Research News

A revolutionary pacemaker that re-establishes the hearts naturally irregular beat is set to be trialled in New Zealand heart patients this year, following successful animal trials. Currently, all pacemakers pace the heart metronomically, which means a very steady, even pace. But when you record heart rate in a healthy individual, you see it is constantly on the move, says Professor Julian Paton, a lead researcher and director of Manaaki Manawa, the Centre for Heart Research at the University of Auckland.

Vasopressin and glucocorticoids compared to placebo, improved return of spontaneous circulation among adults for in-hospital cardiac arrest, says recent findings in Resuscitation.

The clinical and imaging characteristics of COVID-19 breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated patients tend to be milder than those of partially vaccinated or unvaccinated patients, according to a new multicenter study published in the journal Radiology.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide now exceeds 270 million with an overall mortality rate of approximately 2%.

A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human a significant step toward fully automated surgery on humans. Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot, or STAR, is described today in Science Robotics.

Garden soil houses a variety of bacteria and their natural byproducts - including one that may help halt tumor growth. Lankacidins are molecules that can be isolated from Strepomyces rochei, a common bacterium in soil. In addition to antimicrobial properties, a type of lankacidins, called lankacidin C, can inhibit tumor activity in various cancer cell lines, including leukemia, melanoma, ovarian and breast cancers.

Once you know how it works for one disease, immuneML can make diagnostic tools for other types of diseases as well.

Different diseases have different methods for testing if a person has the disease or not. immuneML, a new open source machine learning platform, can potentially look for a lot of diseases in just one blood sample.

Patients under immunosuppressive therapy, who do not respond to primary COVID-19 vaccination, have an increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease courses. Until now, it was not clear whether those patients at risk can benefit from an additional booster vaccination. Recent research findings from MedUni Vienna show that a third vaccination is safe and effective in those patients who were initially unable to produce antibodies after vaccination. The study was recently published in the acclaimed journal "Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases".

Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have found that four COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, J&J/Janssen, and Novavax) prompt the body to make effective, long-lasting T cells against SARS-CoV-2. These T cells can recognize SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern, including Delta and Omicron.

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, and The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, have identified Phytochemicals in the petals of a Himalayan plant that could potentially be used to treat COVID-19 infections.

The findings of the research team have been recently published in the journal Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics.