All posts tagged: Biomarkers

MIT releases first AI model built to make Alzheimer’s preventable

MIT releases first AI model built to make Alzheimer’s preventable

Published by Jenni Sidey

Alzheimer’s disease often starts its work long before anyone notices a problem. That gap, sometimes stretching a decade or more before memory symptoms appear, is where a research team centered at MIT says it wants to intervene. The group has released FINGERS-7B, which it describes as the first AI foundation model built specifically to help make Alzheimer’s preventable by identifying people at risk earlier and more accurately. The model, developed by a team of AI researchers, physicians, and scientists, combines lifestyle, clinical, genomic, and proteomic data from tens of thousands of at-risk individuals. By reading those signals together, rather than one at a time, the system is designed to uncover what the team calls multi-omic biomarkers for preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Looking across many kinds of biological evidence What makes the project unusual is not just the scale of the data, but the way the model handles it. FINGERS-7B was trained to learn jointly from lifestyle information, clinical records, biomarkers, genomic data, and proteomic signals. The broader platform around it is called FINGERPRINT, which pairs the …

New intiative to reduce trial and error in arthritis treatments via biomarkers

New intiative to reduce trial and error in arthritis treatments via biomarkers

Published by skeptic

The EU-funded SQUEEZE initiative aims to personalise and optimise arthritis treatment through using biomarkers to identify the best drugs for individual patients, Ali Jones explores. Although powerful treatments exist for rheumatoid arthritis, doctors can’t always predict which drug will work best for each person. An EU-funded initiative aims to change that by optimising and personalising care. Over the past two decades, a wave of new drug treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has allowed many people to live free from pain, joint swelling and long-term disability. But for many patients in Europe, finding the right drug still involves months or even years of trial and error. To change that, researchers, clinicians and patients from seven EU countries, plus Norway, Switzerland and the UK, have joined forces in an EU-funded initiative called SQUEEZE. Rather than search for new RA drugs, their aim is to optimise the use of existing ones and find new biological clues to guide treatment, thus improving safety and efficacy for patients. Professor Dr Daniel Aletaha from the Medical University of Vienna, who coordinates …

BIOPREVENT AI tool predicts serious transplant complications months before symptoms arise

BIOPREVENT AI tool predicts serious transplant complications months before symptoms arise

Published by Jenni Sidey

More than half of transplant recipients in a large analysis developed chronic graft-versus-host disease, and 15% died from causes other than cancer relapse. Those numbers capture the uneasy truth of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. The cure can come with a long, uncertain tail. Chronic graft-versus-host disease, or cGVHD, happens when donor immune cells attack the patient’s healthy tissues. It can injure the skin, eyes, mouth, joints, and lungs. Moreover, it remains a leading cause of debilitating illness and nonrelapse mortality after transplant. A research team led by Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, worked with Michael Martens, Ph.D., and Brent Logan, Ph.D., at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The team set out to catch that danger earlier. Their new work in the Journal of Clinical Investigation describes BIOPREVENT, a machine learning tool designed to estimate a patient’s future risk of developing cGVHD and of dying without relapse. They used blood biomarkers and routine clinical factors. Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., right with staff …

Scientists reveal a link between hearing loss and cognitive decline

Scientists reveal a link between hearing loss and cognitive decline

Published by Jenni Sidey

Older adults lose their ability to hear concrete sounds first, and with this loss come the more difficult aspects of hearing: the fuzzy edges of speech. As your hearing deteriorates, you are likely to lose familiarity with most of the sounds you have heard most often, which creates a challenge. However, this is not necessarily because they are hard to hear or not loud enough. A more significant challenge is clarity, where you have to put in much more mental effort to process and understand what someone has said. For many years, studies have indicated that older adults who experience hearing loss also display an increased risk of cognitive decline. However, no viable biological mechanism linking the two has been identified. This may finally change, as researchers from Tiangong University and Shandong Provincial Hospital, led by Ning Li, have published evidence that they have identified a potential pathway for this relationship. The objective of the research was to assess the Functional-Structural Ratio (FSR), a ratio derived from two different methods of measuring an individual’s brain …

New blood markers could detect early-onset pancreatic cancer

New blood markers could detect early-onset pancreatic cancer

Published by Jenni Sidey

Catching pancreatic cancer early is among the most difficult challenges faced by medical providers, and that delay often ends in death. The NIH-supported researchers’ discovery of a new blood test, however, may be able to locate and diagnose people with pancreatic cancer sooner rather than later. This would allow for an increased opportunity for successful therapeutic intervention. PDAC is the most prevalent form of pancreatic cancer and one of the most lethal. Although one out of ten patients diagnosed with PDAC will live for five years or longer after a diagnosis, the overall percentage remains very low. (A) Flowchart of experimental design for discovery phase 1 and validation phase 2. (B and C) Jitter plots of biomarker concentrations in plasma samples from Healthy Controls, Disease Controls, PDAC Stage I/II, and PDAC Stages I-IV. (CREDIT: Clinical Cancer Research) Challenges In Early Detection That low survival rate is primarily due to the fact that most symptoms present late in the course of illness. By that point, the disease is generally already disseminated, and there is no current …

Adherence to the MIND diet linked to healthier Alzheimer’s biomarkers in middle age

Adherence to the MIND diet linked to healthier Alzheimer’s biomarkers in middle age

Published by José Betancourt

New research published in Nutritional Neuroscience provides evidence linking a specific dietary pattern to healthier levels of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers. The study suggests that middle-aged adults who closely follow the MIND diet are less likely to exhibit the pathological protein buildup associated with the condition. These findings imply that dietary habits may influence brain health years before any symptoms of memory loss appear. Scientific understanding of how nutrition impacts the brain has evolved significantly in recent years. Medical professionals recognize that dietary patterns like the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet support cardiovascular health. The MIND diet combines elements from both of these approaches to specifically target neuroprotection. While prior observational studies indicated that the MIND diet correlates with slower cognitive decline, the biological reasons for this remain under investigation. “There is a gap in our understanding of the biological mechanisms that may explain how the MIND diet is associated with cognitive health,” said study author Mary Yannakoulia, a professor of nutrition and eating behavior at Harokopio University. “Although observational evidence has consistently shown that …

The Real-Life Diet of Equinox Executive Harvey Spevak, Who Is Big on Bloodwork, Biomarkers, and Blueberries

The Real-Life Diet of Equinox Executive Harvey Spevak, Who Is Big on Bloodwork, Biomarkers, and Blueberries

Published by Jenni Sidey

Plenty of modern executives are notoriously stringent about their schedules: when to eat, how to eat, how long to work out, what temperature the room should be when working out, the whole nine yards. When you’re an executive at a luxury fitness company—like Harvey Spevak, Executive Chairman and Managing Partner of Equinox—you can be even more peculiar about your routine. Spevak has access to all of the Equinox amenities, including the Equinox hotel that he opened in Midtown Manhattan, and he certainly takes advantage. But while his disciplined fitness regimen includes all the saunas, hyperbaric chambers, and protein shakes his heart desires, he still leaves room for his lifelong love: a classic New York slice. That, along with being the type of person that can fall asleep anywhere and everywhere, gives Spevak some much-needed chill amid the stress of his C-suite life. At 61 years old, he can still crush you on the ab wheel and hold his own on the ski slopes, but he’s not going to let a few extra carbs ruin his …