SMC Spain

A team of Chinese researchers report today in the journal Nature Communications the successful cloning of a rhesus monkey, with a healthy placenta, which survived for more than two years. According to the authors, this could improve the efficiency of the monkey cloning process, which so far is very low. Previously, different teams have cloned more mammalian species, including 'Dolly the sheep' and another species of macaque (Macaca fascicularis).

The influenza epidemic could have reached its peak of activity in Primary Care in the last week of 2023, while hospitalization due to influenza continues to rise, according to the latest weekly SiVIRA report published by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Thus, during the first week of 2024 there has been a decrease in the primary care rate for influenza: 387 cases per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 430 cases the previous week. This is the first decrease in incidence in four weeks.

A study published in the journal BMJ Oncology shows a preliminary stage test for the detection of 18 solid tumors of different organs based on the blood plasma proteome.

A team led by the Princess Máxima Pediatric Oncology Center and the Hubrecht Institute (The Netherlands) has generated small 3D brain models--known as organoids--from human fetal brain tissue. Until now, these brain organoids-which attempt to resemble real organs on a miniature scale-were grown in the laboratory using pluripotent or embryonic stem cells. The new technique, published in the journal Cell, allows regions of brain tissue to self-organize into three-dimensional brain structures. The authors used these organoids and the CRISPR-Cas9 tool to simulate the development of one type of brain tumor, glioblastoma, and see how it responded to different drugs.

A spill of plastic pellets from containers from the merchant ship Toconao has reached several areas of the Galician coastline. For its part, the Government of Asturias has upgraded the Accidental Marine Pollution Plan to phase 2 due to the detection of microplastics on the coast.

A Danish study involving over half a million individuals aged 50 and above, tracked for an average of nearly nine years, reveals that hearing loss is associated with a higher risk of dementia, particularly among those who do not use hearing aids. According to the authors, whose research is published in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, this suggests that hearing aids may prevent or delay the onset and progression of dementia.

A study carried out in two hospitals in Denmark has compared the brain health of 120 patients admitted for covid over 18 months with that of other hospitalized patients with similar severity due to pneumonia, heart attack or need for intensive care, as well as with healthy people. The conclusions are that patients with covid worsened with respect to the latter, but did so in a similar way to other hospitalized persons. According to the authors, "although studies are needed to confirm these findings, brain health after covid-19 appears generally comparable to that of other diseases of similar severity."

For the treatment of many diseases it is necessary to use large molecules that do not resist the digestion process and must be injected. Now, a group of scientists at the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering in Lausanne (Switzerland) has developed a method for synthesizing a type of protein called cyclic peptides, capable of binding to varied and complex targets, and they have done so in a way that makes them capable of being administered orally. According to the press release accompanying the publication, this opens "a new era in drug development".

A study that has analysed more than three million pregnancies with more than 130,000 miscarriages has concluded that the use of benzodiazepines during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage. The results are published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.