Study looks to Africa to best support Aussies living with chronic conditions

Curtin University researchers will lead an international study in South Africa aimed at implementing community-delivered interventions that address mental health and substance use-related barriers to staying engaged in treatment for chronic conditions

Curtin University

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsApp\Email

 

image: 

Professor Bronwyn Myers (second from left) with some of the community health workers Curtin researchers will be working with in South Africa.

view more 

Credit: Curtin University

Curtin University researchers will lead an international study in South Africa aimed at implementing innovative community-delivered interventions that address mental health and substance use-related barriers to staying engaged in treatment for chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

 

Led by Curtin enAble Institute Director Professor Bronwyn Myers, the project will run for five years after being awarded a $2.1 million National Health and Medical Research Council Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases Strengthening Health Systems grant.The project is being conducted in partnership with the South African Medical Research Council.

 

Professor Myers said despite healthcare being available, many people stopped treatment for chronic conditions because untreated mental health or substance use disorders made it harder to stay engaged.

 

“Community health workers already visit people in their homes, so they’re often the first to see when someone has missed appointments or stopped taking medication but they haven’t always had the training or support to respond effectively to mental health and substance use issues,” Professor Myers said.

 

“This study will test what happens when those home visits are backed by better training and peer support for mental health and substance use recovery, so community care teams can recognise the problem early, respond without stigma and help people reduce mental health and substance use barriers to staying connected to care instead of falling through the cracks.”

 

The study will test a program named Siyakhana - an isiXhosa word meaning ‘we build each other up’. It involves skills-based mental health and substance use training for community health workers and embeds peer recovery coaches with lived experience directly into community health teams to deliver additional mental health and substance use supports to patients.

 

The study will follow the outcomes of more than 5000 patients, measuring whether the approach helps people re‑engage with care and delivers value for money at a health‑system level.

 

Professor Myers said South Africa was the best place to conduct the study before applying the findings to Australia.

 

“As South Africa already has a large, established community health worker program, this is the ideal place for testing this health system strengthening intervention properly, at scale and much faster than we currently could in Australia where community health worker programs are only beginning to be implemented,” Professor Myers said.

 

Professor Myers said the approach responded to pressures facing both countries.

 

“Australia faces rising chronic disease rates, workforce shortages and growing demand for community‑based care, particularly in regional and underserved areas,” she said.

 

“By generating strong, real‑world evidence in South Africa, we can guide smarter, more cost‑effective decisions about how Australia expands community health workers and peer‑supported care.”

 

For more information about the Curtin enAble Institute, visit here.

 

USC-led team receives funding to build next-generation medical device that uses tears to monitor health

Researchers from USC and the California Institute of Technology aim to develop a tiny sensor and drug delivery system, implanted near the eye, with dry eye disease as its first target

Keck School of Medicine of USC

FacebookX

LinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

A team of researchers from USC in collaboration with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have received approximately $7.8 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Ocular Laboratory for Analysis of Biomarkers (OCULAB) program to build a medical device that could transform testing and treatment for a range of health conditions. The project, Personalized Automated Continuous Treatment for Eye Plus Systemic Disease (PACE+), aims to develop an implantable system, placed near the eye, that can measure biomarkers in tears to monitor dry eye disease (DED) and automatically deliver medication to treat the condition. The technology uses remote sensing capabilities and could be expanded for use in a range of other diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and neurological conditions.

ARPA-H, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, focuses on rapidly accelerating innovation to solve society’s most pressing health problems. OCULAB, which is led by ARPA-H program manager Calvin Roberts, MD, is focused on the development of a tear-based system that can measure biomarkers of DED and deliver medication for personalized treatment. ThePACE+ project is well positioned to meet this challenge, drawing on longstanding collaborations that unite clinical and biological expertise with advanced biomedical engineering. 

The OCULAB approach centers on tears as a diagnostic fluid. Tears contain many of the same biomarkers as blood but are easier to collect. Compared to intermittent blood draws, continuous monitoring of tears can track disease states more chronically with less burden to patients.

“Many people don’t realize how much information is in our tears. Because we can collect this information non-invasively and in real time, it can help personalize the approach to managing and treating a number of health conditions,” said Mark S. Humayun, MD, PhD, director of the USC Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics and co-director of the USC Roski Eye Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, who is leading the PACE+ project team.

An implant for dry eye disease

In DED, which affects more than 20 million people in the United States, tears do not adequately lubricate the eyes, causing dryness, pain and inflammation. Diagnosing and treating DED involves periodic testing and daily eye drops, which many patients find uncomfortable, inconvenient or difficult to adjust when symptoms change.

Humayun and his team will work to develop a closed-loop system that keeps DED symptoms under control, similar to the way an insulin pump monitors blood sugar and automatically adjusts dosing to keep it stable.

They intend to build a tiny implant, the size of a grain of rice, that can be placed through a small existing opening in the eyelid (corner of the eye) during a quick, painless procedure. A chip inside the implant measures tear biomarkers linked to DED symptoms and sends the data to the patient’s smartphone. The phone then automatically dispatches medication as needed through a second small device, tucked between the eye and lower lid. This helps manage symptoms as they fluctuate without requiring any action from the patient.

The researchers face several technical challenges. Because biomarker levels in tears are typically lower than levels in blood, the system must be highly sensitive. Meanwhile, most existing biosensors can measure markers for days or weeks, but the PACE+ system’s goal is to work for up to six months.

Power and data transfer are also difficult with such a small device. The system may be powered using a biofuel cell, which uses an energy source from the human body, or near-field communication (NFC), which wirelessly supplies power from a nearby device, such as a smartphone. NFC may also be used to transfer data between the implant and the patient’s smartphone.

Building a tear-based device

Over the next 18 months, the researchers will focus on engineering and validating the system. This includes demonstrating in the lab that the sensor can accurately measure DED biomarkers, confirming that the system can be safely positioned around the eye and conducting early tests in preclinical models. If the team meets these milestones, the project is eligible for up to $9.3 million in additional funding.

Beyond DED, the team will also explore whether the system can reliably measure depression-related biomarkers, including serotonin. The technology could someday be used for detecting and monitoring breast cancer, prostate cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, infertility and a number of other conditions with known tear-based biomarkers.

“This has never been done before, anywhere in the world,” said Humayun, who is also the inaugural holder of the Dennis and Michele Slivinski Chair in Macular Degeneration Research and University Professor of ophthalmology, biomedical engineering, and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. “It’s a moonshot, but it could give us a far better way to monitor and manage some of the world’s most common and serious diseases.”

About this research

In addition to Humayun, the project’s other investigators include experts in dry eye Sarah Hamm-Alvarez and Maria C. Edman from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California; drug development expert Stan Louie from the Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California; and bioelectromagnetics expert Gianluca Lazzi from the Keck School of Medicine and the Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) collaborators include microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) expert Yu-Chong Tai; high-performance, low-power, mixed-mode integrated systems expert Azita Emami; biosensor design expert Wei Gao; and artificial intelligence and machine learning expert Yisong Yue. The project also includes biomanufacturing expert Andrew Urazaki from Urazaki Corp.

This research is funded, in part, by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).  The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.

 

First actual measurement of “attempt time” in nanomagnets after 70 years of assumptions

Tohoku University

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Title image

view more 

Credit: ©Shun Kanai

A compass always points north – or does it? Magnets normally maintain a stable direction of magnetization, pointing from south to north (S→N). However, this direction can change under strong magnetic fields or heat. For example, a compass placed near a strong magnet may no longer point in the right direction. Magnets can also lose their magnetism when exposed to high levels of heat. This isn’t just relevant to wayfinding during your camping trips – if the magnets in hard drives and memory storage devices are affected, it could mean losing all of your precious data.

Researchers at Tohoku University sought to better understand the intricate ways in which this thermally-activated switching occurs in nanomagnets, and successfully measured it experimentally for the very first time.

This switching behavior can be understood using something called an energy landscape. Two stable magnetization directions exist (such as south and north), separated by an energy barrier. Thermal fluctuations can occasionally push the magnetization over this barrier, causing the direction to switch.

This stability is the principle behind magnetic storage technologies such as hard disk drives. In these devices, each bit of information is stored in a tiny magnet. The height of the energy barrier is proportional to the volume of the magnet. As storage density increases and the magnets become smaller, the barrier becomes lower, increasing the risk that thermal fluctuations may flip the magnetization and destroy stored information.

The probability of such thermally activated switching follows the Arrhenius law. In this model, the magnet repeatedly attempts to cross the energy barrier with a characteristic time called the attempt time (τ₀). For nearly 70 years, this attempt time has been assumed to be about one nanosecond. However, it had never been successfully measured experimentally.

To measure attempt time, the research team fabricated nanomagnet devices, characterized their geometry using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and measured the way they responded – such as how it switches between two opposite magnetization states at room temperature.

The researchers developed a new experimental and analytical approach that allows the Arrhenius law to be tested without changing temperature. Using this approach, they found that the attempt time is about 4–11 nanoseconds, which is more than ten times longer than previously assumed.

“This parameter has been assumed for decades but had never been directly measured,” says Shun Kanai, Associate Professor at the Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC) at Tohoku University. “Our experiments show that the fundamental switching attempts of nanomagnets occur much more slowly than previously thought.”

The study also suggests that collective spin excitations inside the magnet, known as spin waves, influence the switching process and slow down the effective switching attempts.

Now that attempt time has been experimentally measured, this value can serve as a more accurate foundation for further developing and evaluating the stability of magnetic devices such as hard disk drives and magnetoresistive random access memory. Emerging computing technologies like spintronic probabilistic computing devices (p-bits) which intentionally use thermal fluctuations may also benefit from this finding.

The results were published in Communications Materials on April 21, 2026.

Energy barrier model of magnetization switching. Two stable magnetization states are separated by an energy barrier. Thermal fluctuations occasionally allow the magnetization to cross the barrier, causing switching. 

Left: Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of a fabricated nanomagnet device (scale bar: 50 nm). The magnetization of the nanomagnet can take two opposite orientations. Right: Representative random telegraph noise (RTN) signal measured at room temperature. The voltage switches between two discrete levels, reflecting thermally activated magnetization reversal between the two states. 

Experimental determination of the attempt time. The energy barrier was systematically controlled by varying nanomagnet size and magnetic fields. The resulting Arrhenius plot allowed the attempt time τ₀ to be determined under constant temperature conditions. 

 

Credit

©Shun Kanai

---

Journal

Communications Materials

DOI

10.1038/s43246-026-01149-2 

Article Title

Stochastic switching time constant and instability in nanomagnets

Article Publication Date

21-Apr-2026

 

Kratom use is surging in the US, with life-changing consequences

Society for the Study of Addiction

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Kratom is a plant with psychoactive properties that, when taken at high doses, can produce effects similar to opioids.  A new study published in Addiction has found that kratom use – measured as kratom exposures reported to US poison centers – and cases of severe medical outcomes linked to kratom use have surged in the US over the past decade. 

The study found that kratom exposures reported to America’s Poison Centers increased from 19 cases in 2010 to 1,242 cases in 2023, a more than a 65-fold (6,500%) increase.  

Kratom exposures that included severe outcomes increased from zero cases in 2010 (2012 was the first year in which a severe outcome was reported) to 158 cases in 2023.  The authors of the study defined a severe medical outcome as one entailing life-threatening effects, significant residual disability, or death.

US states with kratom bans consistently showed lower rates of exposure, severe outcomes, and healthcare use compared with states using consumer‑protection approaches or no regulation.

Senior author Dr. Ryan Feldman, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, comments: “Kratom is not scheduled under the US Controlled Substances Act or approved for medical use by the FDA, which leaves US states to set their own regulations.  Or not:  several US states do not regulate kratom at all, and they consistently had worse outcomes in this study than states that banned kratom use.

“Evidence shows kratom can cause serious health effects like seizures, irregular heart rhythms, liver damage, and breathing problems.  Nearly one in seven cases reported to a poison center with a single-substance kratom exposure were admitted to a hospital, and one in 16 were admitted to a critical care unit.  If kratom is used in combination with other drugs, as it often is, kratom’s tendency to interfere with metabolic pathways can heighten the risks of the accompanying drugs.  

“As kratom use rises, and concerns over kratom and its risks increase, legislatures across the country are debating the best ways to regulate its use. Ongoing policy debates reflect limited high‑quality evidence, highlighting the need for more rigorous, unbiased research to guide legislation.  As our research here shows, the kratom problem is not going away anytime soon.”

-- Ends –

For editors:

This paper is available to read on the Wiley Online Library for one month from the embargo date (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.70416) or you may request an early copy from Jean O’Reilly, Editorial Manager, Addiction, jean@addictionjournal.org.

To speak with senior author Dr Ryan Feldman, please contact the Medical College of Wisconsin by email at media@mcw.edu.

Full citation for article: Comstock G, Gulotta AP, Rein LE, and Feldman R. Association Between State-Level Kratom Regulations and Poison Center-Reported Severe Medical Outcomes and Healthcare Use: A United States National Analysis.  Addiction. 2026. DOI: 10.1111/add.70416

Primary funding:  No funding was provided for this research.

Declaration of interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Addiction is a monthly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research reports on alcohol, substances, tobacco, gambling, editorials, and other debate pieces. Owned by the Society for the Study of Addiction, it has been in continuous publication since 1884.

---

Journal

Addiction

DOI

10.1111/add.70416 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Association Between State-Level Kratom Regulations and Poison Center-Reported Severe Medical Outcomes and Healthcare Use: A United States National Analysis

Article Publication Date

22-Apr-2026

 

New approach to solar cell manufacture could make perovskite panels more efficient and longer lasting

University of Surrey

LinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

A technique that improves the performance and stability of next-generation solar cells – without adding any chemicals or coatings – has been demonstrated by researchers from Korea University and the University of Surrey. 

The study, which has been published in Nature Energy, details a method that works by placing two types of perovskite film in contact with each other. That contact alone triggers a molecular interaction at the interface, which reorganises the crystal structure of the light-absorbing layer throughout its entire depth. The result is a more ordered, more durable material that converts sunlight into electricity more efficiently.  

Solar cells built using the technique achieved a certified power conversion efficiency of 25.61 per cent, independently verified by the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore. 

Perovskite solar cells have attracted significant research interest because they are cheaper and easier to manufacture than conventional silicon-based panels. Their commercial potential has been limited, however, by questions over how well they hold up under the heat and humidity conditions of real-world deployment.  

Under accelerated ageing tests, the treated material required roughly twice the thermal energy to degrade compared with comparable materials reported in recent literature – a meaningful improvement in a field where long-term stability is the central challenge. 

Dr Jae Sung Yun, co-author of the study and nanoscale imaging expert from the University of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute, said: 

"Perovskite solar cells could genuinely change how we generate electricity – they are cheaper to make than silicon panels and the efficiency numbers are now very competitive. The stumbling block has always been durability. What I find exciting about this work is how elegantly simple the solution turns out to be. You place two films in contact, and that contact alone reorganises the material at a molecular level confirmed by our state-of-the-art nanoscale chemical imaging techniques – all the way through, not just at the surface. No extra chemicals, no added complexity. ” 

 

The technique works through what the researchers call contact-triggered cationic interaction (CCI). When two perovskite films are placed in physical contact, molecular forces at the interface cause the charged particles – cations – within the light-absorbing layer to adopt a more uniform, aligned arrangement. This reduces the structural defects that cause energy to be lost as heat rather than converted to electricity. The time that charge carriers survive before recombining, a key measure of solar cell quality, increased from 4.48 to 5.89 microseconds in treated material compared with untreated controls.  

To confirm this, the Surrey team used photo-induced force microscopy (PiFM) – a technique that maps chemical signatures at the nanoscale by combining the high resolution of atomic force microscopy with infrared spectroscopy, bypassing the diffraction limit of light. This allowed the researchers to visually validate the precise, uniform formation of chemical bonds triggered by the CCI process, confirming that the molecular alignment occurred exactly as predicted at the film interface. 

Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, said: 

"What this study demonstrates is that you can meaningfully improve both the efficiency and the durability of perovskite solar cells without adding a single extra chemical or processing step – just by controlling how two films interact at the point of contact. That is a genuinely elegant result, and the performance numbers back it up. This kind of advance matters because stability under real-world conditions is the central challenge the field has to solve before perovskites can be deployed at scale. It connects directly to the work we are doing here at Surrey through our £2.7 million EPSRC programme on scaling perovskites across large-area flexible substrates – where durability is not a nice-to-have but a requirement. Research like this brings that goal closer." 

---

Journal

Nature Energy

DOI

10.1038/s41560-026-02027-4 

Article Title

Contact-triggered molecular interactions enable structural refinement of perovskite layers in solar cells

 

Nordic–Baltic alliance aims to accelerate decarbonization of Europe’s shipping sector

Estonian Research Council

WeChatEmail

 

image: 

Seminar in Brüssel

view more 

Credit: Author of Photos: Sander de Wilde

Europe’s maritime sector is facing a major technological transition as it seeks to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining competitiveness and safety.

A new Nordic–Baltic initiative, coordinated by Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), aims to address this challenge by developing scalable solutions for low-emission shipping.

Instead of relying solely on building new vessels, the initiative focuses on retrofitting existing fleets—upgrading propulsion systems, integrating alternative fuels such as hydrogen, methanol and ammonia, and applying digital technologies including AI-supported navigation and digital twins.

The alliance brings together partners from Estonia, Finland and Norway, combining academic research, industry expertise and policy development. Participants include research organisations, universities and innovation ecosystem actors working together to accelerate the adoption of sustainable maritime solutions across Europe.

Planned activities include the development of advanced testing facilities for alternative fuels, maritime cybersecurity and digital resilience, as well as simulation environments for retrofit technologies. The initiative will also establish a dedicated “Retrofit Hub” to connect shipowners, ports, technology developers and researchers.

“Europe’s maritime sector must decarbonise rapidly, but replacing entire fleets is not realistic,” said Roomet Leiger, director of the Estonian Maritime Academy at TalTech and coordinator of the initiative. “Retrofitting existing vessels, ports and energy systems can accelerate the transition to low-emission shipping while keeping the industry competitive.”

The project aligns with European climate and industrial policies, including the EU’s Fit for 55 package and FuelEU Maritime regulation, which are driving urgent demand for cleaner and more efficient maritime transport solutions.

By combining technological innovation with cross-sector collaboration, the alliance aims to strengthen Europe’s capacity to deliver both the green and digital transition of maritime transport.

---

Method of Research

Survey