A team of engineers at the University of Houston has published a study in the journal Nature on how international air travel has influenced the spread of COVID-19 around the world. By using a newly developed AI tool, the team identified hotspots of infection linked to air traffic, pinpointing key areas that significantly contribute to disease transmission. Source: University of Houston Newsroom

Researchers at Washington University Medicine have reduced scar formation and improved heart function in mouse models of heart failure using a monoclonal antibody treatment. The antibody that reduces inflammation could serve as cardio-immunotherapy for heart failure patients.  Source: WashU Medicine  

The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) has solved a challenge that has long stymied researchers, reimagining the process of creating hydrogels to build a powerful semiconductor in hydrogel form that can be used to create better brain-machine interfaces, biosensors, and pacemakers. Source: UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering News.

A team of researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and collaborators from five institutes have developed a new 3D atlas of developing mice brains using advanced imaging and microscopy techniques. The new high-resolution maps of the mouse brain will help advance the understanding of brain development and the study of neurodevelopment disorders. 

Source: Penn State Research News

Labs that can’t afford expensive super-resolution microscopes could use a new expansion technique to image nanoscale structures inside cells. Source: MIT News

As strains of pathogens resistant to frontline antibiotics become more common worldwide, clinicians are more often turning to combination treatments that degrade this resistance as a first treatment option.

Researchers from Duke University have discovered the mechanism behind why some antibiotic-resistant pathogens haven't adapted to the combination treatments—the bacteria’s level of “selfishness.” The insight provides guidance to clinicians on how to best tailor these combination treatments to different pathogens, minimize the selection for resistance and formulate new antibiotic resistance inhibitors.  Source: Duke University Pratt School of Engineering

Using smartly trained neural networks, researchers at the University of Technology Graz funded in part by NIBIB have succeeded in generating precise real-time images of the beating heart from just a few MRI measurement data. Other MRI applications can also be accelerated using this procedure. Source: TU Graz News

Research into harnessing the immune system to encourage injured tissue to regenerate has landed a Maryland researcher on a TIME magazine list of 2024 innovators. During a WTOP visit to the lab she leads at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, researcher Kaitlyn Sadtler, explained its goal is to understand the immune system’s role in wound healing and how it could be leveraged by medical technology to regenerate tissue.

UCLA researchers have developed a deep-learning framework that teaches itself quickly to automatically analyze and diagnose MRIs and other 3D medical images – with accuracy matching that of medical specialists in a fraction of the time.  Source: UCLA Computational Medicine News