NIH Archives - Amazing Health Advances

NIH Grant Supports Study of Copper’s Role in Killing Harmful Bacteria

The AHA! Team — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 06:07:49 +0000

University of Arizona Health Sciences via News-Medical – A researcher at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his research into uncovering the mysteries of copper – specifically, how it can be harnessed to kill harmful bacteria and other microorganisms. “We started using copper tens of thousands of years ago to cut down on bacterial infections. People used to store their food in copper pots, which helped cut down on spoilage. Copper doorknobs have been shown to cut down on hospital-acquired infections. We’re still finding more things it can do.” -Michael D.L. Johnson, PhD, associate professor of immunobiology Johnson said he hopes one of these potential new uses could form the backbone of a next-generation antibiotic; however, to build a solid foundation for the pharmaceutical research, his lab aims to learn more about what makes copper toxic to bacteria in the first place. The research is being made possible by an R35 grant, which is reserved for scientists with outstanding research records and the potential to make major contributions to their fields. Using Streptococcus pneumoniae as a model organism, Johnson and his team will attempt to learn what makes bacterial cells vulnerable to copper. “It’s a pretty prominent pathogen. More than a million people die per year because of these bacteria,” he said, referring to the bacteria that can cause infections in the lungs, brain, nose and blood. “Our laboratory is interested in trying to figure out how it ticks. Our way of doing that is to understand how it gets its nutrition.” The human body uses minerals such as iron and calcium, which we get from our diets, to keep bodily processes running. Bacteria are no different in that they need minerals to function, but copper, which is essential in the human diet, can be toxic to bacteria. “There are certain minerals that bacteria don’t want in excess, and that’s where copper comes into play,” said Johnson, who is a member of the BIO5 Institute. “There are a lot of ways we can weaponize copper. We’re trying to study how our body uses copper as a mechanism to kill pathogens.” Johnson believes that by flooding bacteria’s environment with excess copper, researchers may be able to trick them into building essential proteins with the wrong materials. We’re trying to study how our body uses copper as a mechanism to kill pathogens “Copper can displace iron, manganese or other metals and inactivate the protein,” he said. “It would be like me trying to start my wife’s car with my key. It doesn’t work.” Johnson will build on his previous studies investigating how S. pneumoniae reacts to copper and complement parallel studies performed in his lab to learn more about copper as an antimicrobial. He said his goal is to untangle exactly what makes copper toxic to S. pneumoniae and use that information to draw conclusions about similar bacteria. “All bacteria are different, but there are some mission-critical systems that are the same from bacteria to bacteria. How they process some of these metals is almost identical,” he said. “What I’m studying can be applied to other bacteria, but first we need to understand the basic mechanism of how these things work.” Johnson said that while new antibiotics are slow to be developed and approved, antibiotic resistance is on the rise among pathogens, meaning that infections that were once easily cured with medicine could someday be deadly again. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers antibiotic resistance a danger to public health, with drug-resistant S. pneumoniae classified as a “serious threat.” “Bacteria are quite crafty. They will mutate to overcome antibiotics,” Johnson said. “Our bodies have evolved to use copper to kill bacteria, and to this day, copper is still toxic. We want to take advantage of that to help people with life-threatening infections.” This research is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health, under award no. R35GM128653. Source: University of Arizona Health Sciences To read the original article click here.

The post NIH Grant Supports Study of Copper’s Role in Killing Harmful Bacteria appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Blood Test Finds Knee Osteoarthritis up to Eight Years Before X-rays

The AHA! Team — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 08:13:23 +0000

Duke Health – DURHAM, N.C. – A blood test successfully predicted knee osteoarthritis at least eight years before tell-tale signs of the disease appeared on x-rays, Duke Health researchers report. In a study appearing April 26 in the journal Science Advances, the researchers validated the accuracy of the blood test that identifies key biomarkers of osteoarthritis. They showed that it predicted development of the disease, as well as its progression, which was demonstrated in their earlier work. The research advances the utility of a blood test that would be superior to current diagnostic tools that often don’t identify the disease until it has caused structural damage to the joint. “Currently, you’ve got to have an abnormal x-ray to show clear evidence of knee osteoarthritis, and by the time it shows up on x-ray, your disease has been progressing for some time,” said senior author Virginia Byers Kraus, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the departments of Medicine, Pathology, and Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine. “What our blood test demonstrates is that it’s possible to detect this disease much earlier than our current diagnostics permit.” Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, afflicting an estimated 35 million adults in the U.S. and causing significant economic and societal impacts. While there are currently no cures, the success of potential new therapies could hinge on identifying the disease early and slowing its progression before it becomes debilitating. Kraus and colleagues have focused on developing molecular biomarkers that can be used for both clinical diagnostic purposes and as a research tool to aid in the development of effective drugs. In previous studies, the blood biomarker test demonstrated 74% accuracy in predicting knee OA progression and 85% accuracy in diagnosing knee OA. The current study further honed the test’s predictive capabilities. Using a large United Kingdom database, the researchers analyzed serum of 200 white women, half diagnosed with OA and the other half without the disease, matched by body mass index and age. They found that a small number of biomarkers in the blood test successfully distinguished the women with knee OA from those without it, catching molecular signals of OA eight years before many of the women were diagnosed with the disease by x-ray. “This is important because it provides more evidence that there are abnormalities in the joint that can be detected by blood biomarkers well before x-rays can detect OA,” Kraus said. “Early-stage osteoarthritis could provide a ‘window of opportunity’ in which to arrest the disease process and restore joint health.” In addition to Kraus, study authors include Shuming Sun, Alexander Reed, Erik J. Soderblom, M Arthur Moseley, Kaile Zhou, Vaibhav Jain, Nigel Arden, and Yi-Ju Li. The study received funding support from National Institutes of Health (R01-AR071450 and P30-AG028716). To read the original article click here.

The post Blood Test Finds Knee Osteoarthritis up to Eight Years Before X-rays appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

NIH Researchers Identify Potential New Antiviral Drug for COVID-19

AHA Publisher — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 07:00:34 +0000

NIH/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development via EurekAlert – The experimental drug TEMPOL may be a promising oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19, suggests a study of cell cultures by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. TEMPOL can limit SARS-CoV-2 infection by impairing the activity of a viral enzyme called RNA replicase. The work was led by researchers at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The study appears in Science. “We urgently need additional effective, accessible treatments for COVID-19,” said Diana W. Bianchi, M.D., NICHD Director. “An oral drug that prevents SARS-CoV-2 from replicating would be an important tool for reducing the severity of the disease.” The study team was led by Tracey A. Rouault, M.D., head of the NICHD Section on Human Iron Metabolism. It discovered TEMPOL’s effectiveness by evaluating a more basic question on how the virus uses its RNA replicase, an enzyme that allows SARS-CoV-2 to replicate its genome and make copies of itself once inside a cell. Researchers tested whether the RNA replicase (specifically the enzyme’s nsp12 subunit) requires iron-sulfur clusters for structural support. Their findings indicate that the SARS-CoV-2 RNA replicase requires two iron-sulfur clusters to function optimally. Earlier studies had mistakenly identified these iron-sulfur cluster binding sites for zinc-binding sites, likely because iron-sulfur clusters degrade easily under standard experimental conditions. Identifying this characteristic of the RNA replicase also enables researchers to exploit a weakness in the virus. TEMPOL can degrade iron-sulfur clusters, and previous research from the Rouault Lab has shown the drug may be effective in other diseases that involve iron-sulfur clusters. In cell culture experiments with live SARS-CoV-2 virus, the study team found that the drug can inhibit viral replication. Based on previous animal studies of TEMPOL in other diseases, the study authors noted that the TEMPOL doses used in their antiviral experiments could likely be achieved in tissues that are primary targets for the virus, such as the salivary glands and the lungs. “Given TEMPOL’s safety profile and the dosage considered therapeutic in our study, we are hopeful,” said Dr. Rouault. “However, clinical studies are needed to determine if the drug is effective in patients, particularly early in the disease course when the virus begins to replicate.” The study team plans on conducting additional animal studies and will seek opportunities to evaluate TEMPOL in a clinical study of COVID-19. To read the original article click here.

The post NIH Researchers Identify Potential New Antiviral Drug for COVID-19 appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

U.S. Government Funded Virus Research Inside China With a $3.7 Million Grant?

AHA Publisher — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 07:00:20 +0000

Sara Middleton, staff writer via NaturalHealth365 – What’s the term you always hear about exercising caution when consuming the news? “Follow the money.” It’s truly a sad state of affairs when the public has to worry about whether their governments were more involved in this coronavirus pandemic than they’ve been led to believe. But, we may just have to look at the paper trail. (NaturalHealth365) As we reported over two months ago, infectious disease experts and others have long speculated that the new and deadly strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, originated in a Chinese lab that studies dangerous pathogens. Now, in a bombshell turn of events, reports are coming out that the U.S. government has been funding this very lab for many years! Coronavirus Research in China Got Financial Support from the U.S. Government The controversial lab in question is a BSL-4 facility at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It’s one of the handful of labs in the world with the highest biosafety certification required to do research on extremely dangerous pathogens like: the Ebola virus, small pox, and yes – coronavirus. The fact that the Wuhan lab conducts experiments with both bats and coronaviruses is a matter of “public record” according to the BBC. Moreover, it turns out that the United States government has been funding this kind of sickening research. No doubt, this video reveals only part of the story. We, at NaturalHealth365, will continue to monitor this story as the facts get revealed. In the video, the White House acknowledges that the lab was given “a substantial amount of money” from the National Institutes of Health during the Obama administration – with reports indicating it was for $3.7 million! If indeed the virus got its true origins at the American-funded Chinese lab, it’s yet to be determined if the virus leaked out accidentally or was maliciously released as a bioweapon. Mainstream Media Finally Recognizes a Disturbing Link Between the U.S. and China Mainstream media outlets are reporting more and more about the potential link between the COVID-19 pandemic and a China laboratory. In an April 17 interview on NPR’s Morning Edition with Steve Inskeep, NPR’s national security correspondent Greg Myre responded to questions about whether he believed the virus that causes COVID-19 did in fact come from Wuhan’s BSL-4 facility. While Myre cautions that there’s still “lots to learn” about the potential link, he goes on to acknowledge that the United States intelligence government is actively investigating the possibility and that, of course, “Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was.” “The intelligence community hasn’t trusted the Chinese explanations, and it sees their ongoing behavior as suspicious,” Myre continues. “But they’re not prepared to make a final assessment.” Also in the interview was a reference to a jaw-dropping statement from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said last week that Beijing “needs to come clean” about the government’s knowledge about where the virus came from and how it spread. Conversely, a study published in March in Nature Medicine found no genetic evidence that the virus was created in a lab, and as recently as April 18th, officials from the Chinese lab itself, including vice director Yuan Zhiming, have vehemently denied the claim. We’ll be watching this news story very closely over the coming days, weeks, and months. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

The post U.S. Government Funded Virus Research Inside China With a $3.7 Million Grant? appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.