Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific AmericanIt is Science quicklymy name is Kendra Pierre-Louis, I’m replacing Rachel Feltman. You are listening to our weekly summary of scientific news.
Let’s start with a vaccine at 180. In a sudden turnaround last Wednesday The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has agreed to review Moderna’s new mRNA flu vaccine, according to the company. The announcement came about a week after Moderna revealed that the FDA had rejected its application.
The company said the agency initially rated the plan for the vaccine’s Phase 3 trials as “acceptable.” But his stance changed after top FDA official Vinay Prasad overruled the agency’s reviewers, according to STATUS. Modern press release Of the rejection, the FDA said the company’s study was not “adequate and well-controlled.” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, said CIDRAP News that, I quote: “The trial design that they used is essentially the trial design that every flu vaccine has used. »
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Following the initial refusal Bloomberg reported that Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel found the agency unpredictable. He said that if the FDA continues to behave this way, it, quote, “threatens America’s leadership in innovative medicines.”
Speaking of innovative medicines, a new study published last Thursday describes a single vaccine that could offer protection against several respiratory diseases at the same time. An additional advantage? The vaccine would be inhaled – no needles needed.
The work, led by a Stanford University researcher and published in the journal Sciencetakes a new approach to vaccines which, since their beginnings, have relied on what is called antigenic specificity. This means they mimic a specific aspect of a pathogen to train what is called the adaptive immune system to recognize and fight the infection. For example, COVID vaccines target the spike protein of the virus.
The adaptive immune system is our targeted, slower-acting defense mechanism. It also has memory, so the next time we are exposed to this pathogen, we will know how to fight it – this is one of the many advantages of this vaccine development technique. But there are also disadvantages.
The pathogen may mutate quickly or a new pathogen may emerge, making the vaccine less effective – this is what requires annual COVID and flu vaccines. And the specificity of this method means that the vaccine only works against the targeted pathogen, requiring multiple vaccines.
But in this study, instead of focusing on mimicking aspects of viruses and bacteria, the researchers looked at how immune cells communicate during infection and mimicked those signals. The goal was partly to trigger the innate immune system. Under normal circumstances, the adaptive immune system can take days or even weeks to respond, but the innate immune system contains fast-response generalists that respond to infection within minutes. They are the body’s first line of defense against infections, but this protection usually does not last very long.
Researchers in this case developed an inhaled vaccine designed to stimulate both the adaptive immune system targeted by most vaccines as well as the innate immune system cells in the lungs.
The vaccine was tested on mice, which were given different doses and then exposed to COVID-19 as well as other coronaviruses that cause illnesses like the common cold. Mice that received three doses a week apart fared much better than their unvaccinated peers. Researchers found that the vaccine effectively triggered the innate immune system and kept it functioning longer than normal. This significantly reduced the mice’s viral load, and any virus that slipped through was quickly greeted by a primed adaptive immune system. All vaccinated mice survived, while most unvaccinated mice did not.
The researchers also tested mice with bacterial respiratory infections and found, once again, that the vaccine provided protection. And there was another happy benefit: The mice also seemed less susceptible to respiratory allergies after inoculation.
There are some caveats to this study, namely that the research was done on mice, not humans, and that protection lasted about three months. But it is a hopeful first step.
Also on the theme of breathing, a study published last Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine suggests that exposure to air pollution can directly increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
The study focused on a specific type of fine particle pollution called PM2.5, which refers to its maximum size of 2.5 micrometers, or about 30 times smaller than a strand of human hair. The tiny particles, often generated when we burn fossil fuels, have been linked to heart attacks and strokes. They are also thought to be responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths each year. the United States
A team from Emory University examined nationwide health data on approximately 28 million Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 or older between 2000 and 2018. The researchers then compared this data with individual levels of exposure to PM2.5 pollution. And although some PM2.5-related conditions are also risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers found that this pollution exposure increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease independent of these other comorbidities.
In a press release, they said: “We found that long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution was associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, largely through direct effects on the brain rather than common chronic diseases such as hypertension, stroke or depression. »
Change gear, the Artemis II The lunar mission had another wet dress rehearsal last Thursday. by SciAm Space and Physics Editor Lee Billings is here with an update.
Lee Billings: So what we need to know is that the “wet dress rehearsal“when is that Artemis II The hardware, the Space Launch System megarocket and the Orion capsule, are stacked on the launch pad, and a large amount of fuel is pumped into the Space Launch System rocket, the SLS rocket. The last time this happened there were a lot of hydrogen leaks. The SLS uses hydrogen as part of its rocket fuel, and the hydrogen, of course, is very small. It is the smallest atom in the universe. It is one of the simplest molecules when two hydrogen atoms come together. It therefore flows very easily through the smallest holes and gaps. And they had numerous hydrogen leaks which caused delays for the last wet dress rehearsal this also had the consequence of delaying the launch itself, which was supposed to take place in early February.
Now, good news, this time there was no hydrogen leak, which is shocking. It’s remarkable that they managed to get this giant rocket to be fully loaded with fuel and not spew hydrogen everywhere.
So after the wet dress rehearsal, the next step is, well, to actually go to the moon. [Laughs.] There are certainly a number of things that could get in the way between now and the launch window opening. Because of celestial mechanics, the way the Moon moves around the Earth, they can’t launch at any time. In reality, we only have about a week at the start of each month to make this feasible and ideal. We’ll see how it goes.
The important thing to remember is that this is the first human return to the Moon since 1972. They will not land on the Moon, this crew of four, but they will circle it in what is called a free return trajectory. And that will potentially take them more than 4,500 miles beyond the far side of the Moon, making them the farthest astronauts ever; that’s a bit further than any Apollo astronaut of old.
And there are other firsts associated with it as well. He will be the first black person to go to the Moon. She will be the first woman to go to the moon, the first Canadian to go to the moon. They will also bring with them in the Orion capsule the first space toilet to the moon, which is pretty cool. Apparently the Apollo astronauts only had bags and things like that to deal with. So lots of excitement, an adventure ahead, even if we’re not actually going to land on the moon. These future landing missions are supposed to begin as early as mid-2027, but most people think they will be delayed beyond that date. This would be the Artemis III assignment.
Pierre-Louis: Thanks for that, Lee.
And finally, we’ll finish with some dinosaur news. An article published last Thursday in the journal Science details the discovery of a new species of spinosaurid, Spinosaurus mirabilis. Spinosaurids were large, two-legged carnivores. Their name comes from the fact that many species in the family had large bony spines on their backs, which formed sail-like structures. Perhaps the most famous spinosaurid is Spinosaurus Egyptian which appeared in Jurassic Park III in an epic battle with a T. rex.
When researchers first came across fossils of Spinosaurus mirabilis in the Niger desert in 2019, they did not initially recognize it as a new species. It was necessary to go back to 2022 with a much larger team to confirm that they had discovered a new species. One telltale feature was the creature’s distinctive bony crest, which researchers describe as scimitar-shaped.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of this new discovery is where the bones were found: in the interior of Niger, approximately 300 to 600 miles from the coast. Spinosaurid fossils have historically been found near the coast, so much so that some researchers have hypothesized that the fish-eating dinosaurs may have been entirely aquatic. The fossil record suggests however that Spinosaurus mirabilis lived in a forest landscape crisscrossed by rivers.
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Science quickly is produced by me, Kendra Pierre-Louis, with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck check in on our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more recent and in-depth scientific news.
For Scientific American, This is Kendra Pierre-Louis. Have a good week!