A research team at The University of Tokyo has discovered that inhalational anesthetics activate a protein called type 1 ryanodine receptor (RyR1), which contributes to the induction of general anesthesia.

This finding shed light on a long-standing mystery: the mechanism of action of inhalational anesthetics, which has remained only partially understood for nearly 180 years. A precise understanding of how anesthetics work could pave the way for the development of more effective anesthetic agents and improved methods of administration.

What if people could detect cancer and other diseases with the same speed and ease of a pregnancy test or blood glucose meter? Researchers at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology are a step closer to realizing this goal by integrating machine learning-based analysis into point-of-care biosensing technologies. 

The new method, dubbed LOCA-PRAM, was reported in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics and improves the accessibility of biomarker detection by eliminating the need for technical experts to perform the image analysis.

Researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a novel algorithm that could provide a revolutionary tool for determining the best options for patients - both in the treatment of cancer and in the prescription of medicines. As recently published in Nature Communications, Jinze Liu, Ph.D., and Kevin Byrd, D.D.S., Ph.D., created Threshold-based Assignment of Cell Types from Multiplexed Imaging Data (TACIT), which assigns cell identities based on cell-marker expression profiles. TACIT cuts down cell identification time from over a month to just minutes—saving researchers valuable time and resources.

New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History sheds light on the ancient origins of biofluorescence in fishes and the range of brilliant colors involved in this biological phenomenon. Detailed in two complementary studies recently published in Nature Communications and PLOS One, the findings suggest that biofluorescence dates back at least 112 million years and, since then, has evolved independently more than 100 times, with the majority of that activity happening among fish that live on coral reefs.

Babies born to mothers potentially exposed to low levels of arsenic in public drinking water—even at levels below the federal safety standard—were more likely to be born preterm, with lower birthweight, or be smaller than expected, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program.