Switching to vegan or ketogenic diet rapidly impacts immune system
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health observed rapid and distinct immune system changes in a small study of people who switched to a vegan or a ketogenic (also called keto) diet. Scientists closely monitored various biological responses of people sequentially eating vegan and keto diets for two weeks, in random order. They found that […]
JAK1 Inhibitor Shows ‘Remarkable’ Activity in T-Cell Lymphoma
Treatment with a novel, oral JAK1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor induced rapid and durable responses in patients with relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL), findings from a single-arm phase II study showed. Among 88 heavily pretreated patients evaluable for efficacy, 44% (95% CI 34-55) responded to single-agent golidocitinib, with 24% (95% CI 15-34) achieving a […]
Axatilimab Shows Efficacy in Recurrent/Refractory GVHD
SAN DIEGO — Axatilimab achieved rapid and durable responses in patients with recurrent/refractory chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), according to the phase II AGAVE-201 trial. The highest overall response rate (ORR) was observed in patients treated with the lowest dose of axatilimab at 0.3 mg/kg every 2 weeks, with an ORR of 74% (95% CI 63-83) […]
At-Home Test Performance Declined During Omicron
The performance of certain at-home rapid antigen tests declined during Omicron, Dutch researchers found. From December 2021 to February 2022, sensitivities for three commonly used tests in the Netherlands dropped, though only the decline with Clinitest was statistically significant: Flowflex: 87% to 80.9% MPBio: 80% to 73% Clinitest: 83.1% to 70.3% Adding an oropharyngeal swab […]
Opinion | Keep Our Foot on the Gas for Clinical Trial Diversity
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked rapid innovation and adoption of new methodologies and practices across clinical trials. It also allowed the world to see the difficulty of ensuring diversity and access to those trials — a challenge we’ve faced for many years. Innovators in biopharma, life-science technology companies, and clinical research organizations (CROs) partnered with the […]
New smartphone clip-on can detect Zika virus in blood samples
As seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, detection methods that are rapid, simple, accurate, and sensitive are vital for detecting viral pathogens and for controlling the spread of infectious diseases. Unfortunately, laboratory-based methods often require trained personnel and involve complex procedures. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have combined their efforts […]
Researchers develop rapid COVID-19 test to identify variants in hours: Determining patient’s strain previously required lengthy whole genome sequencing
Last year, pathologist Jeffrey SoRelle, M.D., and colleagues developed CoVarScan, a rapid COVID-19 test that detects the signatures of eight hotspots on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Now, after testing CoVarScan on more than 4,000 patient samples collected at UT Southwestern, the team reports in Clinical Chemistry that their test is as accurate as other methods used […]
Home-based flu tests as accurate as rapid diagnostic testing in clinical settings: Study findings underscore imperative of expanding test access and lowering costs
Home-based, self-administered tests for influenza are comparable in accuracy to rapid diagnostic tests in clinical settings, according to a recently published, peer-reviewed study. “Home tests are a valuable tool to support the management of influenza and other respiratory infections,” said Matthew J. Thompson, professor of global health and family medicine at the University of Washington […]
A new rapid assessment to promote climate-informed conservation and nature-based solutions
A new article, published as a Perspective in the journal Conservation Science and Practice, introduces a rapid assessment framework that can be used as a guide to make conservation and nature-based solutions more robust to future climate. Climate change poses risks to conservation efforts, if practitioners assume a future climate similar to the past or […]
Mental speed hardly changes over a lifespan: Study shows that the speed of cognitive information processing remains largely stable over decades
Mental speed — the speed at which we can deal with issues requiring rapid decision-making — does not change substantially over decades. Psychologists at Heidelberg University have come to this conclusion. Under the leadership of Dr Mischa von Krause and Dr Stefan Radev, they evaluated data from a large-scale online experiment with over a million […]