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Tau translation The folding of tau proteins from function forms to misfolded forms has been implicated in tauopathies, yet why this is the case is so far unknown.
Never too late to quit Damage caused by long-term tobacco smoking on lung cancer cells can be reversed within years of quitting, a study has found. The researchers recruited smokers, exsmokers and non-smokers into the study and took lung biopsies and then sequenced the genomes taken from bronchial epithelial cells. Due to the ethical concerns from taking lung biopsies, only 16 participants populated the study. Findings identified the mutational burden from tobacco smoking on lung cells, with between 1000 and 10,000 mutations per cell, for smokers. Ex-smokers were found to have the equivalent mutational burdens to non-smokers, whilst the smokers had four times more tobaccospecific mutational damage. The authors suggested that the damaged cells are replenished by cells that avoided mutagenesis.
Software pushed opioids US based practice management software (PMS) company Practice Fusion has agreed to pay $US145 million in a criminal resolution with federal prosecutors in Vermont for receiving payments from pharmaceutical companies to encourage physicians' prescribing practices. Practice Fusion offered 14 | MARCH 2020
two versions their PMS to practices, a paid version, or a free version, which featured paid advertising. The company solicited payments from pharmaceutical companies. In one instance Practice Fusion accepted a $1US million payment from an opioid manufacturer to modify the PMS’s clinical decision support alerts to influence and encourage clinician prescribing of their opioid products. In this edition we have covered the opioid situation in Australia.
favourable (40% for, 37% against). Most applications reported that randomisation made no difference to their application (69%), or the preparation time allocated (75%). Applicants who had been successful with their applications were more supportive of the lottery than those that were unsuccessful. Is this something Australia should look trial? Medical Forum seeks your comment.
Cancer blood test Randomised research funding Since 2013, the New Zealand Health Research Council (HRC) has experimented with randomised funding of health research grants, up to $NZ150,000. At the time of inception this was a first of this kind scheme which does away with the peer review process. Initially, applications need to satisfy the criteria for entry, then they are entered into a ballot with each application having an equal opportunity to be funded. How has this system gone you may ask? The HRC surveyed applicants from 2013 and 2019 and found the majority (63% for; 25% against) was in favour of this type of funding approach. When asked if other grants, such as drug trials, should be randomly funded, the response was less
A novel non-invasive blood analysis has been devised to screen for early-stage tumours, a study has found. Although analysis of blood has been established in oncology for monitoring cancer in diagnosed patients, due to insufficient sensitivity of the existing test, it is not effective in screening for early identification. A team of researchers have published a study suggesting blood analysis could be effective for cancer screening. The team developed an approach called targeted error correction sequencing which can evaluate sequence changes in circulating cell-free DNA thanks to an ultrasensitive direct evaluation. The researchers evaluated 200 patients with first or second stage cancer and analysed their blood samples detecting somatic mutations in
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Researchers from Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute and the Mayo Clinic may have found a breakthrough. Tauopathies are a range of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, identified by a buildup of misfolded tau. The researchers said that the difficulty in analysing tau is in the filaments, or individual fibres which comprise it. They are 10,000 times thinner than the size of a human hair. However, using cryoelectron microscopy and mass spectrometry to analyse brain tissue has produced unprecedented detail. The researchers mapped the structure of tau on deceased human brain tissue from patients diagnosed from two tauopathies (Alzheimer’s and corticobasal degeneration). Then they reconstructed the structures of the filaments to observe how they are formed, grow and spread. They found post-translational modifications (PTMs) on the surface of the tau, which they suggest could be influencing its behaviour and be structurally important in tauopathies. Researchers hope this could lead to new advances in drugs that can target PTMs and slow the progression of tauopathies.
