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Immunology

Immunology of SARS-CoV-2 infections and vaccines – DocWire News

This article was originally published here

Adv Immunol. 2021;151:49-97. doi: 10.1016/bs.ai.2021.08.002. Epub 2021 Sep 10.

ABSTRACT

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections trigger viral RNA sensors such as TLR7 and RIG-I, thereby leading to production of type I interferon (IFN) and other inflammatory mediators. Expression of viral proteins in the context of this inflammation leads to stereotypical antigen-specific antibody and T cell responses that clear the virus. Immunity is then maintained through long-lived antibody-secreting plasma cells and by memory B and T cells that can initiate anamnestic responses. Each of these steps is consistent with prior knowledge of acute RNA virus infections. Yet there are certain concepts, while not entirely new, that have been resurrected by the biology of severe SARS-CoV-2 infections and deserve further attention. These include production of anti-IFN autoantibodies, early inflammatory processes that slow adaptive humoral immunity, immunodominance of antibody responses, and original antigenic sin. Moreover, multiple different vaccine platforms allow for comparisons of pathways that promote robust and durable adaptive immunity.

PMID:34656288 | DOI:10.1016/bs.ai.2021.08.002

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Immunology of SARS-CoV-2 infections and vaccines - DocWire News

Immunology

Despite legal troubles, Johnson & Johnson is in the financial driver’s seat for 2022 and beyond, CFO says – FiercePharma

Headlines about its underachieving COVID-19 vaccine, its attempts to resolve opioid and talc litigation and the coming departure of CEO Alex Gorsky suggest that it has been a difficult year for Johnson & Johnson.

But Tuesday was a reminder that the company remains a financial powerhouse as it reported(PDF) earnings that beat analyst estimates. Fueled by a 13.8% increase in pharma sales, J&J reported revenue of $23.3 billion for the third quarter, an increase of 10.7% from last year. As a result, the company has revised its guidance for annual sales.

It was a successful quarter for the companys other divisions as sales of medical devices were up 8% and sales of consumer health increased 5.3%. But they couldnt match the performance of pharma, which racked up $12.99 billion in revenue, up from $11.42 in the same quarter of last year.

I hope you take away from our third quarter results just how broad our financial strength is, setting us up very well to close out 2021, but more importantly 2022 and beyond, J&J CFO Joseph Wolk said on a conference call.

RELATED: Johnson & Johnson trots out two-dose COVID vaccine data as it builds case for boosters

Oncology, which posted global sales growth of 16.5%, was led by multiple myeloma treatment Darzalex, whose sales jumped to $1.58 billion for the quarter, an increase of 43%. Prostate cancer drug Erleadaregistered $344 million in sales, a bump of 66% from a year ago.

Meanwhile J&Js immunology portfolio, which was up 11.7%, was led by inflammatory disease stalwart Stelara. That drug continued its upward trajectory with $2.38 billion in sales, a 22% increase, with share gains of 4 points in Crohns disease and 7 points in ulcerative colitis in the U.S.

In addition, emerging plaque psoriasis treatment Tremfya racked up $537 million, for a 64% increase from a year ago.

RELATED: Johnson & Johnson eyes $2.5B in COVID vaccine sales as key immunology, oncology meds trounce expectations

As for its COVID-19 vaccine, J&J reported sales of $502 million, which beat analyst expectations but didnt result in a change in guidance for the year as the company still expects to rack up $2.5 billion. The guidance isnt affected by the expected news that the FDA will grant approval of a second shot of the vaccine to those 18 and older, provided their first shot wasnt within the last two months.

I always smile a little bit whenever theres vaccine news because it seems to be an overly pronounced impact on our stockgood or badand it makes me chuckle a little bit because the strength of our business is really in our pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer health these days, Wolk said.

On the legal front, Johnson & Johnson recently moved to transition its talc litigation liabilities to a new subsidiary, for which it plans to declare bankruptcy. The company has set aside $2 billion for that effort, but plaintiffs have said they'll resist the move.

Before that, J&J agreed to pay $5 billion as part of an opioid settlement with three major U.S. drug distributors.

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Despite legal troubles, Johnson & Johnson is in the financial driver's seat for 2022 and beyond, CFO says - FiercePharma

Immunology

Gut-skin axis may hold the answer to hidradenitis suppurativa – Pharmaceutical Technology

At the 30th European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress held from 29 September to 2 October, results were presented from a study exploring patterns in the skin, nasal mucosa and gut microbiomes of 59 patients with the rare skin disease hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). HS, also called acne inversa, is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that affects apocrine gland-bearing skin in the axillae, groin and under the breasts. The disease is characterised by persistent or recurrent boil-like nodules and abscesses that culminate in a purulent discharge, sinus formation and scarring. Because effective therapies for the disease are limited, there is great unmet need for better treatment options.

The study by McCarthy and colleagues presented at EADV tested faecal samples, as well as nasal and skin swabs. It demonstrated compromised biodiversity both on the skin and in the gut of HS patients, and highlighted abnormal levels of specific bacterial species. HS-specific patterns in patients skin and gut microbiomes in this study suggest that, similar to psoriasis (PsO), HS may be a good candidate indication for microbiome-targeting therapeutics acting via the gut-skin axis, which is the relationship between the immune system and the neuroendocrine systems of the gut and skin.

In the study presented at EADV, McCarthy and colleagues confirmed reduced microbiome alpha and beta diversity in HS, as well as abnormally elevated levels of bacterial strains such as Clostridium ramosum in faecal samples and Finegoldia magna on skin samples of HS patients. Ruminococcus gnavus was, notably, over-abundant in the faecal microbiome of HS patients, a finding similarly reported in Crohns disease. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a relatively common comorbidity of HS, affecting around 1-3% of patients. It is possible that common microbiota alterations in HS and IBD could serve as a link between these comorbid conditions.

Lack of microbial diversity in both the skin and gut have been found to play a critical role in the pathology of other dermatological indications, particularly those with a more systemic pattern of disease manifestation, such as PsO, a disease that is also frequently associated with IBD. As explored in GlobalDatas recent Microbiome Targeted Therapeutics in Immunology report, there is currently one microbiome-targeting pipeline candidate for PsO, Evelo Biosciences EDP-1815, which targets skin symptoms via the modulation of gut microbiota. Evelo recently announced positive Phase IIb (NCT04603027) data for the drug in PsO and is about to initiate Phase IIa studies of the same drug for the treatment of atopic dermatitis. No microbiome-targeting therapies are currently under development for HS, but the data presented at EADV suggest that this disease may be a good candidate for a microbiome-targeting approach similar to that used in PsO.

Latest report from Visit GlobalData Store

Biopharma Cold Chain Engineering with State-of-the-Art Transport Simulation Laboratory

R&D, Production, Contract Manufacturing, and Marketing of Pharmaceutical Drugs

Biopharma Cold Chain Engineering with State-of-the-Art Transport Simulation Laboratory

28 Aug 2020

R&D, Production, Contract Manufacturing, and Marketing of Pharmaceutical Drugs

28 Aug 2020

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Gut-skin axis may hold the answer to hidradenitis suppurativa - Pharmaceutical Technology

Immunology

argenx to Report Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results and Business Update on October 28, 2021 – Benzinga – Benzinga

October 21, 2021

Breda, the Netherlands argenx ((Euronext &, NASDAQ:ARGX), a global immunology company committed to improving the lives of people suffering from severe autoimmune diseases and cancer, today announced that it will host a conference call and audio webcast on Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 2:30 pm CET (8:30 am ET) to discuss its third quarter 2021 financial results and provide a business update.

A webcast of the live call may be accessed on the Investors section of the argenx website at argenx.com/investors. A replay of the webcast will be available on the argenx website for approximately one year following the call.

Dial-in numbers:

Please dial in 15 minutes prior to the live call.

Belgium 0800 389 13France0805 102 319Netherlands 0800 949 4506United Kingdom 0800 279 9489United States 1 844 808 7140International 1 412 902 0128

About argenx

argenx is a global immunology company committed to improving the lives of people suffering from severe autoimmune diseases and cancer. Partnering with leading academic researchers through its Immunology Innovation Program (IIP), argenx aims to translate immunology breakthroughs into a world-class portfolio of novel antibody-based medicines. argenx is evaluating efgartigimod in multiple serious autoimmune diseases. argenx is also advancing several earlier stage experimental medicines within its therapeutic franchises. argenx has offices in Belgium, the United States, Japan, and Switzerland. For more information, visit https://www.argenx.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

For further information, please contact:

Media:

Kelsey Kirkkkirk@argenx.com

Joke Comijn (EU)jcomijn@argenx.com

Investors:

Beth DelGiaccobdelgiacco@argenx.com

Michelle Greenblattmgreenblatt@argenx.com

Link:
argenx to Report Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results and Business Update on October 28, 2021 - Benzinga - Benzinga

Neuroscience

Experts address the limitations of studying individual brains in cognitive neuroscience – News-Medical.Net

In a new paper, scientists suggest that efforts to understand human cognition should expand beyond the study of individual brains. They call on neuroscientists to incorporate evidence from social science disciplines to better understand how people think.

"Accumulating evidence indicates that memory, reasoning, decision-making and other higher-level functions take place across people," the researchers wrote in a review in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. "Cognition extends into the physical world and the brains of others."

The co-authors neuroscientist Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Richard Patterson, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Emory University; and Steven Sloman, a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University wanted to address the limitations of studying brains in isolation, out of the context in which they operate and stripped of the resources they rely on for optimal function.

In cognitive neuroscience, the standard approach is essentially to assume that knowledge is represented in the individual brain and transferred between individuals. But there are, we think, important cases where those assumptions begin to break down."

Aron Barbey, Neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Take, for instance, the fact that people often "outsource" the task of understanding or coming to conclusions about complex subject matter, using other people's expertise to guide their own decision-making.

"Most people will agree that smoking contributes to the incidence of lung cancer without necessarily understanding precisely how that occurs," Barbey said. "And when doctors diagnose and treat disease, they don't transfer all of their knowledge to their patients. Instead, patients rely on doctors to help them decide the best course of action.

"Without relying on experts in our community, our beliefs would become untethered from the social conventions and scientific evidence that are necessary to support them," he said. "It would become unclear, for example, whether 'smoking causes lung cancer,' bringing into question the truth of our beliefs, the motivation for our actions."

To understand the role that knowledge serves in human intelligence, the researchers wrote that it is necessary to look beyond the individual and to study the community.

"Cognition is, to a large extent, a group activity, not an individual one," Sloman said. "People depend on others for their reasoning, judgment and decision-making. Cognitive neuroscience is not able to shed light on this aspect of cognitive processing."

The limitations of individual knowledge and human dependence on others for understanding are the themes of "The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone," a book Sloman wrote with Phil Fernbach, a cognitive scientist and professor of marketing at the University of Colorado.

"The challenge for cognitive neuroscience becomes how to capture knowledge that does not reside in the individual brain but is outsourced to the community," Barbey said.

Neuroscientific methods such as functional MRI were designed to track activity in one brain at a time and have limited capacity for capturing the dynamics that occur when individuals interact in large communities, he said.

Some neuroscientists are trying to overcome this limitation. In a recent study, researchers placed two people face-to-face in a scanner and tracked their brain activity and eye movements while they interacted. Other teams use a technique called "hyperscanning," which allows the simultaneous recording of brain activity in people who are physically distant from each another but interacting online.

Such efforts have found evidence suggesting that the same brain regions are activated in people who are effectively communicating with one another or cooperating on a task, Barbey said. These studies are also showing how brains operate differently from one another, depending on the type of interaction and the context.

Several fields of research are ahead of neuroscience in understanding and embracing the collective, collaborative nature of knowledge, Patterson said. For example, "social epistemology" recognizes that knowledge is a social phenomenon that depends on community norms, a shared language and a reliable method for testing the trustworthiness of potential sources.

"Philosophers studying natural language also illustrate how knowledge relies on the community," Patterson said. "For example, according to 'externalism,' the meaning of words depends on how they are used and represented within a social context. Thus, the meaning of the word and its correct use depends on collected knowledge that extends beyond the individual."

To address these shortfalls, neuroscientists can look to other social science fields, Barbey said.

"We need to incorporate not only neuroscience evidence, but also evidence from social psychology, social anthropology and other disciplines that are better positioned to study the community of knowledge," he said

Source:

Journal reference:

Sloman, S. A., et al. (2021) Cognitive Neuroscience Meets the Community of Knowledge. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2021.675127.

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Experts address the limitations of studying individual brains in cognitive neuroscience - News-Medical.Net

Neuroscience

Gladstone Neuroscience Researcher Elected to the National Academy of Medicine – Yahoo Finance

Lennart Mucke is recognized for his pioneering discoveries in research on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Lennart Mucke, MD, founding director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Lennart Mucke is recognized by the National Academy of Medicine for his leading role in defining molecular and pathophysiological mechanisms by which Alzheimers disease causes synaptic failure, neural network dysfunctions, and cognitive decline. Photo: Michael Short/Gladstone Institutes

The prestigious recognition is a testament to Mucke's long track record of contributions to disease-focused neuroscience, and particularly to Alzheimer's disease and other conditions that rob people of their abilities to control and enjoy their lives.

Alzheimer's disease is a complicated and multifactorial condition that affects more than 50 million people worldwide, including 6 million in the United States, causing many abnormalities in the brain. Mucke has played a leading role in deciphering which of these abnormalities actually contribute to cognitive declineand therefore merit therapeutic interventionand which may be "red herrings," for example changes that look ominous under the microscope but do not actually cause loss of memory or other key symptoms of the disease.

In doing so, Mucke has debunked several dogmas and helped focus the field's attention on molecular and cellular processes that truly matter in regard to brain functions and the main symptoms that impair the lives of patients and their caretakers. His discoveries include the demonstration that key proteins implicated in Alzheimer's diseaseincluding amyloid-beta, apolipoprotein E4 (apoE4), and taucan cause brain dysfunctions independent of plaques and tangles, which are pathological hallmarks of the disease.

Mucke also discovered that tau regulates the activity of neurons, and that reducing the levels of this protein in the brain blocks abnormal neuronal activities in experimental models of diseases as diverse as Alzheimer's, epilepsy, and autism. Several of his scientific discoveries are being translated into novel therapeutics for these and related conditions by his team and others in academia and the biopharmaceutical industry.

Story continues

"I am most grateful to the outstanding investigators who nominated me and to the many NAM members who supported me with their vote," says Mucke, who is also the Joseph B. Martin Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and a professor of neurology at UC San Francisco. "Many of my former and current coworkers contributed to this achievement, and we all share this honor together. I greatly appreciate what the NAM stands for and will do whatever I can to support its mission."

A Global and Multipronged Approach to Overcoming Alzheimer's Disease

Despite a significant investment in research, potential therapies for Alzheimer's disease have been slow to arrive, most likely because of the complexity and multifactorial nature of the disease.

"The path toward generating therapeutics that are efficacious and safe when given to millions of people for many years is always challenging," Mucke notes. "This process is made even more difficult in the case of Alzheimer's disease because it affects the elderly, who often suffer from other aging-related conditions requiring treatments that might adversely interact with novel therapeutics for Alzheimer's."

To address this complexity, Mucke is leading efforts at Gladstone to investigate how multiple genetic and non-genetic factors come together to promote the disease. This multipronged approach is helping to diversify the drug development portfolio for Alzheimer's disease. Mucke and his colleagues are also using similar approaches to develop better therapies for other diseases that affect the nervous system, including Parkinson's disease, frontotemporal dementia, epilepsy, and autism.

"My hope is that our comprehensive strategy will improve treatment options for several common, devastating, and incurable diseases," says Mucke. "To be successful in this quest, we must continue to nurture interactions between basic scientists and clinicians, as well as between academia and industry."

To ensure an even broader, global impact of his experience and expertise, Mucke has served as an advisor on innovative neurodegenerative disease-focused initiatives to the governments of the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and to several major pharmaceutical companies.

He has also mentored over 60 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, many of whom are now leading their own labs throughout the country and continuing to contribute to the field of neuroscience research.

"I have a great passion for mentorship and like to tailor my approaches to the particular needs and potential of each individual," he says. "I believe that my colleagues and I have created an adventuresome team spirit and uncompromising standard of excellence that is ideal for training in disease-focused neuroscience."

Mucke has been at Gladstone since 1996, but can trace his interest in neuroscience and medicine back to his teenage years.

"I developed a great interest in psychiatry, neurology, and neuroscience when I was in high school and to this day can't think of anything more fascinating and rewarding than to discover how the brain works and how to preserve the fragile structures that harbor the very essence of who we are," he says.

He is a graduate of the Georg-August University and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Neurobiology) in Gttingen, Germany. He trained in internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and in neuroimmunology and neurovirology at The Scripps Research Institute. He is also a member of the American Neurological Association and the Association of American Physicians.

Mucke's election was announced on October 18, 2021, by the NAM, which is part of the congressionally chartered National Academy of Sciencesprivate, nonprofit institutions that provide objective advice on matters of science, technology, and health. He joins six fellow NAM members from Gladstone Institutes: Jennifer Doudna, PhD, senior investigator; Warner Greene, MD, PhD, senior investigator and director of the Michael Hulton Center for HIV Cure Research; Robert W. Mahley, MD, PhD, senior investigator, president emeritus, and Gladstone founder; Deepak Srivastava, MD, senior investigator and current president of Gladstone; R. Sanders Williams, MD, former Gladstone president; and Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, senior investigator.

About Gladstone Institutes

To ensure our work does the greatest good, Gladstone Institutes focuses on conditions with profound medical, economic, and social impactunsolved diseases. Gladstone is an independent, nonprofit life science research organization that uses visionary science and technology to overcome disease. It has an academic affiliation with the University of California, San Francisco.

Media Contact: Julie Langelier | Associate Director, Communications | julie.langelier@gladstone.org | 415.734.5000 1650 Owens Street, San Francisco, CA 94158 | gladstone.org

Gladstone Institutes logo (PRNewsfoto/Gladstone Institutes)

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Gladstone Neuroscience Researcher Elected to the National Academy of Medicine - Yahoo Finance

Neuroscience

Philip receives NIH grant for neuroscience research – The Source – Washington University Record

Benjamin Allen Philip, assistant professor of occupational therapy, of neurology and of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, received a five-year $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders.

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Philip receives NIH grant for neuroscience research - The Source - Washington University Record

Neuroscience

Gladstone Neuroscience researcher elected to – EurekAlert

image:Gladstone Investigator Lennart Mucke is recognized by the National Academy of Medicine for his leading role in defining molecular and pathophysiological mechanisms by which Alzheimers disease causes synaptic failure, neural network dysfunctions, and cognitive decline. view more

Credit: Photo: Gladstone Institutes

SAN FRANCISCO, CAOctober 18, 2021Lennart Mucke, MD, founding director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

The prestigious recognition is a testament to Muckes long track record of contributions to disease-focused neuroscience, and particularly to Alzheimers disease and other conditions that rob people of their abilities to control and enjoy their lives.

Alzheimers disease is a complicated and multifactorial condition that affects more than 50 million people worldwide, including 6 million in the United States, causing many abnormalities in the brain. Mucke has played a leading role in deciphering which of these abnormalities actually contribute to cognitive declineand therefore merit therapeutic interventionand which may be red herrings, for example changes that look ominous under the microscope but do not actually cause loss of memory or other key symptoms of the disease.

In doing so, Mucke has debunked several dogmas and helped focus the fields attention on molecular and cellular processes that truly matter in regard to brain functions and the main symptoms that impair the lives of patients and their caretakers. His discoveries include the demonstration that key proteins implicated in Alzheimers diseaseincluding amyloid-beta, apolipoprotein E4 (apoE4), and taucan cause brain dysfunctions independent of plaques and tangles, which are pathological hallmarks of the disease.

Mucke also discovered that tau regulates the activity of neurons, and that reducing the levels of this protein in the brain blocks abnormal neuronal activities in experimental models of diseases as diverse as Alzheimers, epilepsy, and autism. Several of his scientific discoveries are being translated into novel therapeutics for these and related conditions by his team and others in academia and the biopharmaceutical industry.

I am most grateful to the outstanding investigators who nominated me and to the many NAM members who supported me with their vote, says Mucke, who is also the Joseph B. Martin Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and a professor of neurology at UC San Francisco. Many of my former and current coworkers contributed to this achievement, and we all share this honor together. I greatly appreciate what the NAM stands for and will do whatever I can to support its mission.

A Global and Multipronged Approach to Overcoming Alzheimers Disease

Despite a significant investment in research, potential therapies for Alzheimers disease have been slow to arrive, most likely because of the complexity and multifactorial nature of the disease.

The path toward generating therapeutics that are efficacious and safe when given to millions of people for many years is always challenging, Mucke notes. This process is made even more difficult in the case of Alzheimers disease because it affects the elderly, who often suffer from other aging-related conditions requiring treatments that might adversely interact with novel therapeutics for Alzheimers.

To address this complexity, Mucke is leading efforts at Gladstone to investigate how multiple genetic and non-genetic factors come together to promote the disease. This multipronged approach is helping to diversify the drug development portfolio for Alzheimers disease. Mucke and his colleagues are also using similar approaches to develop better therapies for other diseases that affect the nervous system, including Parkinsons disease, frontotemporal dementia, epilepsy, and autism.

My hope is that our comprehensive strategy will improve treatment options for several common, devastating, and incurable diseases, says Mucke. To be successful in this quest, we must continue to nurture interactions between basic scientists and clinicians, as well as between academia and industry.

To ensure an even broader, global impact of his experience and expertise, Mucke has served as an advisor on innovative neurodegenerative disease-focused initiatives to the governments of the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and to several major pharmaceutical companies.

He has also mentored over 60 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, many of whom are now leading their own labs throughout the country and continuing to contribute to the field of neuroscience research.

I have a great passion for mentorship and like to tailor my approaches to the particular needs and potential of each individual, he says. I believe that my colleagues and I have created an adventuresome team spirit and uncompromising standard of excellence that is ideal for training in disease-focused neuroscience.

Mucke has been at Gladstone since 1996, but can trace his interest in neuroscience and medicine back to his teenage years.

I developed a great interest in psychiatry, neurology, and neuroscience when I was in high school and to this day cant think of anything more fascinating and rewarding than to discover how the brain works and how to preserve the fragile structures that harbor the very essence of who we are, he says.

He is a graduate of the Georg-August University and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Neurobiology) in Gttingen, Germany. He trained in internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and in neuroimmunology and neurovirology at The Scripps Research Institute. He is also a member of the American Neurological Association and the Association of American Physicians.

Muckes election was announced on October 18, 2021, by the NAM, which is part of the congressionally chartered National Academy of Sciencesprivate, nonprofit institutions that provide objective advice on matters of science, technology, and health. He joins six fellow NAM members from Gladstone Institutes: Jennifer Doudna, PhD, senior investigator; Warner Greene, MD, PhD, senior investigator and director of the Michael Hulton Center for HIV Cure Research; Robert W. Mahley, MD, PhD, senior investigator, president emeritus, and Gladstone founder; Deepak Srivastava, MD, senior investigator and current president of Gladstone; R. Sanders Williams, MD, former Gladstone president; and Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, senior investigator.

###

About Gladstone Institutes

To ensure our work does the greatest good, Gladstone Institutes focuses on conditions with profound medical, economic, and social impactunsolved diseases. Gladstone is an independent, nonprofit life science research organization that uses visionary science and technology to overcome disease. It has an academic affiliation with the University of California, San Francisco.

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Gladstone Neuroscience researcher elected to - EurekAlert

Neuroscience

Advances in Health: Ayer Neuroscience Institute – WTNH.com

NORTH WINDHAM, Conn. (WTNH) -- Two teachers in North Windham just got some grant money to help with urban farming at the school.

Nicole Bay and Christian Kollegger are educators at Charles H. Barrows STEM Academy. They recieved $27,000 in Voya Financial Unsung Heroes grant money to help bring urban farming for food and STEM to students.

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Advances in Health: Ayer Neuroscience Institute - WTNH.com

Neuroscience

How sexism hinders brain research – University of California

Why does Alzheimers Disease afflict far more women than men? Why do some women report problems with memory and concentration during menopause?

Science can offer few answers, for a simple if frustrating reason: Over the decades, there has been relatively little research on the female brain. Emily Jacobs, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at UC Santa Barbara, points to two main reasons for this discrepancy: Unfounded assumptions that have been passed down from generation to generation, and the fact that the vast majority of neuroscientists are men.

I dont think this pattern of overlooking womens health was done out of malice, she said. It might be the result of indifference or obliviousness.

Science is a human endeavor. The questions we ask and the way we design our studies are products of the people who get to ask the questions. Ultimately, scientists cant answer questions they dont see. For a field like neuroscience, where over 85 percent of tenured professors are men, its likely that menopause was never visible.

Leila Rupp, a professor of feminist studies and interim dean of the Graduate Division at UC Santa Barbara, puts it more bluntly. Theres a history of talking about womens brains from a very misogynist perspective, she said.

Rupp is organizer of the Feminist Futures Initiative, which is co-sponsoring a talk Jacobs is giving at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26, in the UC Santa Barbara Librarys Pacific View Room. In The Scientific Body of Knowledge: Whose Body Does It Serve? Jacobs will discuss how the lack of female medical researchers has slowed progress in tackling womens health issues, as well as her labs work on how hormones impact brain function.

Part of the librarys Pacific View series, the lecture is free and open to the public. It will also be livestreamed on the UC Santa Barbara Library Facebook page.

Pregnancy, the menstrual cycle, menopause: All of these features of womens lives have been largely ignored by science, Jacobs said. Thats not just detrimental to womens health; its detrimental to our basic understanding of the brain.

Neuroscientists are often so taken by the complexities of the brain that we forget it is part of a larger biological system. Why should the brain care about whats going on down in our ovaries, or, for men, testes? Well, it does, in a pretty major way. About half of the neurons in your prefrontal cortexthe area right behind your forehead contain estrogen receptors.

According to Jacobs, medical researchers have traditionally thought of the female brain and to some extent, the female body as in constant flux due to hormonal changes, and therefore unknowable. This notion that females are inherently more variable than males because of hormones is unfounded by the data, and yet theres this lore, she said. It also overlooks the fact that men also possess hormones.

That misapprehension, she argued, has led to studies with flawed designs that fail to answer vital questions.

One of the biggest challenges in neuroscience is to understand what happens to the brain as it ages, she said. Entire research programs have used an outdated model that takes a group of people 65 years and older and compares them to a group of young adults. But that number 65 is a historical artifact thats rooted in the average retirement age of wage-earners. Its not based on biology.

Although neuroscientists have learned a tremendous amount about the aging brain, she added, that research convention leapfrogs over menopause, and blinds us to the kind of changes that are unfolding earlier in the aging process.

Jacobs and her team are attempting to fill that gap by studying how the female brain changes across the menstrual cycles, during pregnancy and over the menopause transition. She became fascinated by this area of research at UC Berkeley, where she earned her Ph.D.

I was in a terrific lab that was investigating the role of dopamine in human brain function, she recalled. Studying for my qualifying exam, I stumbled upon a small pocket of work in rodents that found the amount of estrogen in a mouses body can modulate the amount of dopamine in the brain. I was floored. Few people in my field were thinking about sex hormones in that way.

As I did more research on menopause, I realized this was systemic. Almost every aspect of womens brain health is understudied relative to men, Jacobs continued. My lab is devoted to correcting course to ensure that men and women get the full benefit of our research efforts. I have brilliant Ph.D. students who have taken up the cause. That brings me such joy.

While Jacobs is focused on looking at the brain and body holistically, Rupp is taking a similar approach with gender-related research here at UC Santa Barbara. The institute, launched in 2018, is forging links between researchers across campus whose work touches on feminist issues. The hope is that scholars from different disciplines can exchange knowledge and ideas and work collaboratively toward forging a better future.

Those of us who came into feminism in the 1960s and 1970s want to connect with a younger generation of leaders and empower future feminist leadership, Rupp said. Our goal is to develop a Center for Feminist Futures that is intergenerational, intersectional, and sponsors impactful research and programming.

To date, the initiative has sponsored or co-sponsored several dialogues on feminist issues, including a 2020 visit to campus by Anita Hill. The Division of Social Sciences, which sponsors the initiative, is about to launch a search for the first director of the future Center.

Rupp said she is thrilled to be asked to co-sponsor Jacobs talk, and Jacobs is equally excited by the collaboration. I cant wait to put our heads together, she said, noting the need for cross-disciplinary research on the barriers faced by female scientists. Im tickled that they exist, and I cant wait to join forces.

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How sexism hinders brain research - University of California