GENERAL MEDICAL NEWS
The staff of The Reproductive Times here offers brief referenced notifications on interesting general medical and scientific news with broad relevance to reproductive medicine and biology. Some of these news items may become subjects of more detailed reporting in The Reproductive Times on later occasions. The purpose of these short notifications is to give readers the opportunity to get immediately more detailed information by looking up the reference of the notification.
WHAT FEVER DOES TO OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM
Inflammation – especially when localized – is, of course, always characterize by heat; but what this heat does to immune cells has so-far not been well understood. Now a paper in Science Immunology offers some insights (1). As it turns out, fever can enhance the function of T cells. A temperature of 39° C enhanced metabolism, proliferation, and effector function in mice of CD4 T cells and also slowed Treg Cells’ suppressive effects. But that is not all: fever also drives mitochondrial damage, which in turn drives apoptosis, which removes in the mouse and in humans a substantial amount of T-helper cells.
Reference
1. Heintzman et al., Sci Immunol 2024;10.1126/sciimmunol.adp.3475
PREDICTING OUR FUTURE IN DISEASE AND MORTALITY WITH A PROTEOMIC AGING SIGNATURE
In a Research Briefing in Nature Medicine Argentieri MA and van Dujin CM from Mass General in Boston and the University of Oxford in the UK, developed a machine learning model (we are learning the enormous possibilities of A.I. in medical research!) that used blood proteomic to estimate a proteomic age clock for a large number of samples from the UK Biobank (n=45,441) over an age range between 40 and 70 and then validated the data in two other biobanks with smaller sample sizes.
The study identified 204 proteins which accurately predicted chronological age and 20 proteins that captured 91% of the accuracy of the larger model. The accuracy was the same in the other two biobanks from China and Finland. Proteomic aging was associated with the incidence of 18 major chronic diseases affecting different organs and was also associated with telomere length, frailty index, and several cognitive tests. For example, the bottom decile of proteomic aging developed Alzheimer’s disease over the following 10-15 years in less than 1% of cases (1).
This is, of course amazing stuff and only the beginning of so much more to come in term of not only predicting disease risk and mortality, but also in assessing treatments to prevent diseases and extend life spans. This remarkable study was also discussed in a Research briefing in Nature Medicine (2).
References
1. Argentieri MA, van Dujin CM. Nat Med 2024;:2415-2416
2. Carrasco-Zanini J, Langenberg J. Nat Med 2024;30:2419-2420
ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY IS SELLING ITS ART “TO FUND SCIENCE”
Hard to believe, but Rockefeller University, the institution with the largest number of Nobel Prize awardees, is selling some of its art collection. Specifically, two pieces by Joan Mitchell are scheduled for auction and expected to bring as much as $32 million to the university, which has owned the two paintings for almost 70 years.1 Both canvases were completed by the abstract expressionist in 1955 and David Rockefeller—then the chairman of the board—acquired them for the university. Cash must be tight at Rockefeller University these days, considering how little impact $32 million will have on the university’s overall budget.
One of the two Joan Mitchell canvases Rockefeller University is putting up for auction
(Lubosh Stepanek via The Rockefeller University)
According to the New York Times report on the pending sale, Rockefeller University has endowment assets of $2.5 billion but took in only $777 million during a fund-raising campaign over the last five years, a quite small yield considering the university’s scientific prominence and the financial wealth its board used to represent.
Reference
1. Barron J. The New York Times. October 30, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/nyregion/rockefeller-university-joan-mitchell-paintings.html