The Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network (BEACON), an open-source infectious diseases monitoring tool powered by AI and human experts, launches. BEACON is housed at Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases and operated in partnership with the Hariri Institute for Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University and HealthMap at Boston Children’s Hospital.  

The global burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is rising, with more than 800 million people affected worldwide. Vascular diseases in patients with CKD are unique and grouped as uremic vascular diseases. One of them, calciphylaxis, typically affects patients with end-stage, advanced kidney disease. It is a condition characterized by severe, painful and non-healing skin ulcers with no known cure.

For the first time, researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in collaboration with the Massachusetts General Hospital, have discovered a novel biological pathway, called the IL6 pathway, central to the skin lesion initiation and progression. Blocking this pathway they believe, will likely prevent progression of the skin ulcers and resolve the pain seen in patients with calciphylaxis.