Latest news with #RuhrUniversityBochum
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Yeast cells brew human DNase1 for first time, paving way for cheaper treatment
DNase1 is a powerful human enzyme that breaks down free DNA in the body. It plays a critical role in clearing thick mucus in cystic fibrosis patients. For decades, scientists have relied on expensive production methods using immortalized hamster cells. But that could change, thanks to new research that shows the enzyme can be made using yeast cells instead. A team from Ruhr University Bochum, led by Professor Beate Brand-Saberi and Dr. Markus Napirei, has successfully produced human DNase1 in yeast for the first time. 'This is the result of years of work, and could lay the groundwork for the manufacture of human DNase1 in yeast as a biological agent,' said Napirei. The research team used the yeast fungus Pichia pastoris, a well-known system for producing therapeutic proteins. They implanted lab-produced DNA into the yeast using an electric pulse. The yeast stably integrated the gene, read it, and began releasing human DNase1. 'The advantages of yeast over mammalian cells are cost-effective culture conditions, a high rate of reproduction without the need to immortalize cells, and lower susceptibility to pathogens,' explained Napirei. Mammalian cells like those from hamster ovaries have been used for DNase1 production since 1993. However, they must be chemically or genetically altered to keep dividing indefinitely. This immortalization adds complexity, cost, and time to the process. Doctoral student Jan-Ole Krischek, under Napirei's and Professor Hans Georg Mannherz's supervision, was able to express, purify, and analyze the enzyme in yeast. This marks the first time human DNase1 has been produced using this method. Despite the success, researchers found that the yeast produced far less human DNase1 than expected. In comparison, it made more of a similar mouse version of the enzyme. 'This is partly due to the specific folding behaviors of the two proteins,' Napirei said. Mouse DNase1 shares 82% of its primary structure with the human form. The team had used it as a model, but the structural differences affected production. Human DNase1 is already in clinical use. It has been produced from hamster ovary cells for over three decades to treat cystic fibrosis. The enzyme breaks down DNA in thick bronchial mucus, making it easier for patients to breathe and cough it out. DNase1 also holds promise in other medical areas. It helps remove neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), which the body uses to trap bacteria. In diseases like sepsis or COVID-19, NETs can become overactive and form dangerous microthrombi. 'It could be useful to use DNase1 to better dissolve these microthrombi that contain DNA,' said Napirei. Researchers are also exploring DNase1's role in treating strokes caused by blocked brain arteries. Producing DNase1 in yeast could significantly lower costs and simplify manufacturing. This could improve global access to treatments for cystic fibrosis and potentially open doors to new therapeutic uses. With the groundwork now laid, further research may optimize yield and unlock broader medical applications. Their findings were published in PLOS One.
WIRED
11-05-2025
- Science
- WIRED
Intelligence on Earth Evolved Independently at Least Twice
May 11, 2025 7:00 AM Complex neural circuits likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times. Illustration: Samantha Mash for Quanta Magazine The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions, and think critically. But we can't claim a monopoly on thought. Among a variety of nonhuman species known to display intelligent behavior, birds have been shown time and again to have advanced cognitive abilities. Ravens plan for the future, crows count and use tools, cockatoos open and pillage booby-trapped garbage cans, and chickadees keep track of tens of thousands of seeds cached across a landscape. Notably, birds achieve such feats with brains that look completely different from ours: They're smaller and lack the highly organized structures that scientists associate with mammalian intelligence. 'A bird with a 10-gram brain is doing pretty much the same as a chimp with a 400-gram brain,' said Onur Güntürkün, who studies brain structures at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. 'How is it possible?' Researchers have long debated about the relationship between avian and mammalian intelligences. One possibility is that intelligence in vertebrates—animals with backbones, including mammals and birds—evolved once. In that case, both groups would have inherited the complex neural pathways that support cognition from a common ancestor: a lizardlike creature that lived 320 million years ago, when Earth's continents were squished into one landmass. The other possibility is that the kinds of neural circuits that support vertebrate intelligence evolved independently in birds and mammals. It's hard to track down which path evolution took, given that any trace of the ancient ancestor's actual brain vanished in a geological blink. So biologists have taken other approaches—such as comparing brain structures in adult and developing animals today—to piece together how this kind of neurobiological complexity might have emerged. A series of studies published in Science in February 2025 provides the best evidence yet that birds and mammals did not inherit the neural pathways that generate intelligence from a common ancestor, but rather evolved them independently. This suggests that vertebrate intelligence arose not once, but multiple times. Still, their neural complexity didn't evolve in wildly different directions: Avian and mammalian brains display surprisingly similar circuits, the studies found. 'It's a milestone in the quest to understand and to integrate the different ideas about the evolution' of vertebrate intelligence, said Güntürkün, who was not involved in the new research. When Fernando García-Moreno started his lab at the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience, he knew he wanted to probe how the pallium region of the vertebrate brain evolved using a breadth of different methods. Photograph: Tatiana Gallego Flores The findings emerge in a world enraptured by artificial forms of intelligence, and they could teach us something about how complex circuits in our own brains evolved. Perhaps most importantly, they could help us step 'away from the idea that we are the best creatures in the world,' said Niklas Kempynck, a graduate student at KU Leuven who led one of the studies. 'We are not this optimal solution to intelligence.' Birds got there too, on their own. Pecking Disorder For the first half of the 20th century, neuroanatomists assumed that birds were simply not that smart. The creatures lack anything resembling a neocortex—the highly ordered outermost structure in the brains of humans and other mammals where language, communication, and reasoning reside. The neocortex is organized into six layers of neurons, which receive sensory information from other parts of the brain, process it, and send it out to regions that determine our behavior and reactions. In the 1960s, the neuroanatomist Harvey Karten's research into avian neural circuits changed how the field viewed bird intelligence. 'For the longest time, it was thought that this is the center of cognition, and you need this kind of anatomy to develop advanced cognitive abilities,' said Bastienne Zaremba, a postdoctoral researcher studying the evolution of the brain at Heidelberg University. Rather than neat layers, birds have 'unspecified balls of neurons without landmarks or distinctions,' said Fernando García-Moreno, a neurobiologist at the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience in Spain. These structures compelled neuroanatomists a century ago to suggest that much of bird behavior is reflexive, and not driven by learning and decision-making. This 'implies that what a mammal can learn easily, a bird will never learn,' Güntürkün said. The conventional thinking started to change in the 1960s when Harvey Karten, a young neuroanatomist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, mapped and compared brain circuits in mammals and pigeons, and later in owls, chickens, and other birds. What he found was a surprise: The brain regions thought to be involved only in reflexive movements were built from neural circuits—networks of interconnected neurons—that resembled those found in the mammalian neocortex. This region in the bird brain, the dorsal ventricular ridge (DVR), seemed to be comparable to a neocortex; it just didn't look like it. In 1969, Karten wrote a 'very influential paper that completely changed the discussion in the field,' said Maria Tosches, who studies vertebrate brain development at Columbia University. 'His work was really revolutionary.' He concluded that because avian and mammalian circuits are similar, they were inherited from a common ancestor. That thinking dominated the field for decades, said Güntürkün, a former postdoc in Karten's lab. It 'sparked quite a lot of interest in the bird brain.' 'We are not this optimal solution to intelligence.' A few decades later, Luis Puelles, an anatomist at the University of Murcia in Spain, drew the opposite conclusion. By comparing embryos at various stages of development, he found that the mammalian neocortex and the avian DVR developed from distinct areas of the embryo's pallium—a brain region shared by all vertebrates. He concluded that the structures must have evolved independently. Karten and Puelles were 'giving completely different answers to this big question,' Tosches said. The debate continued for decades. During this time, biologists also began to appreciate bird intelligence, starting with their studies of Alex, an African gray parrot who could count and identify objects. They realized just how smart birds could be. However, neither group seemed to want to resolve the discrepancy between their two theories of how vertebrate palliums evolved, according to García-Moreno. 'No, they kept working on their own method,' he said. One camp continued to compare the circuitry in adult vertebrate brains; the other focused on embryonic development. In the new studies, he said, 'we tried to put everything together.' Same but Not the Same Two new studies, which were conducted by independent teams of researchers, relied on the same powerful tool for identifying cell types, known as single-cell RNA sequencing. This technique lets researchers compare neuronal circuits, as Karten did, not only in adult brains but all the way through embryonic development, following Puelles. In this way, they could see where the cells started growing in the embryo and where they ended up in the mature animal—a developmental journey that can reveal evolutionary pathways. For their study, García-Moreno and his team wanted to watch how brain circuitry develops. Using RNA sequencing and other techniques, they tracked cells in the palliums of chickens, mice, and geckos at various embryonic stages to time-stamp when different types of neurons were generated and where they matured. They found that the mature circuits looked remarkably alike across animals, just as Karten and others had noted, but they were built differently, as Puelles had found. The circuits that composed the mammalian neocortex and the avian DVR developed at different times, in different orders, and in different regions of the brain. Illustration: Mark Belan/Quanta Magazine; source: Science 387, 732 (2025) At the same time, García-Moreno was collaborating with Zaremba and her colleagues at Heidelberg University. Using RNA sequencing, they created 'the most comprehensive atlas of the bird pallium that we have,' said Tosches, who wrote a related perspective piece published in Science. By comparing the bird pallium to lizard and mouse palliums, they also found that the neocortex and DVR were built with similar circuitry—however, the neurons that composed those neural circuits were distinct. 'How we end up with similar circuitry was more flexible than I would have expected,' Zaremba said. 'You can build the same circuits from different cell types.' Zaremba and her team also found that in the bird pallium, neurons that start development in different regions can mature into the same type of neuron in the adult. This pushed against previous views, which held that distinct regions of the embryo must generate different types of neurons. There's limited degrees of freedom into which you can generate an intelligent brain, at least within vertebrates. In mammals, brain development follows an intuitive path: The cells in the embryo's amygdala region at the start of development end up in the adult amygdala. The cells in the embryo's cortex region end up in the adult cortex. But in birds, 'there is a fantastic reorganization of the forebrain,' Güntürkün said, that is 'nothing that we had expected.' Taken together, the studies provide the clearest evidence yet that birds and mammals independently evolved brain regions for complex cognition. They also echo previous research from Tosches' lab, which found that the mammalian neocortex evolved independently from the reptile DVR. Still, it seems likely there was some inheritance from a common ancestor. In a third study that used deep learning, Kempynck and his coauthor Nikolai Hecker found that mice, chickens, and humans share some stretches of DNA that influence the development of the neocortex or DVR, suggesting that similar genetic tools are at work in both types of animals. And as previous studies had suggested, the research groups found that inhibitory neurons, or those that silence and modulate neural signals, were conserved across birds and mammals. The findings haven't completely resolved Karten and Puelles' debate, however. Whose ideas were closer to the truth? Tosches said that Puelles was right, while Güntürkün thought the findings better reflect Karten's ideas, though would partly please Puelles. García-Moreno split the difference: 'Both of them were right; none of them was wrong,' he said. How to Build Intelligence Intelligence doesn't come with an instruction manual. It is hard to define, there are no ideal steps toward it, and it doesn't have an optimal design, Tosches said. Innovations can happen throughout an animal's biology, whether in new genes and their regulation, or in new neuron types, circuits, and brain regions. But similar innovations can evolve multiple times independently—a phenomenon known as convergent evolution—and this is seen across life. 'One of the reasons I kind of like these papers is that they really highlight a lot of differences,' said Bradley Colquitt, a molecular neuroscientist at UC Santa Cruz. 'It allows you to say: What are the different neural solutions that these organisms have come up with to solve similar problems of living in a complex world and being able to adapt in a rapidly changing terrestrial environment?' Octopuses and squids, independently of mammals, evolved camera-like eyes. Birds, bats and insects all took to the skies on their own. Ancient people in Egypt and South America independently built pyramids—the most structurally efficient shape that will stand the test of time, García-Moreno said: 'If they make a tower, it will fall. If they make a wall, it won't work.' Similarly, 'there's limited degrees of freedom into which you can generate an intelligent brain, at least within vertebrates,' Tosches said. Drift outside the realm of vertebrates, however, and you can generate an intelligent brain in much weirder ways—from our perspective, anyway. 'It's a Wild West,' she said. Octopuses, for example, 'evolved intelligence in a way that's completely independent.' Their cognitive structures look nothing like ours, except that they're built from the same broad type of cell: the neuron. Yet octopuses have been caught performing incredible feats such as escaping aquarium tanks, solving puzzles, unscrewing jar lids and carrying shells as shields. It would be exciting to figure out how octopuses evolved intelligence using really divergent neural structures, Colquitt said. That way, it might be possible to pinpoint any absolute constraints on evolving intelligence across all animal species, not just vertebrates. Such findings could eventually reveal shared features of various intelligences, Zaremba said. What are the building blocks of a brain that can think critically, use tools, or form abstract ideas? That understanding could help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence—and help improve our artificial intelligence. For example, the way we currently think about using insights from evolution to improve AI is very anthropocentric. 'I would be really curious to see if we can build like artificial intelligence from a bird perspective,' Kempynck said. 'How does a bird think? Can we mimic that?' Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.
New York Post
07-05-2025
- Health
- New York Post
Study finds surprising new link between lefties, autism and schizophrenia
Need a hand? An estimated 10% of people in the world are left-handed — and suffer from a societal bias than spans back centuries. Now, a new study published in the journal Psychological Bulletin has more bad news for people who prefer humanity's less popular hand. New research shows lefties are more likely to have psychotic disorders. Suriyawut – The comprehensive meta-analysis found that individuals with early-onset disorders characterized by language impairments — such as autism, schizophrenia and dyslexia — are significantly more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous compared to the general population. Previous studies have shown that people who are left-handed or ambidextrous are disproportionally likely to have these disorders, but the reasons behind this phenomenon have been unclear — until now. 'We suspected that left- and mixed- handedness could be associated with disorders whose symptoms are related to language,' lead author Dr. Julian Packheiser. a researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, said in a press release. The study emphasizes that this association is particularly strong in disorders that manifest early in life and involve language difficulties. In contrast, conditions that develop later in life, such as depression, do not exhibit this link. 'Language, like handedness, has a very one-sided location in the brain, so it stands to reason that the development of both and their disorders could be linked,' Packheiser said. The study emphasizes that this association is particularly strong in disorders that manifest early in life and involve language difficulties. andriano_cz – For much of history, being left-handed was viewed not just as unusual but as outright devilish. In fact, in Latin, the word 'sinister' means left. Throughout medieval Europe, left-handed people were often associated with witchcraft, devil worship, or moral deviance. This bias persisted well into the 20th century, with many children forcibly trained to use their right hands in school, sometimes through physical punishment. In certain parts of the world — such as India and other parts of Asia — it is considered 'rude' to eat with your left hand, as it is reserved for 'unclean' tasks, further reinforcing a sense of 'wrongness.' Modern neuroscience has added more nuance to the picture. While some studies do suggest that lefties are more likely to have psychotic disorders, other research has linked left-handedness to enhanced creativity and spatial reasoning. Being left-handed is also a known advantage is many sports, such as baseball, tennis and boxing. Some reportedly famous lefties include Barack Obama, John McCain, Benjamin Franklin, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DaVinci, Justin Bieber and the Boston Strangler.
Daily News Egypt
24-03-2025
- Business
- Daily News Egypt
New German ambassador presents credentials to Egypt's President Al-Sisi
Germany's new ambassador to Egypt, Jürgen Schulz, presented his credentials to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Monday during an official ceremony held in Cairo. Following the presentation, Ambassador Schulz emphasised the significance of the relationship between Germany and Egypt, characterising Egypt as a strategic partner for Germany in areas encompassing foreign policy, economic collaboration, cultural exchange, and scientific cooperation. Schulz conveyed his dedication to reinforcing bilateral connections across a range of sectors. He reaffirmed his commitment to enhancing German-Egyptian cooperation in ways that serve the shared interests of both nations. Prior to this appointment, Schulz, a career diplomat, held positions at German embassies in Ankara and New York. He also served in significant roles within Germany's diplomatic service. Recently, Schulz travelled to North Sinai, where he conducted an assessment of the conditions in Arish and at the Rafah border crossing. During this visit, he engaged with local authorities and representatives from aid organisations to discuss initiatives aimed at alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The German ambassador commended Egypt's continuous efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza and to facilitate the delivery of aid. He highlighted these actions as evidence of the robust relationship between the two countries. Schulz holds a degree in economics from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. His personal interests include classical music, sports, and contemporary literature.
