Yearly Archives: 2024

Scientists map use of epilepsy drug in England and Wales linked to birth defects

Scientists have created a unique map of England and Wales that reveals detailed variations in the use of a single medicine. The drug is sodium valproate, a treatment for severe cases of epilepsy that is also known to cause health problems for pregnant women.The findings show drops in the use of the drug, in response to warnings about its effects, but the map reveals clear differences in dispensing patterns to women of child-bearing age, with the highest rates being found in local authorities in the north-west and across coastal regions in the east. These variations highlight potential inequalities that need further investigation, the researchers warn.Valproate is an important drug for treating epilepsy and bipolar disorder, but it has also been linked to miscarriages, birth defects and cases of conditions such as ADHD and autism.The medicines regulator, MHRA, said in 2016 that babies exposed to sodium valproate in the womb had a high risk of serious developmental disorders. About 20,000 children in the UK are estimated to have life-changing injuries caused by valproate. In addition, studies have suggested that children of men who take the drug have an increased risk of neurological disorders.“This is the first time we have been able to combine different sets of health data and understand how a particular medicine is used in the population,” said the research’s team leader, Reecha Sofat, professor of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Liverpool. “The fact that we succeeded suggests we could provide benefits to the health service by understanding, at a granular level, how medicines are being used by people in different areas.”Valproate was chosen for the research because of recent concerns about its use. “It becomes a problem of balancing neurological issues with the paediatric concerns,” said Sofat. “If a person with epilepsy who is pregnant is resistant to all other medicines apart from valproate, there is a clear problem for doctors. What is needed, we realised, was a comprehensive picture of who was taking valproate and where.”The project is also important because it demonstrates the power of data-driven research, argues the team, which was backed by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK). By combining separate national datasets, it will be possible to outline the way different medicines are used around the country. The potential for this use of data science is striking.One future use would be to link anonymised health data of mothers to their children’s health records to improve doctors’ knowledge of how medicines given during pregnancy affect the health of the unborn child, said another team member, Dr Caroline Dale, a research fellow at the University of Liverpool.“Pregnant women are often excluded from traditional research methods, such as clinical trials, given understandable concerns about unknown risks,” Dale said. “This means we have huge gaps in our knowledge of the outcomes of safe drug use in this group. Our data-led approach is non-invasive and could be expanded to understand maternal health in pregnancy better, linking this to child health records that would help us to understand the real-world effects of medicines.”It should also be possible to monitor changes in the prescribing of other drugs and reveal variations in the numbers of different drugs that people may be taking in different areas, say the researchers, whose work is outlined in a paper published in the journal BMJ Medicine this week.To carry out their research, scientists from the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre – backed by HDR UK – were allowed to use anonymised NHS health records, including primary care and hospital records, which they then linked to dispense records for their target medicine: sodium valproate. This was the first time such data had been combined in this way.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe research showed that between 2019 and 2023, new use of sodium valproate fell from 7 to 5 per 100,000 women in those aged 15-19, from 11 to 7 in those aged 20-29, and 14 to 7 in those aged 30-39.Pregnancy rates fell from 6.0 to 5.2 per 1,000 women dispensed sodium valproate over the same period. There was no evidence that epilepsy-related deaths increased in women aged 15-49 during 2015-2022, but there was some evidence for a slight increase in men during the period April 2018 to December 2022.“These, on their own, are striking findings,” said Sofat. “They show that there has been an encouraging response, in general, to warnings about the risks involved in taking valproate, though these do not seem to be shared equally across the country.“But what is also important is the demonstration that by providing access to different anonymised health databases, we can make telling insights into the ways that medicines are being used, allowing doctors to make all sorts of improvements to the way these are dispensed – and that could have enormous benefits for the health service.”

Scientists Suggest Harvesting Blood From Mars Colonists to Construct Future City

One crew member collecting blood for 72 weeks could be enough to “construct a small habitat for another crew member.”Blood DriveFuture space travelers will have to get creative to build structures on the surface of Mars. Sending all the necessary construction materials across over 140 million miles of space wouldn’t just be a gargantuan undertaking, but it would be prohibitively expensive as well.Instead, scientists have long proposed making use of the existing Martian soil to construct permanent structures.In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Acta Astronautica, a team of researchers from Kharazmi University in Tehran, Iran, investigated eleven different types of Martian concrete or cement “based on available resources and technologies.”And one of them stands out, to say the least: AstroCrete, a previously proposed substrate made from Martian regolith mixed with the bodily fluids — the literal blood, sweat, and tears — of future Mars inhabitants.Construction IVThe idea of using blood to reinforce mortar dates back to the ancient Romans.”Although it is a bit strange, blood can be utilized to create strong concrete or bricks for onsite construction on Mars,” the researchers wrote in the paper. “After the arrival of the first Martian inhabitants and their placement in primary structures, which can include inflatable structures, the combination of tears, blood, and sweat from the inhabitants, along with Martian regolith, can be used to produce a concrete known as AstroCrete.”The unusual material was first proposed by researchers at the University of Manchester in 2021.”Scientists have been trying to develop viable technologies to produce concrete-like materials on the surface of Mars, but we never stopped to think that the answer might be inside us all along,” said Aled Roberts, from the University of Manchester, in a statement at the time.A special protein in human blood called human serum albumin (HAS) serves as a “vivo binder” to create a form of concrete. Meanwhile, urea, a nitrogenous product extracted from urine, could make the material even stronger.According to the Iranian team of scientists, a single crew member could produce sufficient HAS to “construct a small habitat for another crew member” in just 72 weeks.Best of all, the University of Manchester scientists claim that AstroCrete could be 3D printed in place, making construction even simpler.Apart from relying on the blood, sweat, and tears of astronauts, the Iranian scientists also proposed combing the Martian landscape for calcium carbonate to create a lime mortar. Alternatively, the abundant sulfur deposits on the planet’s surface could also be used to craft “sulfur concrete,” a corrosion-resistant material that “can be used in salty and acid environments.”More on AstroCrete: Scientists Suggest Mixing “Astronaut Blood” With Mars Dust to Create Horrific SheltersShare This Article

UI awarded $10M grant to help scientists study crops that can be used for jet fuel

URBANA — In the near future, Illinois farms could be producing jet fuel — or at least crops that can be used as the basis for jet fuel.On Monday, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth announced that the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office is awarding the University of Illinois $10 million in federal funding.That money, says crop sciences Professor DoKyoung Lee, will help take studies on “purpose-grown energy crops” to the next level to prove that the science works on a large scale.

Lee said that official term, “purpose-grown energy crop,” means pretty much exactly what it sounds like when you break it down: crops that have the necessary components to be good for creating fuel and are grown specifically for that purpose, not for food or anything else.Most people are already familiar with the concept of corn being used to create ethanol to power cars, but UI researchers are looking at crops that can create fuel to power airplanes.Lee said this is important in creating sustainability across the transportation industry.“By 2035-40, we are expecting pretty much all passenger and small fleet vehicles to use electricity or hydrogen or something like that,” Lee said. “But an airplane cannot run by a battery. Maybe in the future we’ll have a completely different form of a battery and it won’t be a problem, but especially going continent-to-continent, long-distance flights, it’s obviously not going to be batteries.”Using plants to make fuel would be more environmentally friendly than using fossil fuels, and would make the United States more energy-independent.Different plants can be used to make different kinds of fuel, but Lee said that many of those used in jet fuel are already native to Illinois and the Midwest, which means they would also be healthy for the local ecosystem.Miscanthus and switchgrass sequester carbon from the atmosphere and can be produced on land that isn’t suitable for annual production of crops like corn and soybeans, Lee said.Lee and other UI researchers have been working with these plants for some time to understand how they can be used to make fuel, but this $10 million grant will allow them to begin expanding tests.

He said the plan is to plant energy crops across many acres and harvest them with large-scale machinery to begin understanding large-scale production.“It’s basically exactly the same as what farmers are going to do,” Lee said. “We are trying to see how this crop can help farmers’ revenue generation while farmers can provide the biggest step for sustainable aviation fuel production and at the same time, they can provide another benefit to society and our environment.”

Hungarian scientists grow plants in lunar soil simulant

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