Hello, and welcome back to The Friday Kable. All the life sciences news you need to grok over the weekend so you can start next week smarter.

The death toll in Malawi's ongoing cholera outbreak has crossed 1,300 now.

The US FDA has put an alert out on a weight loss supplement, saying the supplement can cause terminal weight loss thanks to the hidden presence of a banned ingredient Sibutramine. Although if people are buying these supplements from the sketchy website they're being sold on...

In Singapore, the Ministerial Committee on Ageing (MCA) has launched an "Action Plan" for successful ageing. We're guessing the plan goes beyond "Keep Living".

And finally, AstraZeneca may have voided its pipeline of vaccines entirely, but it nevertheless plans to launch 15 new drugs by 2030, with 30 phase 3 trials planned this year alone.

Newsworthy

So long, sepsis. Maternal sepsis occurs in about a million cases every year. It is the 3rd most common cause of death during or after childbirth, and women in low- and middle-income countries are worst affected. The use of azithromycin has been known to reduce maternal infection during C-section delivery. New research shows that even among women planning a vaginal delivery, one 2g intrapartum oral dose of this inexpensive antibiotic could significantly reduce the risk of maternal sepsis or death. However, the use of the drug had barely any effect on newborn sepsis or death.
(The New England Journal of Medicine)

Japan wants its own vaccines. Japan is only now deliberating approval of its first homegrown Covid vaccine, a couple of years after the first Covid vaccines came around and months after even less advanced nations developed their own vaccines. But Japan isn’t one to take this setback lying down. They’ve embarked on a 1.1 trillion yen ($8.5 billion) initiative to ramp up vaccine R&D that could give them a shot for a new virus within 100 days. First outlined in 2021, this funding is now going to basic and applied research, vaccine clinical trials, and expansion of vaccine manufacturing capacity.

This ambitious mission is not without its share of challenges which include not enough stable research jobs and an unclear trajectory of future research funding. In the past, even important research into mRNA vaccines for MERS has been halted due to a lack of funding from both the government and pharma firms. This steady decline in financing for infectious disease research means the country doesn’t have a lot of infectious disease experts, and neither are young scientists entering the field.

But new initiatives, including the 2022 creation of the Strategic Centre of Biomedical Advanced Vaccine Research and Development for Preparedness and Response (SCARDA) are set to change things. The agency will provide grants worth $1.1 billion to research projects and will support vaccine research for coronaviruses, influenza and Zika, among others. Vaccine R&D centres at several universities will receive funding too.

Other funding sources will support vaccine-related startups, vaccine manufacturing, and large clinical trials. On the Covid front, Daiichi Sankyo and Shionogi have applied for regulatory approval, but it’s unclear when decisions will be issued.
(Science)

Cholera cholera everywhere. As of 29 January, 10 African countries have reported approximately 26,000 cases and 660 deaths from cholera this year. In one month alone, they’ve crossed 30% of the continent’s total caseload in all of 2022. The acceptable fatality ratio for cholera is below 1%, but that number currently stands at 3%.

Malawi is seeing the worst of the situation, with its most severe cholera outbreak in 20 years. Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are dealing with the outbreak amidst a harsh drought. Mozambique, Zambia, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo and Nigeria have also reported cases.

So far, the WHO has deployed 65 experts to 5 countries on the continent and disbursed $6 million for emergency cholera response in Malawi, Kenya and Mozambique. Through the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, 3.3 million doses of cholera vaccines are going to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Mozambique. These will be administered as a single dose rather than the standard double dose due to a vaccine shortage caused by global outbreaks. The shortage is set to worsen if there is a further surge in outbreaks. And the fact that one of the only 2 producers of cholera vaccines for emergency use is going to stop supply by the end of this year.
(WHO)

R&D

Doing away with diabetes. New research published in Nature Metabolism indicates that tiny gene fragments called microexons, which are usually found in neuronal cells, are also present in pancreatic islets. Of the 100+ pancreatic islet microexons discovered, most were found on genes critical to insulin secretion, so these microexons could potentially be new therapeutic targets for diabetes treatment.
(Nature Metabolism)

Keeping kids alive and kicking. Research suggests that genetic diseases contribute to infant deaths more than expected. At 41%, they were the most commonly identifiable cause of infant mortality. Treatments that are effective in improving outcomes were available for only 30% of the genetic diseases. But in 5 of the 7 cases studied post-mortem in this study, death could have been avoided with rapid, diagnostic whole-genome sequencing. Last year, Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine announced a programme to evaluate the scalability of a precision medicine tool to screen newborns for 500 genetic diseases even before symptoms appear. This could substantially reduce infant mortality, which claims about 1 in 200 live births in the US.
(JAMA Network Open)

Same same, but different. Apparently, we’re not too different from bacteria when it comes to combatting pathogenic invaders. Scientists have found that bacteria alter their cGAS (cyclic GMP-AMP synthase, a protein critical for mounting a downstream defence in both humans and bacteria) using a version of ubiquitin transferase (a complex enzyme collection). In humans, this enzyme collection controls immune signalling and other important cellular processes. This discovery opens up possibilities for lots of bacterial manipulation to research similar mechanisms in human cells. Maybe in the future, it will lead to treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and Parkinson’s.
(Nature)

More clarity on adHD. In a massive study of over 6 million genetic variants in 38,691 people with ADHD and 186,843 without, researchers have identified 27 genetic risk variants for ADHD. This is double the risk variants found by previous studies. The researchers have found which particular tissues and cell types are affected in people with ADHD and that gene expression in the relevant genes is high even at the embryonic stage.
(Nature Genetics)

Why Tom can’t catch Jerry. Scientists have found a group of superfast muscle fibres in mice using an integrated mass spectrometry method. Usually found in areas specific to ultra-high speeds and endurance, like human eyes and hummingbird wings, the scientists were surprised to find these superfast muscle fibres in mice legs. Finding such fibres in mammalian limbs is important for the field of regenerative medicine because they could be used to improve neuromuscular coordination in humans and treat conditions like Parkinson’s disease.
(Science Advances)

The Kibble

Drinking away your sorrows? Suffering from Covid may also have meant suffering a bunch of unexpected symptoms for you. Researchers set out to investigate whether there was any association between a recent Covid infection and the onset of a new alcohol use disorder. They found a strong positive correlation at the start of the pandemic, which then subsided, and then rollercoasted up and down again at different points in the pandemic. The results indicate that the risk of a new alcohol use disorder may have had more to do with the fear, anxiety or isolation caused by the pandemic rather than the infection itself.
(JAMA Network Open)

Cut the calories, stay young. In the first-ever randomised controlled trial of its kind, scientists studied the effects of long-term calorie restriction on the rate of ageing in healthy individuals. They analysed biomarkers linked to biological age to find that restricting caloric intake can slow the pace of ageing by 2-3%. We only wish someone had told this guy.
(Nature Aging)

Fooling mosquitoes. Scientists no longer have to wait around for people to get bitten by some pathogen-carrying mosquito to study potential new repellents. They can now use 3D-printed biocompatible hydrogels to mimic skin and observe mosquito feeding behaviour. This fake skin could be useful in the surveillance of infection in wild mosquitoes and also as a low-cost, ethical system to test repellents.
(Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology)

Chronically tired? If you have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or myalgic encephalomyelitis), your gut microbiome likely has stark differences compared to people without the condition. Researchers have found significant variation in the levels of 9 microbes in people with and without CFS; notably, people suffering from CFA have 35% less of the Faecalibacterium prausnitzii bacteria. Anti-inflammatory molecules are mainly produced by these F. prausnitzii, so decrease in the levels of these bacteria may be resulting in excess inflammation in people with this condition.
(Cell Host & Microbe)

Bottom line

Stone Age tech. An excavation site on the shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya has unearthed stone tools, teeth from ancient human relatives known as Paranthropus, and fossilized animal remains, including hippo remains that look like our human cousins may have really hacked away at them with their stone tools. These remains are somewhere between 2.6 to 3 million years old, making them the oldest discovered Oldowan tools, which were so far thought of as specific to the Homo genus. This discovery has now left scientists with the question that maybe our direct relatives in the Homo lineage were not the only stone tech-savvy creatures around back then?
(Science)

Nothing lasts forever (1). Whoever said that probably hadn’t heard of PFASs. If no action is taken to limit the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) (also known as forever chemicals), authorities estimate that 4.4 million tonnes of PFASs would end up in the environment in the next 3 decades. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published a proposal restricting around 10,000 PFASs. The ECHA’s scientific committees will soon begin evaluating the proposal prepared by 5 European countries, assessing whether it will effectively minimise risks to human health, the environment, and socioeconomic wellbeing. If adopted, the European Commission, along with the EU Member States, will make a decision on the restriction. An online info session for those interested in participating in the consultation is scheduled for 5 April.
(ECHA)

Nothing lasts forever (2). Recently we wrote about Patagonia and other companies racing to make their apparel PFAS-free, with state-level bans in New York, California and Maine coming into effect in the next few years. Now the American Apparel & Footwear Association has also put PFAS on its list of restricted substances.

Brands like Jack Wolfskin, Vaude Sport, Haglof, Fjällräven and Patagonia are leading the way. But until stricter regulation comes around, people have to figure out on their own how safe the products they’re buying are, especially with no labelling requirements currently in place.
(Bloomberg)

Making farming greener. Our food systems aren’t exactly climate-friendly, what with cows burping methane and synthetic fertilisers emitting gigatonnes of carbon every year. Scientists have found that 2/3rds of synthetic fertiliser-linked emissions occur during their use in fields rather than during their production process. From using water electrolysis during production to using nitrogen inhibitors in the field, scientists have come up with more efficient ways to use fertilisers, which could reduce the amount of fertilisers used and, therefore, their corresponding emissions by up to a fifth of current levels by 2050. All without impacting crop productivity.
(Nature Food)

Oh, and Gopal Nair doesn't want you to see this.