A new study by the Genomics and Microbial Evolution Group at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) together with the Department of Host-Microbe Interactions at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA, sheds light on one of the great enigmas of microbiology: why only certain strains of common bacteria become pandemic pathogens. The work, published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), focuses on Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera. It reveals that its most dangerous form arises from a specific combination of genes and allelic variants that give it an advantage in the human intestine. This research could pave the way for new strategies to predict and prevent future cholera outbreaks.
The study results from a collaboration between UMH researcher Mario López Pérez and Professor Salvador Almagro-Moreno of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It also involved UMH Professor José M. Haro Moreno and predoctoral researcher Alicia Campos López, affiliated with the Department of Plant Production and Microbiology.
Through an extensive analysis of over 1,840 Vibrio cholerae genomes, the researchers identified eleven distinct phylogenetic clusters, with the pandemic group belonging to the largest and located within a lineage shared with environmental strains. Their findings suggest that the emergence of pandemic strains, responsible for global cholera outbreaks, is largely dependent on the acquisition of unique modular gene clusters and allelic variations that confer a competitive advantage during intestinal colonization.. These act as nonlinear filters that prevent most environmental strains from becoming human pathogens.
As a result, only a small group of Vibrio cholerae strains can cause cholera in humans, despite the species’ vast natural diversity. We wondered why only this small subset has ever triggered pandemics.”
Mario López, UMH researcher, lead author of the study
The study reveals that the emergence of pandemic V. cholerae clones is constrained by specific genetic bottlenecks. These require: a genetic background pre-adapted for virulence, the acquisition of key gene clusters such as CTXΦ and VPI-1, their organization into specific modular arrangements, and finally, the presence of unique allelic variants. “Only when all these elements come together can a strain evolve into a pandemic-capable pathogen,” the researchers explain.
These features are absent in most environmental V. cholerae strains and appear to grant pandemic clones a key competitive advantage: enhanced ability to colonize the human gut.
“Interestingly, the genetic traits that enable V. cholerae to infect humans don’t benefit the bacteria in their natural aquatic environment,” López notes. In the wild, V. cholerae typically lives freely or in association with cyanobacteria colonies, mollusks, or crustaceans.
Cholera is endemic in parts of the world with poor water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure. Outbreaks can also occur after natural disasters that disrupt these systems. The disease is characterized by sudden, severe episodes of watery diarrhea, leading to rapid dehydration and, if untreated, potentially death.
“Our analytical model could be applied to other environmental bacteria to understand how pathogenic clones emerge from non-pathogenic populations,” López emphasizes. The study also opens the door to more precise surveillance of strains with pandemic potential-an approach that could be highly useful for future public health preparedness.
The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) through the CAREER program (#2045671) and by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease program (#1021977). It also received funding from the Spanish “MICRO3GEN” project (PID2023-150293NB-I00), co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) and managed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness.
Source:
Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH)
Journal reference:
López-Pérez, M., et al. (2025). Allelic variations and gene cluster modularity act as nonlinear bottlenecks for cholera emergence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2417915122.
Originally developed for children, the diagnosis of ADHD is often difficult to make in adults. This is partly because the diagnostic criteria are based on behaviour in children. When diagnosing adults, however, these criteria are often based on adults’ subjective experiences, e.g., of having difficulty concentrating or being very impulsive.
“The rising number of adults diagnosed with ADHD raises important questions about diagnostic validity—especially since many were never identified in childhood and are now seeking help, sometimes prompted by ADHD content on social media. That made us curious: how have randomized controlled trials on ADHD dealt with this diagnostic challenge?” Dr. Igor Studart explains.
Moreover, ADHD shares its symptoms with a number of other mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, making it crucial to exclude these disorders when diagnosing ADHD. This requires a thorough diagnostic assessment by an experienced psychologist or psychiatrist.
But it is not always the case that such a thorough assessment is made. A new study from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil now shows that even psychiatric research into ADHD often neglects this fundamental work.
“We have examined how 292 of the most credible studies in evidence-based medicine – the so-called randomised controlled trials – diagnosed their adult subjects,” says Professor of Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist Julie Nordgaard, who conducted the study together with Associate Professor and Senior Researcher Mads Gram Henriksen and Dr. Igor Studart.
She continues:
“We conclude that half of the studies did not ensure a broad and thorough diagnostic assessment of the patients before the trial to rule out other disorders. This means that they can’t actually know, if their subjects have other mental disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. And that’s not all. More than half of the studies included subjects, who have also been diagnosed with other mental disorders, making the diagnosis even more difficult to allocate”, Julie Nordgaard explains.
According to the researchers, these methodological shortcomings are problematic, because they imply that it is impossible to know which disorders and symptoms the treatment investigated in these trials potentially had an effect on.
“This makes the research results from many of these clinical trials difficult to utilise. Yet, the results of randomised controlled trials are considered particularly trustworthy, and they may inform the guidelines we use to treat adult ADHD patients, even though the results from many of these trials should be assessed very carefully,” says Mads Gram Henriksen.
A need for consistent and robust diagnoses According to the researchers, one of the problems with the diagnostic assessment in many of the clinical trials is that it seems to have been carried out by people who are not trained to do so. And often with methods that are not thorough enough.
“In 61% of the studies, they do not state who diagnosed the subjects. In only 35% of the studies, it is stated that a psychiatrist or psychologist made the diagnosis. But diagnostic assessment should always be performed by an experienced professional with the necessary training to ensure that the diagnosis is made correctly, and this should be stated in the studies’ method section,” explains Mads Gram Henriksen.
In some cases, the assessment and thus the diagnosis was made by the subject themselves, and in one particularly egregious case, it was done with the help of a computer, the researchers explain.
“In psychiatry, we really need that all diagnoses, not just ADHD, are made with the same uniform criteria and by trained professionals. Otherwise, we cannot rely on the results or compare them across studies,” says Julie Nordgaard and concludes:
“Especially in a situation where a diagnosis such as ADHD in adults is increasing, we need to be very thorough and have a solid foundation. Otherwise, we risk too many people getting a wrong diagnosis and not being able to give them the most effective treatment. Or they risk receiving unnecessary treatment that causes side-effects.”
Read the study Diagnosing ADHD in adults in randomised controlled studies: A scoping review in the journal European Psychiatry.
Contact Professor andSenior Consultant Psychiatrist Julie Nordgaard University of Copenhagen and Region Zealand Phone: +45 21 77 51 23 Email: juef@regionsjaelland.dk
Associate Professor and Senior Researcher Mads Gram Henriksen University of Copenhagen and Region Zealand Phone: + 45 26 20 25 51 Mail: mgh@hum.ku.dk
Dr Igor Studart Institute of Psychiatry University of São Paulo
Journal
European Psychiatry
Method of Research
Literature review
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Diagnosing ADHD in adults in randomized controlled studies: a scoping review
Article Publication Date
14-Apr-2025
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Electrons play many roles in solid materials. When they are weakly bound and able to travel – i.e., mobile – they can enable electrical conduction. When they are bound, or “heavy,” they can act as insulators. However, in certain solid materials, this behavior can be markedly different, raising questions about how these different types of electrons interact.
In a study just published in Nature Physics, researchers working with Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Amir Yacoby at Harvard examined the interplay between both types of electrons in this material, shedding new light on how they may help form novel quantum states.
“Before our work, people could only ask ‘What is the overall ground state’?” said Andrew T. Pierce, one of the paper’s lead authors., Pierce, currently a fellow at Cornell University, was a graduate student in Yacoby’s lab when they began to study this question. What wasn’t clear was the true nature of these different states and how the separate light and heavy electrons joined forces to form them.
Additionally, because of the more obvious role of heavy electrons to drive insulators, light electrons have often been dismissed as “doing nothing” or “being spectators,” said Yonglong Xie, one of the paper’s lead authors. A former Harvard Quantum Initiative Prize postdoctoral fellow in Yacoby’s lab, Xie, now an assistant professor at Rice University, noted that the effect of these light electrons on the overall system was hard to detect.
The interplay between electrons with different masses is believed to drive intricate quantum phenomena. In the novel material known as magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene (MATTG), where three layers of graphene are stacked together with the middle sheet rotated slightly, electrons with small and large masses coexist. This material supports a plethora of exotic quantum phenomena including superconductivity (i.e. electrical conduction without heating), thereby providing a new setting to address this question.
To understand what was going on in these cases, the researchers used a specialized form of microscopy, known as scanning single-electron transistor (scanning SET), pioneered by Yacoby, to examine tiny “puddles” in the MATTG where electrons are trapped when the MATTG enters an insulating state. The scanning SET indicated that while the heavy electrons enable insulating states, the light electrons remain mobile, suggesting that they should participate in forming the novel states, including superconductivity.
“The heavy electrons form an insulator among themselves, creating the illusion of an overall insulating state, but in reality the light electrons remain free,” clarified Pierce. “This raises the possibility that the light electrons can mediate interactions between heavy electrons.”
This surprising finding underscores how complex the interplay between light and heavy electrons in MATTG can be, the researchers said. They suggested that exploring further methods of “tuning” the ratio of heavy and light electrons in two-dimensional materials will lead to exciting new discoveries. “The problem of coexisting light and heavy electrons in solids is a long-standing one, and we hope our scheme for disentangling their roles gives a new approach to these intriguing materials,” said Pierce.
The research was supported, in part, by the Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, and the CIFAR Quantum Materials Program, and the Welch Foundation.
Christophe Gleizes travelled to Algeria in May 2024 to report on the golden era of the local football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK), during the 1980s. He had also planned to cover the commemorations marking the tenth anniversary of the death of Cameroonian JSK player Albert Ebossé, and was on assignments for So Foot to interview Mouloudia Club d’Alger coach Patrice Beaumelle and write a profile of footballer Salah Djebaïli.
Christophe Gleizes’ seven-year prison sentence is the most severe sentence imposed on a French journalist in more than a decade, according to RSF information. In 2010, journalist Daniel Lainé received a similar sentence after reporting on sex tourism in Cambodia for the French TV channel TF1 before being acquitted in 2014. According to RSF data, around one hundred journalists worldwide have been targeted for reporting on issues related to sports, with two still imprisoned today.
Sign the petition to free Christophe Gleizes
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Blood plasma can harbor DNA changes that could flag cancer years before existing diagnostic tests, an early study hints.
The recent study, published May 22 in the journal Cancer Discovery, found traces of free-floating DNA from dead precancerous or cancerous cells in plasma that had been donated three years before a diagnosis.
“It’s an important step toward preclinical cancer detection, which could potentially revolutionize cancer screening,” said Catherine Alix-Panabières, a cancer researcher at the University of Montpellier in France who was not involved with the work. “Earlier detection typically correlates with better outcomes across many cancer types due to earlier intervention,” she told Live Science in an email.
The prognosis for cancer patients generally grows worse the later their disease is caught, especially once it has grown and spread to other tissues. Yet the gene changes, or mutations, that give rise to tumors tend to appear decades beforehand. Consultant oncologist Dr. Yuxuan Wang at Johns Hopkins University and her colleagues wanted to see if they could detect tumor DNA in plasma long before cancer manifests.
They examined plasma — the liquid that blood cells are suspended within — that was collected from patients roughly 40 years ago for an unrelated study. They focused on 26 participants who had developed cancer within six months of donating blood, as well as 26 controls who did not develop cancer for at least 17 years post-donation.
Related: Simple blood tests could be the future of cancer diagnosis
Wang’s group found between one and three common cancerous mutations in seven of the plasma samples, all of which were taken from participants that developed cancer within four months of donating blood.
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Six of these patients had also donated blood between 3.1 and 3.5 years beforehand, so Wang’s team turned back the clock further and assessed those earlier samples for the same mutations. Two of the early samples contained the same DNA errors, confirming that these warning signs were detectable years before the tumors appeared, at least in some people.
Since they found only a few common mutations in two of the six plasma samples taken three years before diagnosis, they then sequenced the plasma DNA to find additional mutations that were unique to each patient. Using the genomes of their white blood cells — a type of immune cell — as a reference, they found between four and 90 unique mutations in the plasma DNA from three patients. All told, they found hints of cancer in three of the five early samples they examined.
The patients in this study had a variety of cancers, including breast, colon, liver, lung, pancreas, and rectal cancer. However, it’s not clear if the testing method works equally well for all tumor types. “Some organs will shed tumor DNA more than others,” Wang told Live Science, noting that the blood-brain barrier, a protective membrane, may prevent brain cancer DNA crossing out of the organ and into the bloodstream.
In addition, the new research didn’t find any cancer DNA in 18 of the 26 participants who developed tumors in the months after their samples were collected. That’s not ideal for a clinical test, Wang said. But she suggested that detection could potentially improve if doctors took larger volumes of plasma from each patient.
Since the test could potentially detect cancer years before symptoms first appear, it could one day be useful for screening patients preemptively. However, further experiments are needed to ensure this diagnostic doesn’t lead to false positive results, which could unnecessarily alarm patients and possibly lead to unnecessary treatments or invasive diagnostic procedures, like biopsies.
“Ethically, implementing such tests in routine screening would require clear guidelines on how to handle incidental findings,” Alix-Panabières said.
And because the study only included plasma samples from 52 people, larger investigations involving hundreds or thousands of participants would be needed to validate the test before doctors could use it with confidence. “Realistically, widespread clinical adoption may take another 5–10 years,” Alix-Panabières predicted.
Finding personalized mutations requires sequencing the patient’s DNA, which can cost several hundred or thousands of dollars, Wang said. So even if such a test can be validated in larger trials, it’s “probably not going to be something we can provide for everyone who we want to screen,” and the test may need to be reserved for at-risk groups whose families have known histories of cancer, for instance.
The recent study consisted mostly of Black and white men and women between the ages 45 to 64 from four U.S. states. Future investigations could explore the efficiency of the test in people from other, genetically diverse backgrounds.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, one of the pioneers of cellular therapies for cancer, gave invited talks at national events this month for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences.
At their annual breakfast on June 11, the cancer research foundation honored Dr. Brentjens for his critical role in the impact on cancer research, specifically CAR T cell therapy. Dr. Brentjens, a past recipient of the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, gave an invited address as featured honoree at the event.
“A founder of CAR T therapy, he was among the first to demonstrate that a patients immune cells could be ‘trained’ to target their cancer cells- a premise that now underlies the work of many current Damon Runyon scientists,” the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation says. “Some (resarchers) are working to develop CAR T cells that persist longer in the body; others are using big data to optimize CAR T cell design and lower costs; all stand on the shoulder of Dr. Brentjens and his colleagues, whose impact extends beyond their scientific contributions.”
Dr. Brentjens also addressed The New York Academy of Sciences during its Frontiers in Cancer Immunotherapy symposium last week. The 12th annual event allows attendees to amplify research efforts, form professional connections and participate in conversations. Dr. Brentjens served on the scientific organizing committee for the event, and spoke on ways to deliver cellular therapies without depleting the immune system.
Prior to joining Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2021, Dr. Brentjens studied medicine at the University at Buffalo UB), completed a residency at Yale New Haven Hospital and served as a medical oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He then became the principal investigator of his own laboratory, where he focused on the development of CAR modified T-cells. He serves as Roswell Park’s Deputy Director, Chair of the Department of Medicine and The Katherine Anne Gioia Endowed Chair in Cancer Medicine. He holds a secondary appointment with UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
In 2024, Dr. Brentjens was one of four recipients of the prestigious Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for his role in the development of CAR T cells as a platform for treating cancer.
One of the many delights of leafy south Birmingham is when an international cricket team is in town and residents stumble across them training on the Colts Ground at Edgbaston. Folks could be heading for a stroll in Cannon Hill Park, or their weekly shop at Aldi, only to suddenly find themselves watching Jasprit Bumrah let fly.
Sadly, the fences were covered with tarpaulins after some hecklers over the weekend. There was a decent subplot playing out inside as India trained, too, over whether Bumrah will play the sold-out second Test that starts . Having bowled these past few days, the man himself offered a passing “hopefully”.
Things are not so straightforward here. The plan has long been that India’s spearhead plays three of the five Tests to manage his lower back, something reaffirmed by Gautam Gambhir, the head coach, after the loss at Headingley. Now trailing 1-0 in the series, and with Bumrah having had a week to recover from that match, one would think this is the time to play the second of those three cards.
Yet with the third Test starting a week on Thursday at Lord’s, the ground where every touring cricketer wants to play, it sounds like he may yet be held back.
Ryan ten Doeschate, India’s assistant coach, hinted as much, saying Bumrah was “ready to play”, before going on to add that, with possible rain in Birmingham at the weekend, and Edgbaston a typically flat surface, they are still to decide their configuration.
“We feel we can go 1-1 or keep the score at 1-0 without Jasprit,” said Ten Doeschate. “That is putting the eggs at the back [of the series]. But we are going to need him at some stage. You have to decide when to play your strongest suit. Whatever team we put out there, we can compete in this Test match.”
Thoughts go back to England’s disastrous Ashes tour in 2021-22, when they went 1-0 down and then immediately rested Mark Wood for the second Test in Adelaide. Wood took 17 wickets during that 4-0 defeat but 12 of them came after the urn was lost. Sometimes teams can overthink the future at the expense of the situation staring them in the face, even if England are wary of seeing this as an opportunity.
Moeen Ali joins England at training in a coaching capacity. Photograph: Jacob King/PA
“The worry for us would be to focus too much on [Bumrah],” said Chris Woakes, who will lead the England bowlers on his home ground. “You have to look at their whole attack, and what they bring to the table, and how you can combat the skills they bring. India have got guys that can come in and cause us issues.”
Even with possible rain showers, India eyeing a draw against an England team that scores at 4.5 runs per over – something that in turn broadens the canvas for taking 20 wickets – is high risk.
Ten Doeschate also hinted at India playing two slow bowlers the options being an attacking wrist-spinner in Kuldeep Yadav or the off-spinning all-rounder Washington Sundar.
If the latter, it would probably be with half an eye on scoring the lower-order runs that were missing at Headingley – a potentially negative outlook when taking only 15 of the 20 English wickets was the bigger problem.
Better catching would help, with Monday’syesterday’s training session suggesting Yashasvi Jaiswal will be whipped out of the gully position after three costly drops in Leeds.
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As well as scoring five centuries before their tail folded twice, those missed chances offer India hope of turning this series around.
They at least know the XI they will be up against, England confirming an unchanged team two days out from the toss and thus holding back the recalled Jofra Archer until Lord’s at the earliest.
“I’m sure he’s champing at the bit to get back out there and show people what he has already done in whites,” said Woakes. “We all know how good he can be, but he’s at an age [30] where his best is probably still ahead of him.”
Archer was not on the ground on Monday after a “family emergency” delayed his arrival, England then going on to confirm that none of the unused squad players will be parachuted into the current round of county matches anyway.
Given the slog the bowlers are enduring with the Kookaburra ball this week, Archer, Sam Cook and Jamie Overton may be thankful for the reprieve.
The only real difference for England this week is Moeen Ali among the backroom staff, having taken up the offer to further his coaching experience. It may not be Moeen’s only encounter with India this year, with South Africa understood to be interested in him joining their coaching staff for a Test tour there in November.
