Resources & Information

STATNews
February 21, 2024
Outside, the August sun wasn’t yet visible through the thick folds of fog blanketing the San Francisco skyline. Its warmth did not reach the operating room tucked into the sprawling Parnassus Heights hospital complex. In there, the light was all cold and blue fluorescence washing over the sea of scrub caps huddled around an anesthetized young woman on a gurney. From one corner of the crowded room, a medical student named Tippi MacKenzie watched, eyes widening, as the woman’s uterus was gently lifted out of her open abdomen and an incision was made to expose the legs and backside of the fetus inside.

MedPage Today
February 11, 2024

Each fall, millions of hunters across North America make their way into forests and grasslands to kill deer. Over the winter, people chow down on the venison steaks, sausage, and burgers made from the animals. These hunters, however, are not just on the front lines of an American tradition. Infectious disease researchers say they are also on the front lines of what could be a serious threat to public health: chronic wasting disease (CWD). The neurological disease, which is contagious, rapidly spreading, and always fatal, is caused by misfolded proteins called prions. It currently is known to infect only members of the cervid family—elk, deer, reindeer, caribou, and moose.

Medscape
February 08, 2024
Brain fog is one of the most common, persistent complaints in patients with long COVID. It affects as many as 46% of patients who also deal with other cognitive concerns like memory loss and difficulty concentrating. Now, researchers believe they know why. A new study has found that these symptoms may be the result of a viral-borne brain injury that may cause cognitive and mental health issues that persist for years. Researchers found that 351 patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 had evidence of a long-term brain injury a year after contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The findings were based on a series of cognitive tests, self-reported symptoms, brain scans, and biomarkers.

Medpage Today
February 3, 2024

An FDA advisory committee gave generally high marks to the agency’s latest effort to improve the accuracy of pulse oximeters when used in darker-skinned patients, but raised questions about some of the FDA’s proposed premarket clinical trial guidance for pulse oximeter manufacturers.

“I really applaud the efforts of the FDA to reduce disparate bias in pulse oximetry,” said Julian Goldman, MD, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Goldman, a member of the FDA Medical Device Advisory Committee Anesthesiology and Respiratory Therapy Devices Panel, was speaking at Friday’s panel meeting. “This has clearly been a very heavy lift for a long time, and we need to address it.”

Associated Press
February 1, 2024

Women are far more likely than men to get autoimmune diseases, when an out-of-whack immune system attacks their own bodies — and new research may finally explain why.

It’s all about how the body handles females’ extra X chromosome, Stanford University researchers reported Thursday — a finding that could lead to better ways to detect a long list of diseases that are hard to diagnose and treat.

ScienceAlert
January 30, 2024
After six years of searching, researchers from the University of Basel and ETH Zurich in Switzerland have found what might be a crucial weapon in the fight against superbugs: viruses that are able to prey on and kill dangerous bacteria while they’re in a dormant state.

Bacteria go into this sleep mode when they’re low on nutrients or under various kinds of stress. It’s a form of self-protection, which means the bacteria can’t spread or grow. Yet existing in a shut-down state also protects them from threats that hijack their engines, such as viruses or antibiotics.

Bacteria actually spend a lot of time in this inactive state. Up until now, all efforts to discover a type of bacteria-infecting virus (or bacteriophage) that could wipe out hibernating bacteria had been unsuccessful.