'Superspreaders' - Ebola Virus

Most people infected with Ebola in the world's worst outbreak of the deadly virus contracted it from just a tiny fraction of patients known as "superspreaders", researchers have said.
Six in 10 cases of the disease, which ravaged the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2013 and 2016, were caused by just 3% of infected people, according to research carried out by several health experts.

The Ebola epidemic infected more than 28,600 people

and killed around 11,300 before coming under control last year

If these superspreaders, who were most likely to be under 15 and over 45, had been identified and quarantined promptly, most Ebola cases could have been avoided, the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found.
The slow international response to the epidemic outbreak was criticised in 2015 by medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which first raised the alarm over Ebola, for having created an avoidable tragedy that cost thousands of lives.

"It was the infected people who didn't make it to health centres, and into isolation, that drove the epidemic," said Amanda McClelland, emergency health adviser at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
"The lesson to be learned is that you need to find every single case if you are going to stop an outbreak," McClelland told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Ebola epidemic infected more than 28,600 people and killed around 11,300 before coming under control last year.
Children under 15 years old and adults over 45 were the biggest spreaders of Ebola, according to the study, which examined 200 cases in and around the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown.
Younger and older patients were more likely to have been looked after by many relatives and caregivers, thus fuelling the spread of the disease, several of the researchers said.
Many people in the three Ebola-hit countries contracted the virus, which is passed on through blood and bodily fluids, by holding and embracing the infected, and washing and touching the bodies of the deceased at traditional burials.
"People between the ages of 15 and 45 were most likely to be carers and caring for someone with Ebola is a big risk factor in contracting the virus," said Sebastian Funk, assistant professor at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Superspreaders also fuelled epidemics of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, in 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012, according to the study.

Progress with Parkinson's!

A naturally-occurring compound has been found to block the molecular process thought to lie behind Parkinson's Disease and could form the basis of a possible treatment, scientists have said.

The preliminary findings suggest the compound, called squalamine, also suppresses the toxic products associated with the process, researchers at Cambridge University have found.
Academics stressed further research is needed, and that findings are based on cell cultures developed in the lab and testing in nematode worms.



But the compound has been used in clinical trials for cancer and eye conditions in America, and a trial in Parkinson's Disease patients is now being planned by one of the researchers involved in the study.
The study was led by academics from the Centre for Misfolding Diseases based at Cambridge University and Georgetown University and the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

It is not yet clear whether squalamine can reach the specific regions of the brain where the main molecular processes determining Parkinson's Disease take place, or what form any resulting drug might take.
Squalamine is a steroid which was discovered in the 1990s in dogfish sharks, although the form now used by scientists is a safer, synthetic analogue.
To date, it has been extensively investigated as a potential anti-infective and anti-cancer therapy.
In the new study, researchers found squalamine inhibits the early formation of toxic aggregates of the protein alpha-synuclein - a process thought to start a chain reaction of molecular events eventually leading to Parkinson's Disease - and can suppress the toxicity of these poisonous particles.
Co-author Michele Vendruscolo, of Cambridge University, said: "This is an encouraging step forward in our efforts to discover potential drugs against Parkinson's Disease."
Researchers said it would be interesting to investigate the efficacy of squalamine as a means to alleviate certain symptoms, including severe constipation and symptoms concerning the peripheral nervous system.
The findings are published in Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences (PNAS).

'Smart' insulin hope for diabetes

Scientists are hopeful that "smart" insulins which are undergoing trials could revolutionise the way diabetes is managed.

Instead of repeated blood tests and injections throughout the day to keep blood sugar in check, a single dose of smart insulin would keep circulating in the body and turn on when needed.

Animal studies show the technology appears to work - at least in mice.

Scientists plan to move to human trials soon, PNAS journal reports.

View article here

Experts caution that it will take years of testing before treatments could become a reality for patients.

Dr Danny Chou from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been testing a smart insulin that he and his colleagues developed in the lab.

It is a chemically modified version of regular, long-acting insulin.

It has an extra set of molecules stuck on the end that binds it to proteins that circulate in the bloodstream. While it is attached to these, the smart insulin is in its switched off mode.

When blood sugar rises, the smart insulin switches on - glucose locks on to the smart insulin and tells it to get to work.

Dr Chou said: "My goal is to make life easier and safer for diabetics.
View more on BBC/Health here

UCC researchers investigate why some can resist stress

From left: Dr. Olivia O'Leary, Dr. Daniela Felice & Prof. John F. Cryan

Why on the rollercoaster of life are some people more resilient to the negative effects of stress than others?

Now University College Cork neuroscientists show that certain receptors in the brain play an important role in determining how we respond to different types of stress.  Their research is being published today in the prestigious international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 

Scientists based at the Dept of Anatomy & Neuroscience and the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in University College Cork, Cork, Ireland have identified a novel molecular mechanism that determines how the brain responds to chronic stress.  Prof John Cryan and Dr Olivia O’Leary, together with their PhD student Daniela Felice and their colleagues have shown that different subtypes of a given receptor (the GABAB receptor) can confer vulnerability to stress (both in early-life and in adulthood).  

Dr O’Leary says “although it is early days, these data show that these receptors could be important targets for the development of new drugs in the treatment of depression, where there is still such an unmet medical need”.  Indeed, Prof Cryan says that “understanding the molecular factors that enable the brain to be stress resilient is one of the most exciting areas in neuroscience research currently and these data position the GABAB receptor at the heart of such efforts”, “we still have some way to go to translate these findings into humans but we are very excited by these data“ Cryan continued.  

View Research paper here GABAB(1) receptor subunit isoforms differentially regulate stress resilience