Sjgren syndrome

By Mitch Leslie Feb. 11, 2021 , 2:00 PM Maureen Marshall-Doss says the first sign that her vision was deteriorating came when she misidentified the color of a dress. At a backyard get-together about 20 years ago, the Indianapolis resident pointed out an attractive yellow dress another woman was wearing. “You see that as yellow? She’s wearing a pink dress,” Marshall-Doss recalls her husband responding. Today, Marshall-Doss is virtually blind. With help from custom made eyeglasses that magnify objects 500 times, “I can see shapes,” she says. But she can no longer drive and had to quit the job she loved as a school librarian. Along with her dimming vision, she has type 1 diabetes and has lost her sense of taste and smell. Marshall-Doss is one of 15,000 to 30,000 people around the world with Wolfram syndrome, a genetic disease. For decades, the condition remained enigmatic, untreatable, and fatal. But in the past few years, insights into its mechanism have begun to pay off, … [Read more...] about The race to treat a rare, fatal syndrome may help others with common disorders like diabetes

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Tuesday expressed uncertainty about the impact the deadly coronavirus would have on its China production, but one major iPhone manufacturer said it's prepared. Foxconn apparently has a plan to "meet all global manufacturing obligations," even as China restricts travel and enacts quarantine measures. "Foxconn is closely monitoring the current public health challenge linked to the coronavirus and we are applying all recommended health and hygiene practices to all aspects of our operations in the affected markets," it said in an emailed statement. "Our facilities in China are following holiday schedules and will continue to do so until all businesses have resumed standard operating hours."The Taiwanese company didn't offer specific details, but cited its previous experience with SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) -- which killed nearly 800 people and infected more than 8,000 in the early 2000s -- as experience in allocating resources to meet its production … [Read more...] about Apple supplier Foxconn says it can hit production targets despite coronavirus outbreak

Children as young as first graders may be able to get the coronavirus vaccine by the time school starts in September, presuming trials are successful in those age groups, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with ProPublica. “We’re in the process of starting clinical trials in what we call age de-escalation, where you do a clinical trial with people 16 to 12, then 12 to 9, then 9 to 6,” Fauci said. When asked what was the youngest age group that might be authorized for the vaccine by September, he said, “I would think by the time we get to school opening, we likely will be able to get people who come into the first grade.” As optimistic as Fauci is, several pediatricians and infectious disease experts said they wish the pediatric trials would move more quickly. In addition to restoring stability to the education system and parents’ work schedules and keeping kids and those around them safe, vaccinating … [Read more...] about Fauci: Vaccines for first-graders could be authorized by September

James Fallon is a happily married father of three, an award-winning neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, the founder of several successful biotech companies, and a scientific advisor to the US Department of Defense. He is also a psychopath. In 2005, after decades of studying the brain scans of psychopathic killers, Fallon made a startling discovery when examining his own PET scan as part of a separate research project. His brain, Fallon discovered, looked precisely like those of the cold-blooded murderers he’d spent the last 20 years scrutinizing. And after analyzing his DNA, Fallon later uncovered that his genetic profile contained several genes strongly linked to violent, psychopathic behaviors. After Fallon revealed the findings in a 2009 TED Talk, mainstream media latched on: he was profiled on NPR, graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal , and even inspired an episode of the TV series Criminal Minds. Now, however, Fallon is telling his own version … [Read more...] about The devil you know: inside the world of a psychopathic scientist

WASHINGTON (AP)—Remember biology class where you learned that children inherit one copy of a gene from mom and a second from dad? There's a twist: Some of those genes arrive switched off, so there is no backup if the other copy goes bad, making you more vulnerable to disorders from obesity to cancer. Duke University scientists now have identified these "silenced genes," creating the first map of this unique group of about 200 genes believed to play a profound role in people's health. More intriguing, the work marks an important step in studying how our environment—food, stress, pollution—interacts with genes to help determine why some people get sick and others do not. "What we have is a bag of gold nuggets," lead researcher Dr. Randy Jirtle said about the collection of "imprinted" genes. The team's findings were published online Friday by the journal Genome Research . Next comes work to prove exactly what role these genes play. "Some will be real gold and some will be … [Read more...] about ‘Switched Off’ Genes Linked to Obesity, Diabetes