Incidents of serious parasitic disease on the rise in Alberta, Canada

The province is now the North American hotspot for a rare, potentially fatal disease, say researchers

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA FACULTY OF MEDICINE & DENTISTRY

Research News

 

A rare parasitic infection imported from Europe continues to take root in Alberta, Canada. The province is now the North American hotspot for human alveolar echinococcosis (AE), which takes the form of a growth in the liver, causing serious and potentially deadly health complications.

A recently published review of known AE cases in Alberta found 17 instances of human AE diagnosed in the province between 2013 and 2020. Before the recent surge, only two cases of human AE had been previously confirmed in North America--one in Manitoba in 1928 and another in the U.S. state of Minnesota in 1977.

"This parasite has now become very widely established in the wild in the Prairies. It's been found in Saskatchewan and in B.C., but Alberta has had most of the cases of human disease," said University of Alberta infectious diseases expert Stan Houston, who helped lead the study.

"We have been having on average more cases every year. There's been a lull since COVID-19, but I'm suspicious it reflects a slowdown in testing during the pandemic and that we may soon see a surge again."

CAPTION

Alveolar echinococcosis, a rare parasitic disorder in humans, occurs after ingestion of eggs of the tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis.

CREDIT

Wikimedia Commons

According to Houston, the strain of AE found in the Alberta cases has been identified by scientists at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Calgary as having originally come from Europe, likely in dogs brought to the area.

The parasite takes the form of a tiny tapeworm in canines--typically foxes and coyotes, but potentially pet dogs--and is considered to be relatively harmless to them. When a rodent ingests parasite eggs from canine feces, it gets a different form of the disease and develops a tumour, or parasitic growth, in the liver, which kills it. When the rodent is eaten by a canine, the parasite takes the tapeworm form again.

"We humans are taking the place of the rodent in the life cycle when we accidentally consume microscopic parasite eggs--maybe in strawberries or lettuce from a garden where a coyote passed through, or possibly a dog if it is carrying the parasite," said Houston, also noting that a human could become infected by petting a dog that has microscopic traces of canine feces in its hair and then touching food or their mouth, accidentally ingesting the parasite's eggs.

The European strain of AE has been notably successful in Alberta, quickly spreading in the wild. Increased human contact with coyotes as they have become urbanized, along with the increasing numbers of people with diseases or therapies that weaken the immune system, are likely to contribute to the number of humans developing the disease.

"In coyotes in Calgary and in Edmonton, more than half have been found to be carrying this parasite. So the new strain seems to not only be more virulent when it affects humans, but it seems to be super-effective in wild hosts," said Houston.

"Diseases from animals have always been important to keep an eye on," he added. "The COVID-19 pandemic has again elevated awareness of the number and importance of human diseases that are transmitted from animals."

Of the 17 cases found in Alberta, 11 patients lived in rural areas, 14 of them owned dogs and six were immunocompromised individuals--of special interest as the disease progresses faster in patients whose immune systems have been suppressed.

The symptoms of AE can be difficult to spot. The infection typically has an incubation period of several years before a patient begins showing signs of illness. Almost half of the cases in Alberta were found accidentally when the patient was getting tested for a different illness. It's often found after an ultrasound shows abnormalities in the liver, followed by an investigative biopsy. When symptoms occur, they can include unspecified pain, jaundice, weakness and weight loss--many of the same conditions that could be expected from a cancerous tumour in the liver.

"In the majority of cases that was the people's first thought when they saw the imaging, that it was cancer," said Houston. "The symptoms would be indistinguishable from many other diseases in the liver, hence the need for a biopsy diagnosis."

If found early enough, treatment can involve surgery to remove the mass from the liver. Because the parasite is initially symptomless, it is often able to slowly grow and by the time it is found, about two-thirds of patients will be inoperable. In those cases, lifelong antiparasitic drugs are the only option. The drugs won't kill the parasite but will prevent it from growing further. If left untreated, the parasite could kill its human host within 10 to 15 years.

Currently the most useful drug for controlling AE is not licensed in Canada (although widely available in most of the rest of the world) and only available through a special physician application process to both the government and manufacturer.

Avoiding the parasite comes down to good hygiene practices and taking simple precautions. Houston said it's a good idea to wash your hands after handling your dog, especially if you suspect it's eaten a rodent or spent time in a dog park or area where coyotes frequent. Also recommended is thoroughly washing produce that comes from the ground or close to the ground, such as lettuce or mushrooms.

The researchers are now working on a new study examining samples of liver biopsies from patients in Alberta where cancer wasn't found, to look for possible previously unrecognized cases of AE.

"That would give us a better picture of what's going on, but more importantly, would give us a chance to give those patients appropriate therapy," said Houston.

"We should be paying attention, but it's still a very rare disease," he added. "People should keep that in perspective, adopt health behaviours and not obsess about this."

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The study, "Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of Alveolar Echinococcosis: An Emerging Infectious Disease in Alberta, Canada," was published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Amid pandemic, number of people forced to flee homes has risen, says U.N.

By Michelle Nichols

© Reuters/LUISA GONZALEZ FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan refugees walk to a school, where a temporary shelter is installed, to receive medical assistance and humanitarian aid from the Colombian Red Cross, in Arauquita

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of people forced to flee their homes due to conflict, persecution and human rights abuses has doubled in the past decade to reach 82.4 million at the end of last year, the United Nations said on Friday.


"In the year of COVID, in a year in which movement was practically impossible for most of us... 3 million more people have been forcibly displaced," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told Reuters.

Nearly 70% of those affected are from just five countries - Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar - according to the annual report on forced displacement by the U.N. Refugee Agency UNHCR.

"Trends have unfortunately continued. So if we had to work to update the figures... for the first six months of 2021, we will probably see a further increase from that 82.4 million," said Grandi. Around 42% of those displaced were children.

He said the increase in those uprooted from their homes was partly fueled by new flashpoints, including northern Mozambique, West Africa's Sahel region, and Ethiopia's Tigray, along with flare-ups in long-running conflicts in Afghanistan and Somalia.

© Reuters/MOHAMED AZAKIR FILE PHOTO: Syrian refugees walk as they carry containers at an informal tented settlement in the Bekaa valley

The United Nations is also preparing for a likely further displacement of civilians in Afghanistan after U.S. and international troops leave the country in September, Grandi said https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/un-readies-more-displaced-afghans-after-troop-withdrawal-2021-06-14 earlier this week.

Amid a rise in populism and nationalism in global politics, Grandi called on world leaders to "stop demonizing people" that are forced to move.

"To say that the only way to address this population flow is by building walls or pushing people back at sea is morally despicable or unspeakable. These are human beings," Grandi said. "Whatever the motive for the flight or for the movement human beings deserve full dignity like everybody else."

Reuters/LUISA GONZALEZ FILE PHOTO: UNHCR's Grandi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Bogota

Former U.S. President Donald Trump took a hardline approach on border security and immigration. Grandi, who recently visited Washington, praised new President Joe Biden's pledge to "restore a U.S. asylum system that is both effective and humane."

"It's very important that that pledge is carried out," he said. "The attitude that I heard in Washington is people that are in need of international protection will be given international protection, but we must make the system more effective otherwise abuses will happen, numbers will skyrocket."

The UNHCR report found that in 2020 just 34,400 refugees were formally resettled globally - one-third of the previous year. They were resettled in the United States, Canada and Europe.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

FREE MARKET CAPITALI$M

Scale of cash economy in South African townships stuns FirstRand
By Emma Rumney 

Reuters/SIPHIWE SIBEKO FILE PHOTO: Nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - FirstRand has found offering banking to cash-only businesses in South African townships trickier than expected, but the firms involved are also far bigger than it realised.

Africa's biggest lender by market capitalisation announced the takeover of financial technology firm Selpal in March, with the aim of capturing a greater slice of the township economy.

Millions of people live in townships, which were areas designated for non-whites under apartheid and are often satellites of South Africa's major cities.

Wealthy residents, golf courses and shopping malls are also now a feature of the country's most populous township, Soweto, near Johannesburg, as well as a large poorer population living hand-to-mouth in often cramped conditions.

© Reuters/SIPHIWE SIBEKO FILE PHOTO: Nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

Townships are also home to millions of firms from tiny informal shops to big wholesalers, historically ignored by major banks in South Africa, which make up a sizeable untapped market.

After almost three years, FirstRand has found that the scale of the unbanked businesses is much larger than it thought, Jesse Weinberg, head of the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) customer segment at FirstRand's retail division FNB, said.

It has been giving firms Selpal devices and software, which allow customers to pay via card and enable the firms to buy from suppliers, with a view to using the data collected to later offer them financial services such as loans for the first time.

Although it had not met its original goal of capturing 2,500 wholesalers by 2022, Weinberg said FirstRand had surpassed this figure for the total of firms signed on. The bank has also changed its definition of wholesaler and now estimates there are only 20-30 of these in an average township.

It also found far bigger cash-only wholesalers than anticipated, with some achieving turnover as high as 40 million rand ($2.84 million) a month, Weinberg said, a figure that firms at the higher end of its SME category only do annually.

Even very small township shops typically turn over 2 million rand a year, he said, although their margins are very thin.

"That would suddenly put that customer into quite a significant bracket, it's a decent size of business," he said.

Early lending pilots had also entailed surprises.

One pilot testing a product that worked in a similar to way to trade credit, which allows businesses to pay suppliers for stock or services later, saw some business owners turn it down.

Those that did take part became so nervous about their negative account balance that in some cases they began avoiding interaction with Selpal agents altogether.

"It caused a bit of confusion," Weinberg said, adding the bank would re-introduce credit pilots at a later stage.

($1 = 14.0631 rand)

(Reporting by Emma Rumney; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Hong Kong newspaper increases print run after arrests


HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily on Friday increased its print run to 500,000 copies as residents showed support for the beleaguered press freedom a day after police arrested five top editors and executives and froze $2.3 million worth of assets on national security charges.

 Provided by The Canadian Press

The raid on the paper's offices followed by the arrests on Thursday marked the first time the sweeping national security law, which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong last year, was used against the media, one of the symbols of civil liberties in the semi-autonomous city that don't exist elsewhere in China.

Police said the editors were arrested on suspicion of foreign collusion to endanger national security, based on over 30 articles that authorities said had called for international sanctions against China and Hong Kong.

With anti-government protests silenced, most of the city's prominent pro-democracy activists in jail and many others fleeing abroad, people snapped up copies at newsstands and in convenience stores.

“There are lots of injustices in Hong Kong already. I think there are a lot of things we cannot do anymore,” said resident Lisa Cheung. “Buying a copy is all what we can do. When the law cannot protect Hong Kong people anymore, we are only left to do what we can.”

The front page of Friday's edition splashed images of the five editors and executives led away in handcuffs. Police also confiscated 44 hard drives worth of news material. A quote from Cheung Kim-hung, the arrested CEO of Apple Daily’s publisher Next Digital, said “Hang in there, everyone.”

Another resident, William Chan, said he bought a copy of the paper as a show of support.

“It was such a groundless arrest and suppressed freedom of the press,” he said.

The national security law was imposed after massive protests in 2019 challenged Beijing's rule by calling for broader democratic freedoms. It outlaws subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries. The maximum penalty for serious offenders is life imprisonment.

Security Minister John Lee had on Thursday warned other journalists to distance themselves from those under investigation at Apple Daily. He said those arrested had used journalistic work to endanger national security and that anyone who was “in cahoots” with them would pay a hefty price.

The Chinese government’s liaison office in Hong Kong said in a statement Thursday that it supported police action, noting that while the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, guarantees the freedoms of speech and press, those rights cannot undermine the “bottom line of national security.”

“Freedom of the press is not a ‘shield’ for illegal activities,” the liaison office said.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the U.S. strongly condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the five arrested. He also called for Hong Kong authorities to stop targeting independent and free media.

“We are deeply concerned by Hong Kong authorities’ selective use of the national security law to arbitrarily target independent media organizations,” Price said, adding that the suspected foreign collusion charges appear to be politically motivated.

“As we all know, exchanging views with foreigners in journalism should never be a crime,” he said.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a tweet that freedom of the press is one of the rights China had promised to protect for 50 years when Britain handed over Hong Kong in 1997.

“Today’s raids & arrests at Apple Daily in Hong Kong demonstrate Beijing is using the National Security Law to target dissenting voices, not tackle public security,” Raab said.

Apple Daily has pledged to readers that it will continue its reporting, and on Thursday night invited members of the media to its printing presses to watch its Friday edition roll off the press in a show of commitment.

Its founder Jimmy Lai is currently serving a 20-month prison sentence on charges of playing a part in unauthorized protests in 2019. The paper's average daily circulation has been around 86,000 copies.

Zen Soo And Alice Fung, The Associated Press

MNI WINCONI WATER IS LIFE

Oroville water drop will force hydro-power plant offline

By Alexandra Meeks

Water in a key California reservoir will fall so low this summer that its hydroelectric power plant will be forced to shut down for the first time, officials said Thursday, straining the state's already-taxed electric grid.

© Provided by CNN The water in Lake Oroville — the state's second largest reservoir — has dropped precipitously this summer. IT IS NOT SUMMER UNTIL JUNE 21, IT IS STILL SPRING TIL THEN

An unrelenting drought and record heat, both worsened by the changing climate, have pushed the water supply at Northern California's Lake Oroville to deplete rapidly. As a result of the "alarming levels," officials will likely be forced to close the Edward Hyatt Power Plant for the first time since it opened in 1967, California Energy Commission spokesperson Lindsay Buckley told CNN.


The water in Lake Oroville — the state's second largest reservoir — is pumped through underground facilities to generate electricity, which can power up to 800,000 homes when operating at full capacity.

While the water level in the reservoir is currently hovering around 700 feet above sea level, if it continues to fall at the currently projected rate to 640 feet there will not be enough water to continue operating the Hyatt plant in two to three months, coinciding with the typical peak of the summer heat and wildfire season.

"If lake levels fall below those elevations later this summer, DWR will, for the first time, cease generation at the Hyatt power plant due to lack of sufficient water to turn the plant's electrical generation turbines," said Liza Whitmore, Public Information Officer of DWR's Oroville Field Division.

The announcement came as California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide heat wave emergency Thursday, with record setting temperatures and increased electricity use adding pressure to the grid.

"Amid a major heat wave that is stressing energy grids in states across the western United States, Governor Gavin Newsom today signed an emergency proclamation to free up additional energy capacity," Newsom's office said in a press release.

The governor's declaration, citing "extreme peril" to the safety residents due to the heat wave, suspends permitting requirements to allow the immediate use of back-up power generators to help alleviate stress on the state's energy grid.

California energy grid officials have called on residents to reduce power through Friday, especially during the evenings when electricity use is at its peak. Scaling back on using power during this peak time of the day will help avoid unneeded rolling power outages and damaged power lines, state officials previously said.

As of 2018, hydro-power plants generated around 13% of the state's electricity. Hyatt power plant is the fourth largest hydroelectric energy producer statewide, according to the state's energy commission. Due to the already low water supply at Lake Oroville, the plant's output has been reduced to 20% of its total capacity and officials have relied on other facilities to avoid major power interruptions to homes and businesses, Whitmore said.

A similar situation was playing out at the Hoover Dam, which forms Lake Mead, the United States' largest reservoir and produces enough electricity for nearly 8 million Americans, where record-low water levels have reduced energy capacity by roughly 25 percent.



A hydroelectric plant downstream of the Hyatt facility in California will also operate at reduced levels this summer despite increased power demands during the typical summer peak, Whitmore said.

In addition to encouraging power-saving measures, officials statewide are urging Californians to reduce their water consumption as much as possible during the hot summer months ahead. They recommend curtailing water use by taking shorter showers, fixing leaks at home, planting drought-tolerant trees, and reduce watering home landscapes. Some officials in Northern California have already taken a stricter approach by declaring a water shortage emergency and issuing mandatory water restrictions that are punishable by fines for noncompliance.

"Water is a precious and limited resource, especially in drought-prone California where the next dry period could be right around the corner," the state's water resources department said. "As a result, water conservation and the efficient use of California's water supply are major priorities."

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Lindsay Buckley's title. She is a spokesperson for California Energy Commission.

Myanmar migrant workers work abroad to feed their families. Now they can't send the money home

By Paula Hancocks and Rebecca Wright, CNN 

Su Thandar Win shows a photo of her 7-year-old son on her phone and a proud smile instinctively spreads across her face. But it soon fades when she explains why she hasn't seen him for well over two years.

Bex Wright/CNN Myat, a migrant worker in Bangkok, Thailand in May 2021.

"I left him with my mum," said the Myanmar migrant worker, 26, who is living in Thailand.

Initially, Covid restrictions blocked her annual trip home when the Thai-Myanmar border closed in March 2020. Then the February 1 coup in Myanmar intensified that separation, with military-imposed internet and mobile network blackouts often making calls home impossible, she said.

Compounding their troubles, the money Su and her husband earn as factory workers in the Thai capital, Bangkok, can no longer reach their family. The coup has pushed Myanmar's banking system to near collapse, and internet shutdowns have made transfers impossible, according to the UN Development Program (UNDP).

© Bex Wright/CNN Su and Zaw, migrant workers in Bangkok, Thailand in May 2021.

Every morning, long queues of people wait for hours outside banks and ATMs across Myanmar. Withdrawal limits have been capped at about 200,000 kyat ($120) per customer per day and some have even run out of cash as people stop depositing money due to security concerns.

"Normally, when I send money back home my family is able to get the cash out the next day," Su said. "But lately the internet is not working and it's difficult to get the money out, and we do not feel we can trust the bank, either."

Su and her husband are among the 1.7 million Myanmar nationals working in neighboring Thailand, according to the Migrant Workers Group, and part of a vital network of overseas workers who support relatives at home. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates some $1.4 billion was sent to Myanmar in 2015 from overseas workers

© Bex Wright/CNN Ma Oo, migrant rights advocate in Bangkok, Thailand in May 2021

The current situation has left thousands of migrants living with constant worry not just for the financial well being of their loved ones, but for their safety. More than 860 people have been killed by security forces since the coup and more than 6,000 arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Su's mother tells her not to worry, as the fighting is not intense in their village. "But they have to be careful," Su said. "They no longer sleep soundly and barely go out."

Yet without money to stockpile food or medicine, laying low long-term will not be easy.

"I want to be based back in Myanmar to work, as we have so many difficulties working in other countries and I want to live with my family back home, too," she said.

But she is scared about what may happen if she and her husband, Zaw, 30, who also works in a Bangkok factory, did return. "If we try to go back they will arrest us even if we are not involved in politics," she said.

Zaw speaks of the torment of watching, from a distance, while his country churns in turmoil as the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, continues its brutal crackdown on anti-coup protesters. "I can't go back and fight," he said. "Even if I don't mind risking my life for the next generation, I want real democracy in my country."

Rising poverty in Myanmar

Before the coup, Christina's older brother would usually send home from Thailand up to $240 a month, which his family of 10 relied on for food and medicine. All that stopped after the coup when banks shut down.

Christina, who is using a pseudonym for security reasons, said the family had to leave their home in Mindat town, in Myanmar's southern Chin state, when fighting started there. Now, it is not only food they need.

"Because we are in a place where there are no doctors and nurses, even for headaches we are struggling to buy medicine because it's been a few months," she said.

They are also unable to return home to plant new crops they relied on for food and to sell, so the next few years will be difficult, she said. They are currently living in a camp for internally displaced people.

Wai, who also uses a pseudonym for safety reasons, said his brother is working in Thailand and used to send $150 to $180 a month home to his elderly mother who lives alone in her village. She used it for medicine as he said her health is failing. Wai said his mother had been saving some of the remittances, but in a month her reserves will be depleted.

"Since I have family, I cannot support her as well. My brother cannot send money. So mum is using her savings to feed herself and is having to borrow from other family members in the village," Wai said.

"I sell food at the factories and we were OK before the coup. But after the coup, most factories are closed, and I couldn't sell anymore. So, we are struggling. So, I asked my brother to send me some money. He said he will. But since we couldn't receive from here, our family is in trouble, too."

A report published by the United Nations at the end of April estimated up to half of Myanmar's population could be living in poverty by early 2022 due to "compounding negative shocks." The report found 83% of Myanmar's households reported their incomes had, on average, been cut almost in half due to the Covid pandemic.

That situation has become worse since the coup.

Scared for families' safety

Ma Oo has been living in Thailand for 20 years, helping migrant workers secure documentation to work legally and advocating for their rights. Her children studied in Thailand, and now work in the country. But she worries for the rest of her family who remained in Myanmar's Shan state.

Her father, she said, worked as a public relations organizer for the National League for Democracy (NLD), the democratically elected party thrown from power by the military coup. Ma Oo assumes her father was arrested, but even now, four months on, she does not know for sure.

"The military detained everyone connected with NLD. I lost contact with my father as soon as I heard about the coup. I am worried for my whole family as all of us are involved in the party. My father got arrested twice in the 1990s for being involved with NLD and now we assumed that he got arrested again as we have lost contact with him."

Not knowing the whereabouts or welfare of family members caught up in the military junta's crackdown is traumatizing for those unable to return home.

Kyokyani, 35, works in a bakery in Bangkok. His wife works in a textile factory but he said his 85-year-old mother is too frail to join them from her village in Myanmar's Mandalay region.

Kyokyani, who also wants to be identified by one name for security, said his older brother was recently arrested by security forces and held for three days. "The military is pressuring our village because of the protests and they wanted to arrest the protest leaders. But they couldn't find them, so they arrested my brother," he said.

"I am very sad and worried about my family," he said, adding that most of those living in villages are daily wage laborers and struggle to make ends meet. "I cannot go back and help them and that makes me worry about them even more."

Kyokyani said business dropped when Covid hit and he couldn't send as much money home as he usually did. The coup has made things worse and he hasn't able to send any money since the military seized power.

Even sustaining himself is challenging.

"There are fewer jobs here in Thailand and I still have to spend for my accommodation and food, so I cannot get paid as much as before," he said.

Fellow migrant worker Myat fears for his family's safety. His relative worked at a gold mine in southeastern Kayah state where 11 workers were reportedly killed in a military airstrike at the end of March.

He said his relative was not working that day but questions why the miners were targeted at all. "I can't stand it. They are innocent people from the forest. I don't think they even have internet, so they wouldn't have known what's happening," he said.

Staring at a photo of one of the victims on his phone, he said: "I'm worried not just for my family but for the whole country. I'm worried for everyone because they are killing youths. The youth are the future of Myanmar, but they value them less than animals."

For Su and Zaw, whose 7-year-old is still in Myanmar with his grandparents, thinking about what type of future he has, without remittance money in a country turned upside down is almost too much to bear.

"I am very worried about my child, as a mother. We heard the military is taking people around our village for forced labor especially, the boys and men, so they cannot sleep peacefully at night," Su said.

"I miss my kid. Because of the bad situation I cannot go back and see him. I am sad."

Most cancer cells grown in a dish have little in common with cancer cells in people

JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE

Research News

 

In a bid to find or refine laboratory research models for cancer that better compare with what happens in living people, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists report they have developed a new computer-based technique showing that human cancer cells grown in culture dishes are the least genetically similar to their human sources.

The finding, they say, should help focus more resources on cancer research models such as genetically engineered mice and 3D balls of human tissue known as "tumoroids" to better evaluate human cancer biology and treatments, and the genetic errors responsible for cancer growth and progress.

"It may not be a surprise to scientists that cancer cell lines are genetically inferior to other models, but we were surprised that genetically engineered mice and tumoroids performed so very well by comparison," says Patrick Cahan, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead investigator of the new study.

The new technique, dubbed CancerCellNet, uses computer models to compare the RNA sequences of a research model with data from a cancer genome atlas to compare how closely the two sets match up.

The researchers found that, on average, genetically engineered mice and tumoroids have RNA sequences most closely aligned with the genome atlas baseline data in 4 out of every 5 tumor types they tested, including breast, lung and ovarian cancers.

The investigators say their work adds to evidence that cancer cell lines grown in the laboratory have less parity with their human source because of the complex differences between a human cell's natural environment and a laboratory growth environment. "Once you take tumors out of their natural environment, cell lines start to change," says Cahan.

Scientists worldwide rely on a range of research models to improve their understanding of cancer and other disease biology and develop treatments for conditions. Among the most widely used cancer research models are cell lines created by extracting cells from human tumors and growing them with various nutrients in laboratory flasks.

Researchers also use mice that have been genetically engineered to develop cancer. In other cases, they implant human tumors into mice, a process called xenografting, or use tumoroids.

To evaluate how well any of these research models align with what may be happening in people, scientists often transplant lab-cultured cells or cells from tumoroids or xenografts into mice and see if the cells behave as they should -- that is, grow and spread and retain the genetic hallmarks of cancer. However, the Johns Hopkins researchers say this process is expensive, time-consuming and scientifically challenging.

The goal of the new work was to develop a computational approach to evaluating research models in a less cumbersome and accurate way. A report on the work was published April 29 in Genome Medicine, and the researchers have filed for a provisional patent on what they named CancerCellNet.

The new technique is based on genetic information about cellular RNA, a molecular string of chemicals similar to DNA and an intermediate set of instructions cells used to translate DNA into the manufacture of proteins.

"RNA is a pretty good surrogate for cell type and cell identity, which are key to determining whether lab-developed cells resemble their human counterparts," says Cahan. "RNA expression data is very standardized and available to researchers, and less subject to technical variation that can confound a study's results."

First, Cahan and his team had to choose a standard set of data that acted as a baseline to compare the research models. Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas served as the so-called "training" data, which includes RNA expression information of hundreds of patient tumor samples, and their corresponding stage, grade and other tumor information.

They also tested their CancerCellNet tool by applying it to data where the tumor type was already known, such as from the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium.

Members of the research team combed through The Cancer Genome Atlas data to determine 22 types of tumors to study. They used the genome atlas data as the baseline for comparing RNA expression data from 657 cancer cell lines grown in labs worldwide, some of which were established decades ago, 415 xenografts, 26 genetically engineered mouse models and 131 tumoroids.

In one example from the study, prostate cancer cells from a line called PC3 start to look genetically more like bladder cancer, he notes. It's also possible, he says, that the cell line was originally labeled incorrectly or it could have actually been derived from bladder cancer. But the bottom line was that from a genetic standpoint, the prostate cancer cell line was not a representative surrogate for what happens in a typical human with prostate cancer.

The investigators found that, using a 0-1 scoring method, cell lines had, on average, lower scoring alignment to atlas data than tumoroids and xenografts.

Cahan says he and his team will be adding additional RNA sequencing data to improve the reliability of CancerCellNet.

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Funding for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (P50CA228991, CA233255-01, CA214253), a Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Department of Defense (W81XWH-17-PCRP-HD), and the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (P20 CA233255-01, CA214253).

Other scientists who conducted the research include Da Peng, Rachel Gleyzer, Wen-Hsin Tai , Pavithra Kumar, Qin Bian, Bradley Isaacs, Stephanie Cai and Kathleen DiNapoli from Johns Hopkins; Edroaldo Lummertz da Rocha from Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil; and Franklin Huang from the University of California, San Francisco.

Study explores how the elderly use smart speaker technology

BENTLEY UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Researchers from Bentley University, in partnership with Waltham Council on Aging in Massachusetts, and as part of a study funded by the National Science Foundation, have been

exploring how the elderly use smart speakers at home. Waltham, a satellite city about eight miles west of Cambridge has a population of about 60,000, with about one in six being an elderly citizen. The purpose of the study was to understand how the elderly use the smart speaker technology at home. A smart speaker is a hardware device that is always-on. When a wake-word triggers the software contained in the device, the smart speaker listens to the command to provide a response or carry out the command (accessing resources on the internet as needed). News stories about smart speakers have often contemplated issues such as privacy but often lack actual usage data.

The researchers deployed smart speakers in seven homes with individuals or couples aging-at-home over several months to collect actual usage data. The study followed research protocols and was designed to ensure confidentiality. The time period ranged from 178 days (about 6 months) to 410 days (about a year and a month) for different users. The usage data was analyzed to characterize use patterns. The biggest finding was heterogeneity in use patterns. In general, mornings and afternoons were more active, uses such music and news were most prevalent, and most interactions were simple commands as opposed to longer conversations. Most participants did not demonstrate sustained use over a long period. As an example, one participant who used the smart speaker for more than a year had an enthusiastic start, followed by moderate use (listen to the 14-second sonification here - listen to how the early high notes give way to repeating low notes).

"Smart speaker technology has the potential to be more than a surveillance or shopping device particularly for population segments such as the aging-at-home. Our study shows that the elderly can use this voice-based technology more easily. Future research can develop specific voice skills aimed at this population segment," says Dr. Sandeep Purao, a professor of information and process management and one of the lead researchers. "The usage data streams provide several opportunities for analysis that provide a window into how the elderly use the smart speaker technology," says Dr. Haijing Hao, a computer information systems professor who also participated in the study.

The results of this work are being published in the Big Data Research journal. The team will continue the work by developing software platforms for the elderly to manage health information and exploring the design of voice skills for the elderly.

The work is important. The US Census Bureau projects that by 2040, about one in five Americans will be age 65 or older, up from about one in eight in 2000. Our study shows that technologies such as smart speakers have the potential for sustained use by the elderly, and therefore, can be the basis for developing new solutions for this population segment.

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Purao, S., Hao, H., and Meng, C. 2021. The Use of Smart Home Speakers by the Elderly: Exploratory Analyses and Potential for Big Data. Big Data Research. Elsevier.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bdr.2021.100224
http://purao.us/paper-accepted-at-big-data-research/

About Bentley University

Bentley University is more than just one of the nation's top business schools. It is a lifelong-learning community that creates successful leaders who make business a force for positive change. With a combination of business and the arts and sciences and a flexible, personalized approach to education, Bentley provides students with critical thinking and practical skills that prepare them to lead successful, rewarding careers. Founded in 1917, the university enrolls 4,200 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate and PhD students and is set on 163 acres in Waltham, Massachusetts, 10 miles west of Boston. For more information, visit http://www.bentley.edu.

Altered microstructure improves organic-based, solid state lithium EV battery

Ethanol solvent boosts battery energy density, a step toward better EVs of the future

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

Research News

 

Only 2% of vehicles are electrified to date, but that is projected to reach 30% in 2030. A key toward improving the commercialization of electric vehicles (EVs) is to heighten their gravimetric energy density - measured in watt hours per kilogram - using safer, easily recyclable materials that are abundant. Lithium-metal in anodes are considered the "holy grail" for improving energy density in EV batteries compared to incumbent options like graphite at 240 Wh/kg in the race to reach more competitive energy density at 500 Wh/kg.

Yan Yao, Cullen Professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston, and UH post doctorate Jibo Zhang are taking on this challenge with Rice University colleagues. In a paper published June 17 in Joule, Zhang, Yao and team demonstrate a two-fold improvement in energy density for organic-based, solid state lithium batteries by using a solvent-assisted process to alter the electrode microstructure. Zhaoyang Chen, Fang Hao, Yanliang Liang of UH, Qing Ai, Tanguy Terlier, Hua Guo and Jun Lou of Rice University co-authored the paper.

"We are developing low-cost, earth-abundant, cobalt-free organic-based cathode materials for a solid-state battery that will no longer require scarce transition metals found in mines," said Yao. "This research is a step forward in increasing EV battery energy density using this more sustainable alternative." Yao is also Principal Investigator with the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH (TcSUH).

Any battery includes an anode, also known as negative electrode, and a cathode, also known as positive electrode, that are separated in a battery by a porous membrane. Lithium ions flow through an ionic conductor - an electrolyte, which allows for the charging and discharging of electrons that generates electricity for, say, a vehicle.

Electrolytes are usually liquid, but that is not necessary - they can also be solid, a relatively new concept. This novelty, combined with a lithium-metal anode, can prevent short-circuiting, improve energy density and enable faster charging.

Cathodes typically determine the capacity and voltage of a battery and are subsequently the most expensive part of batteries due to usage of scarce materials like cobalt - set to reach a 65,000-ton deficit in 2030. Cobalt-based cathodes are almost exclusively used in solid-state batteries due to their excellent performance; only recently have organic compound-based lithium batteries (OBEM-Li) emerged as a more abundant, cleaner alternative that is more easily recycled.

"There is major concern surrounding the supply chain of lithium-ion batteries in the United States," said Yao. "In this work, we show the possibility of building high energy-density lithium batteries by replacing transition metal-based cathodes with organic materials obtained from either an oil refinery or biorefinery, both of which the U.S. has the largest capacity in the world."

Cobalt-based cathodes generate 800 Wh/kg of material-level specific energy, or voltage multiplied by capacity, as do OBEM-Li batteries, which was first demonstrated by the team in their earlier publication, but previous OBEM-Li batteries were limited to low mass fraction of active materials due to non-ideal cathode microstructure. This capped total energy density.

Yao and Zhang uncovered how to improve electrode-level energy density in OBEM-Li batteries by optimizing the cathode microstructure for improved ion transport within the cathode. To do this the microstructure was altered using a familiar solvent - ethanol. The organic cathode used was pyrene-4,5,9,10-tetraone, or PTO.

"Cobalt-based cathodes are often favored because the microstructure is naturally ideal but forming the ideal microstructure in an organic-based solid-state battery is more challenging," said Zhang.

On an electrode level, the solvent-assisted microstructure increased energy density to 300 Wh/kg compared to the dry-mixed microstructure at just under 180 Wh/kg by improving the utilization rate of active material significantly. Previously, the amount of active materials could be increased but the utilization percentage was still low, near 50%. With Zhang's contribution, that utilization rate improved to 98% and resulted in higher energy density.

"Initially I was examining the chemical properties of PTO, which I knew would oxidize the sulfide electrolyte," Zhang said. "This led to a discussion on how we might be able to take advantage of this reaction. Together with colleagues at Rice university, we investigated the chemical composition, spatial distribution and electrochemical reversibility of the cathode-solid electrolyte interphase, which can provide us hints as to why the battery could cycle so well without capacity decay," Zhang said.

Over the last ten years, the cost of EV batteries declined to nearly 10% of their original cost, making them commercially viable. So, a lot can happen in a decade. This research is a pivotable step in the process toward more sustainable EVs and a springboard for the next decade of research. At this rate, perhaps just as literally as euphemistically, the future looks much greener on the other side.

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This research was funded by the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), as part of the Battery 500 Consortium.

Meringue-like material could make aircraft as quiet as a hairdryer

Extremely low-density graphene-based aerogel 'meringue' can improve passenger comfort and reduce noise up to 80%

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Research News

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR MICHELE MEO WITH LIGHTWEIGHT AEROGEL SUSPENDED IN A HONEYCOMB STRUCTURE view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BATH

An incredibly light new material that can reduce aircraft engine noise and improve passenger comfort has been developed at the University of Bath.

The graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol aerogel weighs just 2.1kg per cubic metre, making it the lightest sound insulation ever manufactured. It could be used as insulation within aircraft engines to reduce noise by up to 16 decibels - reducing the 105-decibel roar of a jet engine taking off to a sound closer to that of a hair-dryer.

The aerogel's meringue-like structure makes it extremely light, meaning it could act as an insulator within aircraft engine nacelles, with almost no increase in overall weight. The material is currently being further optimised by the research team to offer improved heat dissipation, offering benefits to fuel efficiency and safety.

Researchers from Bath's Materials and Structures Centre (MAST) have published a method for manufacturing the materials in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

Professor Michele Meo, who led the research, says: "This is clearly a very exciting material that could be applied in a number of ways - initially in aerospace but potentially in many other fields such as automotive and marine transport, as well as in building and construction.

"We managed to produce such an extremely low density by using a liquid combination of graphene oxide and a polymer, which are formed with whipped air bubbles and freeze-casted. On a very basic level, the technique can be compared with whipping egg whites to create meringues - it's solid but contains a lot of air, so there is no weight or efficiency penalty to achieve big improvements in comfort and noise."

Although the team's initial focus is in working with partners in aerospace to test the material as a sound insulator in aeroplane engines, they say it could also be used to create panels in helicopters, or car engines. They estimate that the aerogel could be in use within 18 months.

CAPTION

Lightweight aerogel suspended in honeycomb structure

CREDIT

University of Bath

Images are available at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nijc1uk6vn8ufo9/AACW-6pqAYfbhHyWGHNfHDMIa?dl=0

For more information or to request interviews, contact Will McManus on 01225 385798 or at wem25@bath.ac.uk or press@bath.ac.uk  

University of Bath   

The University of Bath is one of the UK's leading universities both in terms of research and our reputation for excellence in teaching, learning and graduate prospects.  

The University is rated Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), the Government's assessment of teaching quality in universities, meaning its teaching is of the highest quality in the UK.  

In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 research assessment 87 per cent of our research was defined as 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'. From developing fuel efficient cars of the future, to identifying infectious diseases more quickly, or working to improve the lives of female farmers in West Africa, research from Bath is making a difference around the world. Find out more: http://www.bath.ac.uk/research/     

Well established as a nurturing environment for enterprising minds, Bath is ranked highly in all national league tables. We are ranked 6th in the UK by The Guardian University Guide 2021, and 9th in both The Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide 2021 and the Complete University Guide 2022. Our sports offering was rated as being in the world's top 10 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject in 2021.