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New Treatment Brings Hope for Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients

New Treatment Brings Hope for Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients
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New Treatment Brings Hope for Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients

New Treatment Brings Hope for Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients

Using a new technique for growing blood vessels from living lung tissue in the lab, a US research team has developed an analytical tool that could lead to a cure for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, the German News Agency (DPA) reported.

Estimates show that 45% of deaths in the United States can be attributed to fibrotic disorders. Fibrosis restricts breathing and can be developed with no known cause.

The team of researchers from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science created the new tool using computational models of how blood vessels behave in the fibrotic lung with focus on a function named “angiogenesis”—a natural part of tissue repair after injury.

According to the research published in the journal Microcirculation, the team successfully cultured lung tissues in the lab using some active chemical compounds that encourage blood vessel development.

“The broad goal of the project is to understand the biomechanical and biochemical cues to blood vessels in the lungs during the development and progression of fibrosis,” said researcher Lakeshia Taite as quoted by the Medical Xpress website.

“We then use artificial intelligence to comprehensively explore the genes and proteins that could be targets for new drugs to treat fibrosis,” she added.

 

 

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'Dark Oxygen' in Depths of Pacific Ocean Prompts New Theories on Life's Origins

Relicanthus sp, a new species from a new order of Cnidaria collected at 4,100 meters in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) that lives on sponge stalks attached to nodules - AFP
Relicanthus sp, a new species from a new order of Cnidaria collected at 4,100 meters in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) that lives on sponge stalks attached to nodules - AFP
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'Dark Oxygen' in Depths of Pacific Ocean Prompts New Theories on Life's Origins

Relicanthus sp, a new species from a new order of Cnidaria collected at 4,100 meters in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) that lives on sponge stalks attached to nodules - AFP
Relicanthus sp, a new species from a new order of Cnidaria collected at 4,100 meters in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) that lives on sponge stalks attached to nodules - AFP

Scientists have discovered that metallic nodules on the seafloor produce their own oxygen in the dark depths of the Pacific Ocean. These polymetallic nodules, generating electricity like AA batteries, challenge the belief that only photosynthetic organisms create oxygen, potentially altering our understanding of how life began on Earth, AFP reported.

In the total darkness of the depths of the Pacific Ocean, scientists have discovered oxygen being produced not by living organisms but by strange potato-shaped metallic lumps that give off almost as much electricity as AA batteries.

The surprise finding has many potential implications and could even require rethinking how life first began on Earth, the researchers behind a new study said on Monday.

It had been thought that only living things such as plants and algae were capable of producing oxygen via photosynthesis -- which requires sunlight.

But four kilometres (2.5 miles) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, where no sunlight can reach, small mineral deposits called polymetallic nodules have been recorded making so-called dark oxygen for the first time.

The discovery was made in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an abyssal plain stretching between Hawaii and Mexico, where mining companies have plans to start harvesting the nodules.

The lumpy nodules -- often called "batteries in a rock" -- are rich in metals such as cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese, which are all used in batteries, smartphones, wind turbines and solar panels.

The international team of scientists sent a small vessel to the floor of the CCZ aiming to find out how mining could impact the strange and little understood animals living where no light can reach.

nodules in the CCZ next year.