Health
Scientists Create The First-Ever Comprehensive Map Of An Insect Brain | The Optimist Daily
According to a new study published in the journal Science, scientists have generated the first complete map of an insect’s brain and, critically, all of the synaptic wire that ties it together. The resulting map is known as a connectome, and it is a fundamental piece of neuroscience.
“Now we have a reference brain,” said Marta Zlatic, a neurologist at the University of Cambridge and research co-author.
The brain of a fruit fly larva
A fruit fly larva’s insect brain includes exactly 3,016 neurons and 548,000 synapses.
Previous efforts either produced connectomes of creatures with even smaller brains, such as nematodes, or were simply incomplete, but this one is mind-blowingly detailed — and benefits even more from the fact that the brain under review is much more similar to the human brain than previous models.
“There’s regions that correspond to decision making, there’s regions that correspond to learning, there’s regions that correspond to navigation,” research co-author and Johns Hopkins University biomedical engineer Joshua Vogelsteinm told NPR.
The connectome was created using the brain of a female fruit fly larva just six hours old. They photographed the brain using an electron microscope for the next year and a half, generating thousands of visual slices that were subsequently synthesized using a specialist computer program.
The researchers were able to map the synapses because of their exact work.
A journey to understanding the brain
“The brain is the physical object that makes us who we are,” Vogelstein explained. “And to fully understand that object, he says, you need to know how it’s wired.”
By tracing that neuronal circuitry, the researchers discovered something unexpected: how similar the left and right sides of the brain were, in stark contrast to the human brain.
That fascinating discovery, however, is merely the tip of the iceberg. The whole connectome could help scientists figure out how an animal’s brain wiring grows and differs, as well as how to “fix” a human one.
“If your radio breaks, if someone has a wiring diagram of your radio, they’ll be in a better position to fix it,” Nuno Maçarico da Costa, an associate researcher at the Allen Institute who was not involved in the study, told NPR.
While the brain of a fruit fly pales in comparison to the complexity of a human brain, which has roughly 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses, this is an important step toward someday mapping the human brain in its entirety.
Source study: Science—The connectome of an insect brain
The post Scientists create the first-ever comprehensive map of an insect brain first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.
Health
Universal Cancer Immunotherapy May Be Possible Through Protein Engineering | The Optimist Daily
Scientists at ETH Zurich have made significant progress in developing a ready-to-use immunotherapy treatment for cancer. A synthetic protein modification can allow immune cells from any donor to be delivered to any patient without the risk of an adverse immunological reaction.
What is immunotherapy?
The human immune system is a robust first line of defense against disease, but cancer has a few sneaky tricks up its sleeve that allow it to hide and avoid elimination. Immunotherapy is a new treatment that gives the immune system the upper hand by supercharging a patient’s immune cells to seek out and destroy cancers.
Typically, the approach involves extracting a patient’s immune cells, genetically modifying them to spot cancer, and reintroducing them into the body. Not only does this require time, which many cancer patients lack, but it isn’t always practical if a patient’s immune system isn’t up to the task.
Immune cells from a healthy patient would be ideal, but this comes with its own set of challenges. Because immune cells are adept at recognizing and attacking “foreign” cells, donated cells frequently end up targeting the recipient’s healthy cells.
What is TCR-CD3?
The ETH Zurich researchers discovered a solution to potentially overcome this obstacle in the latest study, paving the path for standardized, off-the-shelf immunotherapy. The researchers focused on a specific chemical combination known as TCR-CD3, located on the surface of killer T cells, and activate them towards specific antibodies – including both desired triggers such as cancer and unwanted ones on healthy cells.
The researchers developed a synthetic version of the TCR-CD3 complex that prevents killer T cells from attacking healthy cells while yet allowing them to be modified to target cancer cells. So far, laboratory tests on human cells have been positive, with no signs of harmful immunological responses.
While there is still much work to be done, such as testing in human patients, the team believes that the research will eventually lead to a standardized, off-the-shelf cancer therapy product that can be administered to any patient without the need to remove, engineer, and return their own immune cells. This would make it far less expensive, simpler, and faster to roll out to patients.
The researchers have applied for patents and intend to establish a spin-off company to assist in bringing the approach to the market.
The post Universal cancer immunotherapy may be possible through protein engineering first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.
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