Intelligent technology and medical research have achieved rapid development in recent years, particularly in the field of biomedical engineering, where new studies are continually pushing boundaries and offering new pathways with great potential for human health.
In the latest scientific endeavors, researchers have successfully cultivated a cross-species neural brain circuit. Specifically, scientists used rat stem cells to repair defects in mice caused by diseases or evolutionary remnants. Although rats and mice began their separate evolutionary paths 20 to 30 million years ago, this technique has proven that under certain conditions, the stem cells of one species can still develop and function within the body of another species.
In two separate experiments, scientists injected rat stem cells into mouse embryos, allowing the stem cells to successfully regenerate into neurons and form normal brain circuits within the mice. Both studies were published on April 25 in the international academic journal Cell, one of which was jointly completed by Columbia University in the USA, among other institutions.
The researchers at Columbia University created a mouse model with missing olfactory neurons. They injected rat stem cells into the embryos of these mice, successfully restoring the mice’s sense of smell. They also found that even when the mice’s neurons were silenced genetically, the rat neurons were able to promote the formation of more organized brain regions. Most notably, during the hidden-cookie test with mice, neurons repaired by rat stem cells exhibited significant functional improvements.
The other study was completed by experts at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who developed a CRISPR-based platform to identify and test core genes driving the development of specific tissues. They created mice without forebrain structures by knocking out the Hesx1 gene. Subsequently, the researchers once again used rat stem cells to successfully develop substitute forebrain structures in these mice.
Beyond the brain repair between mice and rats, the same embryonic complementation method is also being tried for the cultivation of human organs from other species, although there remains a considerable distance from clinical application in humans.
Another medical breakthrough occurred in the United States. A 54-year-old female patient suffering from heart failure and end-stage renal failure successfully received a mechanical heart pump combined with a gene-edited pig kidney transplant at NYU Langone Health. This was an unprecedented clinical trial, as the patient’s health condition did not support conventional heart and kidney transplants, nor were there suitable human donor organs available. This innovative surgery provided us with valuable experience and may offer a new direction for solving organ scarcity and compatibility issues.
Recently, a remarkable event took place in the medical field. A patient underwent a high-tech medical operation, setting multiple records in medical history. Specifically, the patient was implanted with a left ventricular assist device—a heart pump, which is generally used for patients awaiting a heart transplant or considered unsuitable for heart transplantation.
In the body of this patient named Pisano, in addition to a heart pump, doctors also transplanted a gene-edited pig kidney and pig thymus. This operation was not only the first instance of an organ transplant executed on a patient with a mechanical heart pump, but also the second known case of gene-edited pig kidney transplantation after Rick Selman. What’s more unique is that for the first time, a pig kidney and pig thymus were transplanted into a human simultaneously, using the pig thymus to train the human’s immune cells in the hope of reducing the immune rejection response.
It is reported that transplant pioneer Rick Selman successfully completed the operation in March and has returned home, while Pisano has not yet shown signs of organ rejection, but experts are still closely monitoring his recovery.
Scientists have found that increasing the bioavailability of vitamin D in mice causes changes in the intestinal microbiota community, especially playing a significant role in promoting the growth of the anaerobic Gram-negative bacteria Bacteroides fragilis. This bacteria is also present in the human intestine, and research suggests that it helps to enhance the immune system’s resistance to various cancers, including melanoma, and also enhances mice’s response to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Notably, this enhanced anti-cancer immunity can even be transmitted to other mice through fecal transplantation. Researchers emphasize that in-depth longitudinal studies on human populations are necessary for a better understanding of the impact of Vitamin D, intestinal microbiota communities, and their effect on cancer immune responses.
In the field of physics, atomic clocks with their ultra-high precision are widely used in various modern technological infrastructures, such as transportation, cloud computing, and communication systems. However, combining the ultra-high precision of atomic clocks with robustness has always been a major challenge. According to the latest reports, an article published in Nature reveals that scientists have developed an atomic clock that can maintain precise timing even on violently shaking naval vessels, with an error of only within one three-hundred-trillionth of a second per day. This timing atomic clock relies on the frequency of electromagnetic waves emitted when atoms or molecules make transitions between different energy levels. Devices using cesium or other microwave frequencies for atomic clocks have been portable and in use for decades. By comparison, optical lattice clocks working at the frequency of visible light are not only more precise but are usually as big as a dining table and need to be operated in a stable environment precisely controlled in labs. However, recently, Vector Atomic, a US company, introduced an optical lattice clock only the size of three shoe boxes and weighing about 26 kilograms. Although this optical clock’s accuracy is somewhat inferior to the top optical clocks in the labs, it is 1000 times more precise than other clocks of the same volume. The stability of this clock is due to its use of iodine molecules, which are relatively less sensitive to temperature changes, magnetic fields, pressure, etc., and can be controlled using compact lasers, greatly enhancing its performance. During a three-week maritime test on a naval vessel, three of these optical clocks displayed performance comparable to those in labs, maintaining an error within 300 picoseconds per day even in vibrating and swaying conditions. The further improvement of this technology has the potential for application in fields like the Global Navigation Satellite System.
In the advancement of astrophysics research, scientists have observed a rare cosmic phenomenon—massive flares from magnetars. A massive flare is an extreme brief explosion event, with energy releases comparable to those of gamma-ray bursts. In the past half-century, only three such massive flares have been recorded in magnetars within our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud. Due to the difficulty in pinpointing the specific sources of energy releases from distant events, observing massive flares from farther magnetars becomes particularly challenging. However, a study reported in the journal Nature indicates that astronomers have successfully observed a massive flare from a magnetar located in the neighboring galaxy M82.
Magnetar massive flares are exceptionally rare high-energy astrophysical events, and their discovery can provide new perspectives on understanding the frequency of such celestial events. Recently, scientists put forward interesting insights by analyzing an event suspected to be a gamma-ray burst (GRB).
An international research team disclosed their latest observational results, focusing on GRB 231115A—an outburst of gamma rays detected by a high-sensitivity instrument onboard the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) satellite. This outburst originates from the central region of the M82 galaxy, about 12 million light-years away from us, a starburst galaxy undergoing intense stellar formation.
The research team conducted a detailed analysis of the spectral and temporal characteristics of the GRB 231115A outburst, supplemented by X-ray and optical observations within a few hours after the event. Interestingly, they did not observe any gravitational wave signals related to this event. Based on the collected data, the researchers concluded that the GRB 231115A outburst is very likely a massive flare originating from a magnetar.
Considering the environmental characteristics of the M82 galaxy, whose gyroidal star populations are known to produce magnetars, scientists believe that the M82 galaxy may be an ideal place for conducting research on massive flares from magnetars.
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