin stalk region that is preserved across different influenza isolates, such as the strain of H5N1 tested in the new study, circumvents the abovementioned challenge and provides broadly neutralizing protection.

“This antibody is targeting a region that does not vary across different influenza viruses,” said co-corresponding author Simon Barratt-Boyes, Ph.D., professor of infectious diseases and microbiology at Pitt’s School of Public Health and immunology at Pitt’s School of Medicine. “Think about it as a tree – different species have different leaves and crowns, but tree trunks look very much the same. Similarly, the stalk region of the bird flu virus closely resembles the same structure of seasonal influenza, which makes it possible for stalk-targeting antibodies to provide universal protection.”

In a new study, monkeys pre-treated with a moderate dose of a broadly neutralizing MEDI8852 antibody were universally protected against severe disease and death. In addition to confirming the antibody’s efficacy in preventing serious adverse health outcomes, scientists were also able to establish its minimum serum concentration required for protection – a measurement useful for establishing the protective threshold of a potential universal flu vaccine.

The research sets the stage for the development of medical countermeasures against future influenza virus pandemics. Serum levels of MEDI8852 sufficient for protection remained stable for 8 to 12 weeks, suggesting that, if given early, it could protect first responders and others caring for patients at the beginning of an outbreak of H5N1.

Masaru Kanekiyo, Ph.D., of the NIH Vaccine Research Center, also contributed to the study. Other authors of this research are affiliated with the NIH Vaccine Research Center, Pitt, UPMC, University of Georgia and AstraZeneca.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.ado6481 

Article Title

Pre-exposure antibody prophylaxis protects macaques from severe influenza disease

Article Publication Date

31-Jan-2025

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