Patient organisations and charities are at risk of aligning their interests with their corporate funders even when this doesn't benefit their members, according to a new study led by the University of Bath in the UK. To combat this, the researchers are calling for action to safeguard the independence of patient groups.

New Haven, Conn. — In 2020, the federal minimum age for buying tobacco products was officially raised from 18 to 21 as an increasing number of states and localities across the country sought to raise the age for tobacco purchases to protect the health of young adults.

 

One of the driving factors behind the change was a 2015 report from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) that found that a federal Tobacco 21 (T21) law could prevent as many as 249,000 deaths through the year 2100.

 

A new study led by Yale researchers with the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) Lung Working Group has now determined that the NAM report grossly underestimated the number of averted deaths. The findings significantly amplify the potential impact of the T21 law and provide important new information for future state and local policy discussions surrounding tobacco regulation and public health.

Fighting cancer can seem like a deadly game of chance. While some patients may respond well to certain treatments, others might not be as fortunate. Doctors and scientists have long struggled to explain why. Now, in new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Shelley Berger, PhD, the Daniel S. Och University Professor and Director of Penn’s Epigentics Institute, and Katherine Alexander, PhD, currently an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have found a possible source of this variability in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC)—the most common kidney cancer diagnosed in adults. The findings of their study were published today in Nature Cell Biology.

New Haven, Conn. — Lissencephaly is a spectrum of rare, genetic disorders in which the brain fails to develop its hallmark folds. The disorders are often associated with seizures and intellectual disability and currently there are no available treatments.

 

A new Yale study, however, has identified a molecular mechanism that underlies some lissencephaly disorders — and a drug that prevents and reverses lissencephaly malformations in organoids (small, three-dimensional replicas of developing brains that allow scientists to study early brain development).

 

The findings, reported Jan. 1 in Nature, may point to a target for treatment, researchers say.

“Lissencephaly belongs to a group of disorders we call malformations of cortical development, meaning the normal development and structure of the brain is disrupted,” said Angeliki Louvi, professor of neurosurgery and of neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and co-senior author of the study. “They come about because certain genes that are very important for brain development are affected by rare mutations.”

One or two doses of psilocybin, a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms, may improve the mental health of cancer patients when accompanied by psychotherapy, a new report suggests. A second new study found that treatment with psilocybin resulted in lasting, positive personality changes in patients with alcohol use disorder.