Cell Biology

Advancing cell therapies – T cells and the combination factor – Marketscreener.com

Please give some background on TC BioPharm and its aims

Kobel: As the global leader in allogeneic gamma delta () T-cell technologies, we are focused on the use of our platform allogeneic T cells from healthy donors as a therapeutic for oncology indications. Right now, we are targeting blood cancers, with clinical data in relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), and moving into solid tumours, most likely in some version of a combination therapy or as a modified such as a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR).

Our work is establishing whether it is possible to use allogeneic innate immune cells from a healthy donor to support the immune system of a person with cancer in combatting the condition. It is really the idea of reinforcing nature and letting the immune system do what it was intended to do, which is use this universal, inherent killer to fight diseases.

Why gamma delta T cells?

Kobel: There is no bad cell therapy out there, but all therapies have limitations - there is no such thing as a limitless cell therapy or drug. CAR T-cell therapies, for example, have two: firstly, because they are typically autologous (ie, use a patient's own cells), some patients are simply too sick to be able to donate cells to produce the treatment.

Additionally, CARs target T-cell receptors, and those receptors happen to exist on both healthy and diseased cells, so they can destroy both, causing what is called "onsite off tumour toxicity". This toxicity limits the possible dose that can be given to patients, so it is hard to give a sufficiently large dose to enable the treatment to leave the vasculature and permeate tissues to interact with and fight solid tumours.

T cells are the first line of defence in the immune system to eradicate diseases. They have an inherent ability to seek out and destroy damaged and diseased cells due to the presence of an antigen called isopentenyl pyrophosphate, or IPP for short. All tumours ever discovered and studied emit IPP, while healthy cells do not.

T cells act somewhat like a shark smelling blood; when they sense IPP, the cells slowly make their way towards the concentration until they find the source and affect cell death.

What is beneficial about them is that they have a limited toxicity profile; they have very few side effects, unlike traditional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy. You can also give them to people in conjunction with other drugs because there is no drug-on-drug profile.

Gamma delta T-cell biology

T cells are 'unconventional' T cells and there are relatively few present in peripheral blood. Unlike their better know CD4+ helper T cell and CD8+ cytotoxic T cell cousins, which express alpha beta () T-cell receptors (TCRs), they express TCRs composed of and chains.

In contrast to T cells, the majority of T cells are activated in a major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-independent manner, by both self and non-self ligands. Self ligands that activate T cells in a TCR-dependent manner include IPP, often accumulated by cancer cells, and other markers of cellular stress resulting from infection or tumorigenesis. In response, T cells produce cytokines, chemokines, interact with other immune cells and affect cytolysis of infected or transformed target cells.

As tissue-associated populations of T cells have been identified in the epithelium and mucosa, scientists believe they may serve as the first line of defence against pathogens.

Source: Eberl M, Hayday A. Gamma Delta () T Cells, British Society for Immunology.

For what indications are gamma delta T cells being developed?

Kobel: We are currently in a Phase IIb/III clinical trial for AML using T cells as a second-line therapy, also known as a failed first-line induction. This is a bridge to bone marrow or stem-cell transplant, which is the next step in your standard of care.

The data from our Phase Ib/IIa trial in AML was positive, so we are excited to see if we can replicate these results in other blood cancers, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma, through some form of an umbrella trial.

I think the way forward for cell therapy is in combining therapies; so not developing monotherapies but instead combining the benefits of two or more treatments, for instance, T cells and checkpoint inhibitors or natural killer (NK) cells

In the Phase Ib/IIa study, the average blast count (measured disease) in patients when they entered the trial was 38 percent; 28 days later, after one dose of T cells, their average blast count had been reduced to six percent, which is borderline remission.

We saw two complete responses including one MLFS or morphological leukaemia-free state, which means they were no longer leukemic. One patient went from a 60 percent blast count to 10 percent within 28 days and another patient lived more than two years after the trial.

These results were really encouraging, especially in patients that were in palliative care - expected to live four to six weeks. We are excited to see what these therapeutics can do in healthier patients, which conceptually should have a better response.

We are also starting to look at solid tumour opportunities in combination with other partners; investigating prostate, pancreatic, colorectal, ovarian and head and neck cancers.

We have developed a costimulatory CAR approach specifically for solid tumours such as ovarian cancer, neuroblastoma and glioblastoma, which is designed to overcome off-tumour toxicity. This is achieved by taking the CAR T-cell receptor and combining it with the T cells' function around IPP. The therapeutic cell expresses both CAR and receptors.

Say the expressed CAR receptor is for CD19; if the CAR binds to a cell expressing CD19 but not IPP, then the receptor does not bind and the therapeutic cell detaches. However, if the cell expresses both CD19 and IPP, and therefore both the CAR and receptors bind, then it completes a biological circuit that kills the cancerous cell. Because of this on-off switch, the damage to healthy cells is minimised and we should therefore be able to dose patients with larger amounts of these CAR T cells safely, allowing them to escape the vasculature and enter tissues to reach tumours in the organs.

How do you envision cell therapies developing in future?

Kobel: Development in the cell therapy landscape is akin to how Ernest Hemingway described going broke; it happens very slowly at first then all of a sudden. Right now, technology is advancing so quickly it is incredible.

Personally, I think the way forward for cell therapy is in combining therapies; so not developing monotherapies but instead combining the benefits of two or more treatments, for instance, T cells and checkpoint inhibitors or natural killer (NK) cells. We believe T cells can form the backbone of these combinations going forwards, given their innate ability within the immune system and their function as tumour killers.

We are very excited by the progress being made in the NK cell arena, as combining allogeneic NK cell infusions with T-cell infusions could be an interesting dynamic. We are of the mindset that you can rebuild, or recreate, the immune system to a certain degree artificially.

Conceptually, you could receive an infusion of T cells, then repeated infusions of NK cells for several weeks before a further T-cell infusion. Repeating this over and over, to the extent that you are basically taking an exogenous version of the immune system, could provide efficacy with limited toxicity.

We also think combining cell therapies with checkpoint inhibitors and bispecific antibodies is interesting, as it could help overcome the iceberg problem. Existing treatments such as checkpoint inhibitors can be limited to accessing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cancers; they benefit patients with a stable immune system that is able to proliferate immune cells such as T or NK cells. But if you do not have a stable immune system, ie, it is suppressed or compromised, which is the case for the majority of patients, it does not matter how many times you try to invigorate an immune response - the immune system is unable to respond. We are excited to see how combining checkpoint inhibitors and the exogenous infusion of immune cell therapies could benefit patients.

Which challenges must be overcome to continue to advance cell therapies?

Kobel: There is a major bottleneck across all cell therapies and that is supply and demand for the base product of cells. Companies are continually building manufacturing plants to support production, as well as advancing allogeneic technologies to remove certain burdens, both of which are great. However, if we really want to use cell therapies in the way that I believe they can be used, which is not just in oncology but in numerous areas including viral and inflammatory diseases, etc, there are not enough donors to support the potentially vast needs of product creation.

The next step is really developing what we call a "universal donor", which would be induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines that can produce the requisite cell types, whether they be T cells, NK cells, macrophages or T cells.

We must solve this supply-demand bottleneck, so over the next five to 10 years, I anticipate the removal of the donor entirely and the use of iPSCs as the source for production instead.

Bryan Kobel is the Chief Executive Officer of TC Biopharm and joined the company in June 2021. Bryan has been active in healthcare and life sciences for over 15 years, advising private and public companies on capital structuring and sourcing, and bringing a broad range of investors from private family capital to traditional corporate venture investors to his clients.

TC BioPharm is a publicly-traded (TCBP), clinical-stage cell therapy company developing advanced allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy products for the treatment of cancer, as well as developing gamma delta T-cell therapies for the treatment of infectious disease. The company was established in 2014 and now has five global locations, with its headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

About the author

Hannah Balfour is the Science Writer for European Pharmaceutical Review

The post Advancing cell therapies - T cells and the combination factor appeared first on European Pharmaceutical Review.

Russell Publishing Limited, 2022. All Rights Reserved., source Trade Journals

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Advancing cell therapies - T cells and the combination factor - Marketscreener.com

Cell Biology

MIT Engineers Work To Harness the Liver’s Regenerative Abilities To Treat Chronic Disease – SciTechDaily

By tracing the steps of liver regrowth, MIT engineers hope to harness the livers regenerative abilities to help treat chronic disease. Hepatocytes, the one pictured here, are the main functional cells of the liver. Credit: NIH

By tracing the steps of liver regrowth, MIT engineers are striving to harness the livers regenerative abilities to help treat chronic disease.

The human liver has incredible regeneration capabilities: Even if up to 70% of it is removed, the remaining tissue can regrow a full-sized liver in just months.

Being able to take advantage of this regenerative capability could provide doctors with a plethora of options for treating chronic liver disease. MIT engineers have now taken a step toward that goal, by creating a novel liver tissue model that allows them to more precisely trace the steps involved in liver regeneration than has been possible before.

Using the new model can yield information that couldnt be gleaned from studies of mice or other animals, whose biology is not identical to that of humans, says Sangeeta Bhatia, the leader of the research team.

For years, people have been identifying different genes that seem to be involved in mouse liver regeneration, and some of them seem to be important in humans, but they have never managed to figure out all of the cues to make human liver cells proliferate, says Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a member of MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

The new study, which appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has identified one molecule that appears to play a key role, and also yielded several other candidates that the researchers plan to explore further.

The lead author of the paper is Arnav Chhabra, a former MIT graduate student and postdoctoral researcher.

Most of the patients who need liver transplants suffer from chronic illnesses such as viral hepatitis, fatty liver disease, or cancer. However, if researchers had a reliable way to stimulate the liver to regenerate on its own, some transplants could be avoided, Bhatia says. Or, such stimulation might be used to help a donated liver grow after being transplanted.

From studies in mice, researchers have learned a great deal about some of the regeneration pathways that are activated after liver injury or illness. One key factor is the reciprocal relationship between hepatocytes (the main type of cell found in the liver) and endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels. Hepatocytes produce factors that help blood vessels develop, and endothelial cells generate growth factors that help hepatocytes proliferate.

Another contributor that researchers have identified is fluid flow in the blood vessels. In mice, an increase in blood flow can stimulate the endothelial cells to produce signals that promote regeneration.

Right now when patients come in with liver failure, you have to transplant them because you dont know if theyre going to recover on their own. But if we knew who had a robust regenerative response, and if we just needed to stabilize them for a little while, we could spare those patients from transplant. Sangeeta Bhatia

To model all of these interactions, Bhatias lab teamed up with Christopher Chen, the William F. Warren Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, who designs microfluidic devices with channels that mimic blood vessels. To create these models of regeneration on a chip, the researchers grew blood vessels along one of these microfluidic channels and then added multicellular spheroid aggregates derived from liver cells from human organ donors.

The chip is designed so that molecules such as growth factors can flow between the blood vessels and the liver spheroids. This setup also allows the researchers to easily knock out genes of interest in a specific cell type and then see how it affects the overall system.

Using this system, the researchers showed that increased fluid flow on its own did not stimulate hepatocytes to enter the cell division cycle. However, if they also delivered an inflammatory signal (the cytokine IL-1-beta), hepatocytes did enter the cell cycle.

When that happened, the researchers were able to measure what other factors were being produced. Some were expected based on earlier mouse studies, but others had not been seen before in human cells, including a molecule called prostaglandin E2 (PGE2).

The MIT team found high levels of this molecule, which is also involved in zebrafish regeneration, in their liver regeneration system. By knocking out the gene for PGE2 biosynthesis in endothelial cells, the researchers were able to show that those cells are the source of PGE2, and they also demonstrated that this molecule stimulates human liver cells to enter the cell cycle.

The researchers now plan to further explore some of the other growth factors and molecules that are produced on their chip during liver regeneration.

We can look at the proteins that are being produced and ask, what else on this list has the same pattern as the other molecules that stimulate cell division, but is novel? Bhatia says. We think we can use this to discover new human-specific pathways.

In this study, the researchers focused on molecules that stimulate cells to enter cell division, but they now hope to follow the process further along and identify molecules needed to complete the cell cycle. They also hope to discover the signals that tell the liver when to stop regenerating.

Bhatia hopes that eventually, researchers will be able to harness these molecules to help treat patients with liver failure. Another possibility is that doctors could use such factors as biomarkers to determine how likely it is that a patients liver will regrow on its own.

Right now when patients come in with liver failure, you have to transplant them because you dont know if theyre going to recover on their own. But if we knew who had a robust regenerative response, and if we just needed to stabilize them for a little while, we could spare those patients from transplant, Bhatia says.

Reference: A vascularized model of the human liver mimics regenerative responses by Arnav Chhabra, H.-H. Greco Song, Katarzyna A. Grzelak, William J. Polacheck, Heather E. Fleming, Christopher S. Chen and Sangeeta N. Bhatia, 28 June 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115867119

The research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, Wellcome Leap, and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship Program.

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MIT Engineers Work To Harness the Liver's Regenerative Abilities To Treat Chronic Disease - SciTechDaily

Cell Biology

p53 in liver cancer: The ultimate betrayal? – Newswise

Newswise Osaka, Japan p53 is one of the most important proteins in cancer biology. Often referred to as a guardian of the genome, p53 becomes activated in response to various cellular stressors like DNA damage. Its activation induces different processes, such as controlled cell death, that prevent cancer development if a cell becomes abnormal. Because of this, p53 mutations are extremely common in cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma. However, in a recent article published inCancer Research, a team of researchers at Osaka University observed that constant activation of p53 in liver cells of patients suffering from chronic liver disease (CLD) could actually promote the development of liver cancer.

CLD can be brought on by different factors including viruses, alcohol use, and fat accumulation, all of which can induce p53 activation. Previous studies have shown that p53 is in a constant state of activation in the liver cells of CLD patients. Yet, it is not clear what role this plays in CLD pathophysiology.

Clinical data clearly show that p53 is activated in the hepatocytes of individuals with CLD, says Yuki Makino, lead author of the study. Because p53 is such a vital part of how the human body prevents tumor formation, its role in CLD became even more intriguing.

To address their questions, the team generated a mouse model with p53 accumulation in hepatocytes. This was done by deleting Mdm2, the protein responsible for regulating p53 expression by targeting it for degradation. These mice developed liver inflammation with higher amounts of hepatocyte apoptosis and senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), a phenomenon where cells produce signals within the microenvironment that can cause nearby cells to become cancerous. In fact, mice with p53 accumulation did have increased liver tumor development.

We also observed an expanded population of hepatic progenitor cells (HPCs), which have stem cell-like characteristics, explains senior author Tetsuo Takehara. When the HPCs were isolated, grown in culture, and then injected under the skin of lab mice, these animals developed tumors. This suggested that HPCs played a key part in the liver tumor formation seen in the animals with p53 accumulation.

Interestingly, acceleration of liver tumor development and the other observed phenotypes did not occur when p53 was deleted in addition to Mdm2 in the hepatocytes. These results demonstrated the significance of constant p53 activity in the tumorigenesis.

We then compared samples from 182 CLD patients with 23 healthy liver samples, says Dr. Makino. The CLD liver biopsy samples showed activated p53 was positively correlated with apoptosis levels, SASP, HPC-associated gene expression, and later cancer development.

The authors concluded that constitutively activated p53 in hepatocytes of CLD patients can create a microenvironment that is supportive of tumor formation from HPCs. Their work proposes a novel and paradoxical mechanism of liver tumorigenesis because p53 is one of the most well-known tumor suppressor genes. These data could highlight p53 as a potential cancer-prevention treatment target for CLD patients.

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The article, Constitutive activation of the tumor suppressor p53 in hepatocytes paradoxically promotes non-cell autonomous liver carcinogenesis, was published inCancer Researchat DOI:https://doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-21-4390

About Osaka University

Osaka University was founded in 1931 as one of the seven imperial universities of Japan and is now one of Japan's leading comprehensive universities with a broad disciplinary spectrum. This strength is coupled with a singular drive for innovation that extends throughout the scientific process, from fundamental research to the creation of applied technology with positive economic impacts. Its commitment to innovation has been recognized in Japan and around the world, being named Japan's most innovative university in 2015 (Reuters 2015 Top 100) and one of the most innovative institutions in the world in 2017 (Innovative Universities and the Nature Index Innovation 2017). Now, Osaka University is leveraging its role as a Designated National University Corporation selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to contribute to innovation for human welfare, sustainable development of society, and social transformation.

Website:https://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/en

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p53 in liver cancer: The ultimate betrayal? - Newswise

Human Behavior

Opinion: More bears will be put at risk because of human behavior – Citizen Times

Laurel Rematore| OPINION COLUMNIST

John Boyles column of Humans should be euthanized, not bears, brought out the need for people to become savvy about how to store food when in bear country and directed readers to BearWise.org, an excellent source for the basics of co-existing with bears.

Boyle focused on reactions to a recent bear encounter that resulted in human injury. After gaining access to the inside of a family's tent, a bear scratched a 3-year-old girl and her mother. The father was able to scare the bear from the tent and campsite, but only after several attempts. Wildlife biologists successfully captured the bear that was responsible, and due to the risk to human safety, the bear was humanly euthanized.

In this case, when the news media sensationalized this negative humanbear interaction as an attack, it sent the wrong message. Usually, when bears rip into tents and scratch people, they have learned to expect food as a reward.

More: Great Smokies rangers: Bear euthanized after ripping tent, scratching child and mother

According to National Park Service bear management staff, two or three bears have to be killed in Great Smoky Mountains National Park each year. The reason for these bears deaths can almost always be traced back to food.

When people hear the slogans garbage kills bears or a fed bear is a dead bear, they may think that if bears eat garbage, it gives them stomach issues and they die as a result.

The truth is much more complex and gruesome. When bears get access to the food humans eat and feed their pets, bears come to expect this kind of food, which is often much easier for them to obtain than their natural diets of nuts and berries.

More: Man likely killed by bear attack in Great Smoky Mountains National Park: autopsy report

Bears have a powerful sense of smell 100 times as many olfactory sensors as we have so the aroma of food at a campsite and even inside a tent is definitely going to attract them. But they have often learned to seek this kind of food in park gateway communities.

Bears have excellent long-term memory and a highly evolved ability to make connections. They eat what is readily available and teach their young what they have learned about obtaining food. When they can more easily access the food that humans eat and feed to their pets, they become food conditioned and their conflict behavior escalates.

When a bear hurts someone which naturally happens when a large, clawed animal rummages for a snack wildlife managers often must kill the bear because it has become a threat. Rehabilitating a food-conditioned bear is extremely challenging, and transporting the bear to another location and then releasing it has been shown to have mixed results.

No one wants to kill these regional icons or see them killed. Drawn in part by the chance to see a live bear, over 14 million people visit the park annually, and gateway community populations are increasing. If we humans are not willing to change our behavior, we will be putting many more bears at risk to becoming food conditioned and potentially being euthanized due to conflict with humans.

More: NC Wildlife biologists: Bear that attacked couple on Blue Ridge Parkway climbed onto car

Some gateway city and county officials are moving in a positive direction with new road signs that raise awareness about stashing your trash. But these leaders also need to provide specially designed bear-resistant containers and strictly enforce proper food storage in them throughout all park gateway communities and any other developed areas where black bears live.

Because people traveling into the area are not always aware that they need to change their food-storage behaviors, officials must further require signage to raise awareness and instruct visitors about the BearWiseBasics throughout these communities especially at vacation rental companies where visitors may be much less informed than locals about proper food storage. They are:

Never feed or approach bears

Secure food, garbage, and recycling

Remove bird feeders when bears are active

Never leave pet food outdoors

Clean and store grills

Alert neighbors to bear activity.

More: Word from the Smokies: Bodacious Bear to help BearWise Taskforce raise funds for education

Id like to quote a line from Richard Powers best-seller "Overstory:" People arent the apex species they think they are. Other creatures bigger, smaller, slower, faster, older, younger, more powerful call the shots, make the air, and eat sunlight. Without them, nothing.

It's time for society to prioritize bears importance and ensure they are not fed intentionally or unintentionally. I am a part of the Smokies BearWisetask force, and on a recent Zoom call a fellow member suggested we should declare a state of wildlife emergency. I agree.

Laurel Rematore isCEO ofGreat Smoky Mountains Association.

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Opinion: More bears will be put at risk because of human behavior - Citizen Times

Human Behavior

Human-like robot tricks people into thinking it has a mind of its own – Livescience.com

An uncannily human-like robot that had been programmed to socially interact with human companions tricked people into thinking that the mindless machine was self-aware, according to a new study.

The digital deceiver, which the researchers dubbed "iCub," is a child-size humanoid robot created by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa to study social interactions between humans and robots. This advanced android, which stands at 3.6 feet (1.1 meters) tall, has a humanlike face, camera eyes that can maintain eye contact with people and 53 degrees of freedom that allow it to complete complex tasks and mimic human behaviors. Researchers can program iCub to act remarkably humanlike, as demonstrated in its 2016 appearance on Italy's Got Talent (opens in new tab) when the robot performed Tai Chi moves and wowed the judges with its clever conversational skills.

In the new study, researchers programmed iCub to interact with human participants as they watched a series of short videos. During some of the experiments, iCub was programmed to behave in a human-like manner: greeting participants as they entered the room, and reacting to videos with vocalizations of joy, surprise and awe. But in other trials, the robot's programming directed it to behave more like a machine, ignoring nearby humans and making stereotypically robotic beeping sounds.

The researchers found that people who were exposed to the more human-like version of iCub were more inclined to view it with a perspective known as "the intentional stance," meaning they believed that the robot had its own thoughts and desires, while those who were exposed to the less human version of the robot did not. The researchers had expected that this would happen, but were "very surprised" by how well it worked, lead study author Serena Marchesi and study co-author Agnieszka Wykowska, both part of the Social Cognition in Human-Robot Interaction unit at IIT, told Live Science in a joint email.

Related: Human-like robot creates creepy self-portraits

The iCub robot does have a limited capacity to "learn" like a neural network (a type of artificial intelligence, or AI, that mimics the processes of a human brain), but is far from being self-aware, the researchers said.

In each of the experiments, a single human participant sat in a room with iCub and watched three short two-minute video clips of animals. The research team decided to use video-watching as the shared task because it is a common activity among friends and family, and they used footage that featured animals and "did not include a human or a robot character" in order to avoid any biases, the researchers said.

In the first set of experiments, iCub had been programmed to greet the human participants, introducing itself and asking for their names as they entered. During these interactions, iCub also moved its camera "eyes" to maintain eye contact with the human subjects. Throughout the video-watching activity, it continued to act in a human-like way, vocalizing responsively as people do. "It laughed when there was a funny scene in the movie or behaved as if it was in awe with a beautiful visual scene," the researchers said.

In the second set of experiments, iCub did not interact with participants, and while watching the videos its only reaction to the scenes was to make machine-like noises, including "beeping sounds like a car sensor would do when approaching an obstacle," the researchers said. During these experiments, the cameras in iCub's eyes were also disabled, so the robot could not maintain eye contact.

Before and after the experiments, the researchers made participants complete the InStance Test (IST). Designed by the research team in 2019, this survey is used to gauge people's opinions of the robot's mental state.

Using the IST, the study authors assessed participant's reactions to 34 different scenarios. "Each scenario consists of a series of three pictures depicting the robot in daily activities," the researchers said. "Participants then choose between two sentences describing the scenario." One sentence used intentional language that hinted at an emotional state (for example: "iCub wants") and the other sentence used mechanistic language that focused on actions ("iCub does"). In one scenario when participants were shown a series of pictures where iCub selects one of several tools from a table, they chose between statements that said the robot "grasped the closest object" (mechanical) or "was fascinated by tool use" (intentional).

The team found that if participants were exposed to iCub's human-like behaviors in the experiments, they were more likely to switch from a mechanistic stance to an intentional stance in their survey responses, hinting that iCub's human-like behavior had changed the way they perceived the robot. By comparison, participants that interacted with the more robotic version of iCub firmly maintained a mechanistic stance in the second survey. This suggests that people need to see evidence of relatable behavior from a robot in order to perceive it as human-like, the researchers said.

These findings show that humans can form social connections with robots, according to the study. This could have implications for the use of robots in healthcare, especially for elderly patients, the researchers said. However, there is still much to learn about human-robot interactions and social bonding, the scientists cautioned.

One of the big questions the team wants to answer is if people can bond with robots that do not look human, but still display human-like behaviors. "It is difficult to foresee how a robot with a less human-like appearance would elicit the same level of like-me experience," the researchers said. In the future, they hope to repeat the study's experiments with robots of different shapes and sizes, they added.

The researchers also argue that in order for humans to form lasting social bonds with robots, people must let go of preconceived notions about sentient machines that are popular fear-mongering fodder in science fiction.

"Humans have a tendency to be afraid of the unknown," the researchers said. "But robots are just machines and they are far less capable than their fictional depictions in popular culture." To help people overcome this bias, scientists can better educate the public on what robots can do and what they can't. After that, "the machines will become immediately less scary," they said.

The study was published online July 7 in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior (opens in new tab).

Originally published on Live Science.

Original post:
Human-like robot tricks people into thinking it has a mind of its own - Livescience.com

Human Behavior

Pandemic restrictions had a lasting effect on behavior patterns – Earth.com

In a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers have investigated how COVID-19 restrictions changed behavior patterns, and how these patterns continue to change. The study focused on the U.K., where activities and social events were restricted near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to slow the spread of the virus.

A lot of research has already looked at how COVID-19 restrictions changed human behavior. The new study is unique in looking at how behavior in the U.K. changed over time as restrictions continued to evolve.

To understand their research topic better, the scientists conducted six different online surveys to track changes in behavior patterns among 203 respondents. The surveys asked participants about different activities they engaged in during various phases of the pandemic, and whether they did these activities in person or online.

An analysis of the results showed that the biggest changes were the investment of time in social and cultural activities and travel. The surveys also confirmed that most individuals shifted from more in-person activities to more online events. Furthermore, although all pandemic restrictions were removed on July 19, 2021, many of these behavioral shifts still remain in place.

This longitudinal study determines the frequency and way of people doing activities from Spring 2020 to Summer 2021 during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, said study co-author Lan Li of University College London.

The findings provide an invaluable insight into understanding how people in the UK changed their lifestyle, including what activities they do, and how they accessed those activities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and related public health policy implemented to address the pandemic.

The scientists hope that their work will help inform policy makers on the impact of their restrictions for future decision making.

By Erin Moody , Earth.com Staff Writer

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Pandemic restrictions had a lasting effect on behavior patterns - Earth.com

Human Behavior

20 New Books on Behavioral Science That Will Help You Understand Humans Better – Inc.

Between Us by Batja Mesquita. "We may think of emotions as universal responses, felt inside, but in Between Us, acclaimed psychologist Batja Mesquita asks us to reconsider them through the lens of what they do in our relationships, both one-on-one and within larger social networks."

Different by Frans de Waal. "World-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal draws on decades of observation and studies of both human and animal behavior to argue that despite the linkage between gender and biological sex, biology does not automatically support the traditional gender roles in human societies."

Don't Trust Your Gut by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. "Stephens-Davidowitz exposes that, while we often think we know how to better ourselves, the numbers disagree. Hard facts and figures consistently contradict our instincts." Here's one example of his unexpected conclusions.

Evolutionary Ideas by Sam Tatam. "Tatam shows how behavioral science and evolutionary psychology can help us solve tomorrow's challenges, not by divining something the world has never seen, but by borrowing from yesterday's solutions -- often in the most unexpected ways. " You can read an excerpt on Behavioral Scientist.

From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks. "At the height of his career at the age of 50, [Harvard professor] Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result." Get a sneak peek at Brooks's thinking here.

Get it Done by Ayelet Fishbach. "With fascinating research from the field of motivation science and compelling stories of people who learned to motivate themselves, Get It Done illuminates invaluable strategies for pulling yourself in whatever direction you want to go."Read an article by Fishbach on Behavioral Scientist.

Hidden Games by Erez Yoeli and Moshe Hoffman. "In Hidden Games,Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli find a surprising middle ground between the hyperrationality of classical economics and the hyper-irrationality of behavioral economics. They...use it to explain our most puzzling behavior, from the mechanics of Stockholm syndrome and internalized misogyny to why we help strangers and have a sense of fairness."

How Minds Change by David McRaney. "How Minds Change is a book about the science, and the experience, of transformation.... It's an eye-opening journey among cult members, conspiracy theorists, and political activists -- from Westboro Baptist Church picketers to LGBTQ campaigners in California -- that ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs."

How to Stay Smart in a Smart World by Gerd Gigerenzer. Many in the tech industry predict "machines will soon do everything better than humans. In How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, Gerd Gigerenzer shows why that's not true, and tells us how we can stay in charge in a world populated by algorithms."

Imaginable by Jane McGonigal. "How do we map out our lives when it seems impossible to predict what the world will be like next week, let alone next year or next decade? [...] Jane McGonigal draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable."

Influence Is Your Superpower by Zoe Chance. "Influence doesn't work the way you think because you don't think the way you think. Move past common misconceptions -- such as the idea that asking for more will make people dislike you -- and understand why your go-to negotiation strategies are probably making you less influential."

Mindwandering by Moshe Bar. "Our brains are noisy; certain regions are always grinding away at involuntary activities like daydreaming, worrying about the future, and self-chatter, taking up to forty-seven percent of our waking time. This is mindwandering.... Cognitive neuroscientist Moshe Bar is here to tell you about the method behind this apparent madness."

The No Club by Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart. "The No Club started when four women...vowed to say no to requests that pulled them away from the work that mattered most to their careers. This book reveals...their over-a-decade-long journey and subsequent groundbreaking research showing that women everywhere are unfairly burdened with 'non-promotable work,' a tremendous problem we can -- and must -- solve."

The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink. "Drawing on research in social psychology, neuroscience, and biology, Pink debunks the myth of the 'no regrets' philosophy of life. And using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Survey -- which has collected regrets from more than 15,000 people in 105 countries -- he lays out the four core regrets that each of us has." Here's a sneak peak of Pink's thinking in the book.

Ritual by Dimitris Xygalatas. Ritualspresent"a profound paradox: people ascribe the utmost importance to their rituals, but few can explain why they are so important. Apparently pointless ceremonies pervade every documented society, from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades.... Ritual reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together."

The Secret Life of Secrets by Michael Slepian. "At what age do children develop the cognitive capacity for secrecy? Do all secrets come with the same mental load? How can we reconcile our secrets with our human desires to relate, connect, and be known? When should we confess our secrets? Who makes for the ideal confidant? And can keeping certain types of secrets actually enhance our well-being?"

Streets of Gold by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan. "Using the tools of modern data analysis and ten years of pioneering research, new evidence is provided about the past and present of the American Dream, debunking myths fostered by political opportunism and sentimentalized in family histories."

Thinking Like an Economist by Elizabeth Popp Berman. "Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking -- an 'economic style of reasoning' -- became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today."

The Voltage Effect by John A. List. "Drawing on his original research, as well as fascinating examples from the realms of business, policymaking, education, and public health, [List] identifies five measurable vital signs that a scalable idea must possess, and offers proven strategies for avoiding voltage drops and engineering voltage gains." You can read an article by List on Behavioral Scientist.

Wired for Love by Stephanie Cacioppo. "Stephanie tells not just a science story but also a love story. She shares revelatory insights into how and why we fall in love, what makes love last, and how we process love lost.... Woven through it all is her moving personal story, from astonishment to unbreakable bond to grief and healing."

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20 New Books on Behavioral Science That Will Help You Understand Humans Better - Inc.

Human Behavior

ASU New College recognizes 1st graduates of growing law and psychology PhD program – ASU News Now

July 14, 2022

This summer, Arizona State Universitys New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences recognized Emily Denne and Kristen McCowan as the first two graduates of the growing law and psychology PhD program.

The fact that we were able to get such high-caliber students during our first year was key to the growth and reputation of our PhD program, said Nick Schweitzer, founding director of the Law and Behavioral Science initiative and associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. We are so proud of Emily and Kristen not just for their success in our program, but in how they are using their experience and training to tackle such important issues. This summer, ASU's New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences recognized Emily Denne (left) and Kristen McCowan as the first two graduates of the growing law and psychology PhD program. Download Full Image

The program, which was established in 2017 as part of the universitys Law and Behavioral Science initiative, melds the fields of law and psychology to help explain how human behavior interacts with and is affected by the legal system. The program aims to train students by taking a broad interdisciplinary approach with the goal of encouraging them to use this knowledge to tackle understudied areas where the legal system is in need of empirical psychological research.

"Emily and Kristen were wonderful students who started together as part of the first cohort of the PhD program, said Tess Neal, associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. They learned leadership and mentorship skills, honed their craft in empirical methodology and statistics, and enriched the lives and labs of the students and faculty in the law and behavioral sciences program. We are proud of them and will miss them as they move on into the next stages of their careers, continuing on their quest to improve understanding and functioning of the justice system."

Here, Denne and McCowan share about themselves, their experiences and whats next for them.

Denne was born in England and moved to the U.S. when she was 6 years old. She grew up in a small town in Indiana and completed her bachelors degree in psychology at the University of Evansville.

It was there that I began research on child maltreatment under the mentorship of Professor Margaret Stevenson, Denne said. Her work on child custody coupled with my own lived experiences sparked my interest in child maltreatment research more broadly.

She began studying law and psychology at ASU in 2018 and was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to fund her education. She successfully defended her thesis on understanding childrens reports of grooming in child sexual abuse cases.

Question: What inspired you to pursue the law and psychology PhD program at ASU?

Answer: I met Jessica Salerno, a professor in the law and psychology department, at the American Psychology-Law Society conference in 2018. At the time, I had just withdrawn from a school psychology PhD program and was struggling to find direction for my research interests. She introduced me to the work of Professor Neal and Professor (Stacia) Stolzenberg at ASU. Both lines of work were exciting and interesting to me and directly aligned with my own research interests the investigation and prosecution of child maltreatment. It was Professor Salerno who introduced me to this exciting work and gave me a foot in the door at ASU. I am very grateful for the opportunity she gave me.

Q: What was your favorite part of this program?

A: I have many fond memories from the program. I have really enjoyed the meaningful connections and relationships I have built with my mentors and other students in the program. It has been exciting to learn with them, from them, and grow as an academic.

Q: How does this PhD help you to achieve your goals?

A: I am deeply grateful to the rigorous law and psychology program that the faculty at ASU have built. I have learned so much about myself, my ability to do hard and challenging things, as well as developing content area expertise in child maltreatment. I have been given so many opportunities and so much support for my advisers. When I began graduate school, I hoped to publish 10 peer-reviewed articles by graduation. By the time my degree is conferred, I will likely have reached this goal. I could not have done so without the incredible support and guidance of the faculty in the law and psychology program.

Q: Whats something you learned while at New College in the classroom or otherwise that surprised you or changed your perspective?

A: At New College, I learned so much that challenged my perspectives and drove me to really value being a consumer of science on a daily basis. One thing that's stuck with me the most was something I learned in Professor Neal's lab. She continually challenges us to engage with the opposite point of view, to consider adversarial collaborations and critically evaluate both sides of an argument. This idea of adversarial collaboration, or directly engaging with and working with those who would have opposite viewpoints, has been something I have worked to do in both my personal and professional life. It has helped me really develop my own opinions and stances, but has also challenged me to be open to changing my opinion in light of new and different evidence.

Q: What are your post-graduation plans?

A: I hope to spend some time working as a child forensic interviewer. I study how forensic interviewers gather reports from maltreated children, so I hope to really immerse myself in the field and learn more from those who do this work directly. I am also currently pursuing a post-doctorate at Griffith University in Australia at the Center for Forensic Interviewing. Should I receive the postdoc, I will have the opportunity to study under Martine Powell and Sonja Brubacher at the center.

McCowan is originally from Chicago, Illinois, and has lived in Phoenix since she first started attending ASU. She received her bachelors degree in psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

She first became interested in legal psychology after taking a psychology and law course and learning about the limitations in our criminal justice system. After learning more about the field, she became involved in research looking at jury decision-making in a sexual assault case, which sparked her interest in jury research and how people weigh different types of evidence and the effect of biases on judgments throughout a case.

Knowing I wanted to do this type of work, Professor Tess Neal's research stood out to me, and I liked that the program had a strong emphasis on the intersection of psych and law, with classes that were specific to this area of research, McCowan said.

She successfully defended her thesis on predictors of jurors understanding of evidence strength.

Question: What was your favorite part of this program?

Answer: My favorite part of this program was expanding my areas of interest and getting to work closely with Tess and the rest of the faculty and students. The program would every once in a while have other researchers in the field visit to present their work, and it was a great chance to get to know people better in both an academic and social setting afterwards. The courses we were able to take specific to the intersection of psychology and the legal system also taught me a lot about the field, and with the classes being smaller and discussion-based, it was great getting to hear everyone's perspectives on the research we read.

Q: How does this PhD help you to achieve your goals?

A: As a whole, the program's emphasis on research methodology and writing helped me on the job market pursuing a research-centric position. Tess' research lab gave me opportunities to take leadership roles in the research process which, as a research analyst, taught me skills I continue to use day to day. The faculty also encouraged students to attend conferences and give research talks that helped with networking and getting involved in the field.

Q: Whats something you learned while at New College in the classroom or otherwise that surprised you or changed your perspective?

A: I learned a lot about the diverse career opportunities that opened my eyes to ways to make positive changes in the legal system through research without necessarily having to pursue a strictly academic-based job.

Q: What are your post-graduation plans?

A: Post-graduation, I am going to continue working in the legal psychology realm, working as a research analyst for the Center of Integrity in Forensic Sciences doing research for forensic evidence reform.

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ASU New College recognizes 1st graduates of growing law and psychology PhD program - ASU News Now

Human Behavior

Georgia voters get only one option for over half of upcoming legislative races – Atlanta Civic Circle

Recent Supreme Court decisions have kicked issues like abortion and greenhouse gas regulation down to the state level, making Georgias statehouse elections in November even more critical for voters seeking a say.

But for over half of the legislative races, Georgia voters will have only one optioneither a Democrat or a Republican, according to an Atlanta Civic Circle tally of primary winners from Secretary of States office data. Fully 123 of the states 236 house and senate races offer voters only one candidate.

Of the candidates wholl be running uncontested in November, 68 are Republicans and 55 are Democrats. Many Democratic voters in the north Georgia mountains and the states southern plains will not have a chance to challenge Republican primary winners at the polls in November, and Atlanta-area Republicans are in the same boat.

Democrats often run unchallenged in Atlanta and its inner south and southeast suburbs, as well as in cities like Macon and Savannah and some parts of middle Georgia where the black share of population is relatively high.

Republicans tend to dominate the mountains, some of Atlantas more far-flung suburbs and parts of south and southeast Georgia, where the white share of population is relatively high.

That leaves battlegrounds in places like Gwinnett, Walton and Henry counties and neighboring areas, as well as areas outside Savannah and Macon.

Gerrymandering and regionalism

Uncontested elections happen for two main reasonsgerrymandering and regional self-sorting, according to political experts. Uncontested elections are to some extent a natural result of human behavior, because people who vote the same way tend to flock together, but political parties also play a role through gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering plays a crucial role in the number of uncontested elections, said Daniel Franklin, an emeritus political science professor at Georgia State University. Thats when state legislatures draw electoral district boundaries to favor the party in power, whether Republican or Democratic.

In defending the draft Constitution, James Madison said in Federalist No. 10 that no man would be a judge in his own cause, Franklin said, but he noted that is precisely what happens with gerrymandering. State legislators draw their own district boundaries.Of course, they will do that in their own interest.

Our democracy would be healthier and stronger if every race were a meaningful contest between two competing camps, said GSU political science professor Jeffrey Lazarus, but he does not foresee an end to gerrymandering any time soon, despite the practices many critics.

People also tend to live near other people with similar backgrounds or political party affiliations, which can create single-party districts that are either majority Democratic or Republican, Franklin said.

It used to be that sorting was generally along racial and class lines.Now, racial sorting is still there, but less prominent.Sorting now is more likely to be along ideological lines, he said.

Uncontested election risks

Gerrymandering and regional self-sorting are big reasons why uncontested elections are pervasive, both in Georgia and nationally, but the difficulty of fundraising for potential challengers with low odds of getting elected is also a factor.

A high concentration of uncontested elections calls into question how much freedom of electoral choice some U.S. voters actually have, and it risks creating a political environment where legislators shirk their lawmaking duties to voters. But Franklin said the United States still has a functioning democracy.

The Soviet Union had regular electionsso does Iran. They are certainly not democracies. It takes more than elections to have a democracy. You must have a genuine choice, otherwise elections are just for show, he explained. We are certainly not Iran or the Soviet Union. In our federal system, elections are competitive at some level. [And] in Georgia, statewide elections have become quite competitive.

In electoral districts that are heavily Democratic or Republican, many potential candidates from the opposing party decide not to run because they already know theyll lose, said University of Georgia political science professor Trey Hood, an expert in Southern elections.

A lot of people wont run against incumbents because its not easy to defeat an entrenched [one], Hood said. In a district that skews heavily Republican or Democratic, he added, a candidate from the opposing party will likely have a difficult time garnering support and raising money.

Political parties also dont have much incentive to fund candidates in districts where the partys voters are heavily in the minority, Hood said. If you do give them resources, its still likely theyre going to loseand those are resources that are being diverted from other races that are more competitive.

The real conversation might be in the primary for those districts, he addedthat is, in the primary for the districts dominant party.

Uncontested elections can create powerful incumbent legislators who, unchallenged, may shirk their lawmaking duties, Franklin cautioned. Even more concerning, he added, theyre likely to become less representative of their constituents if they no longer think they need to listen to voters to get reelected.

However, Hood said, even in uncontested districts lawmakers are still keeping future competition in mindas a threat in their partys primary, at least, if not from the opposing party.

These lawmakers are acutely aware that they could be challenged in an upcoming election if they do shirk their responsibilities too much, Hood said. Weve asked legislators in surveys, and, usually, their number one goal is reelection. Even if theyre not being contested, theyre still thinking about what their constituents are thinking.

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Georgia voters get only one option for over half of upcoming legislative races - Atlanta Civic Circle

Human Behavior

Dangers of aggressive dog breeds and threat of not training them well – The Statesman

An 82 years old woman, Savitri, was fatally attacked by her pet dog and suffered grave bite injuries in her abdomen and neck and died during treatment at a trauma center in Qaiserbagh area of Lucknow, on Wednesday. This unfortunate incident raises a lot of questions on why pets attack the very owners who train and raise them.

Is it because of the fact that the pet owners in most cases, while selecting the breeds, are ignorant about the temperament of the animal they bring home. Also, people who live in close proximity with aggressive pet breeds are not well equipped with knowledge about the special training needed for breeds like Pit Bull. In the above incident the dog of the said breed, attacked its owner to death.

Dog care and training go hand-in-hand. Even if you consider your dog as your family member, you cannot turn your back to the fact that it is, after all, an animal and would behave in a certain manner.

Some dog breeds are considered to be aggressive and they require special training. In certain cases, people love to own fancy dog breeds as a fashion-statement, while they dont pay much attention to the special care these breeds require. It is entirely not about the breed of the dog, it is about proper care and training. Many breeds have special training requirements.

If you wish to bring home a pet and make it your family member, you must keep certain things in mind:

Dogs are social

Dogs of all breeds are some of the most social animals. They have excellent people-skills and they love to be surrounded by other animals and humans. The more they interact with people, the better their mind functions and they remain calm and composed.

According to a research based article, Dogs Supporting Human Health and Well-Being: A Biopsychosocial Approach, Through the processes of domestication and natural selection, dogs have become adept at socializing with humans.

In reality, it is discouraging to see most people keeping their pet dogs confined to a particular area, away from people. Such dogs become very tired of their solitary state and tend to develop an overtly aggressive behavior.

Treat them well

Dogs require special treatment at times. Once domesticated, they must be allocated a particular place and their boundaries must be defined for them. Catering to their needs is considered as a motivating action and dogs are very reciprocative to the ones who treat them well.

According to The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), The safest and most effective way to treat an aggression problem is to implement behavior modification under the guidance of a qualified professional. Modifying a dogs behavior involves rewarding her for good behavior so youll likely be more successful if your dog enjoys praise, treats and toys.

Proper training

Training is very important especially if you live with a dog breed which is considered aggressive. The root cause of any untoward incident involving a dog is; human behaviour itself. The very concept of being a dog lover is misconstrued. Domesticating an animal is against its very basic nature, which is meant to behave untamed. With proper training by a certified dog trainer, the behavior of the dog can be mended according to the domestic surroundings. It is just like sending your kid to school. It is for their and your benefit. A well trained dog would know about the areas where they are allowed inside the house and how to conduct themselves.

According to Importance of Puppy Training for Future Behavior of the Dog, published in Journal of Veterinary Medical Science, Adequate socialization is necessary for producing a well-balanced and well-adjusted dog.

Some important tips to keep in mind:

Above all, mend your own behaviour. If you are disciplined, your dog will replicate.

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Dangers of aggressive dog breeds and threat of not training them well - The Statesman