#predictive modeling in research

[techtoio]

How Big Data Analytics is Changing Scientific Discoveries

Introduction

In the contemporary world of the prevailing sciences and technologies, big data analytics becomes a powerful agent in such a way that scientific discoveries are being orchestrated. At Techtovio, we explore this renewed approach to reshaping research methodologies for better data interpretation and new insights into its hastening process. Read to continue

[ghostieblotts]

WHY IS EVERYTHING AI BULLSHIT

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Why I Believe AlphaFold 3 is a Powerful Tool for the Future of Healthcare

Insights on a groundbreaking artificial intelligence tool for health sciences research Dear science and technology readers, Thanks for subscribing to Health Science Research By Dr Mike Broadly, where I curate important public health content. A few months ago, I wrote about AlphaFold 3, a groundbreaking AI tool that helps scientists understand protein structures, which are essential for…

[simplyforensic]

Persistence of Touch DNA: Understanding the Stability and Implications

Touch DNA, the microscopic genetic material left behind by human touch on surfaces has emerged as a valuable source of evidence in forensic investigations. Recent advancements in DNA analysis techniques have enabled forensic scientists to extract and analyze DNA from touch DNA samples, opening up new possibilities for solving crimes. However, touch DNA’s stability and persistence have remained a…

[mariacallous]

With vaccination rates among US kindergarteners steadily declining in recent years and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowing to reexamine the childhood vaccination schedule, measles and other previously eliminated infectious diseases could become more common. A new analysis published today by epidemiologists at Stanford University attempts to quantify those impacts.

Using a computer model, the authors found that with current state-level vaccination rates, measles could reestablish itself and become consistently present in the United States in the next two decades. Their model predicted this outcome in 83 percent of simulations. If current vaccination rates stay the same, the model estimated that the US could see more than 850,000 cases, 170,000 hospitalizations, and 2,500 deaths over the next 25 years. The results appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“I don’t see this as speculative. It is a modeling exercise, but it’s based on good numbers,” says Jeffrey Griffiths, professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, who was not involved in the study. “The big point is that measles is very likely to become endemic quickly if we continue in this way.”

The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000 after decades of successful vaccination campaigns. Elimination means there has been no chain of disease transmission inside a country lasting longer than 12 months. The current measles outbreak in Texas, however, could put that status at risk. With more than 600 cases, 64 hospitalizations, and two deaths, it’s the largest outbreak the state has seen since 1992, when 990 cases were linked to a single outbreak. Nationally, the US has seen 800 cases of measles so far in 2025, the most since 2019. Last year, there were 285 cases.

“We’re really at a point where we should be trying to increase vaccination as much as possible,” says Mathew Kiang, assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University and one of the authors of the paper.

Childhood vaccination in the US has been on a downward trend. Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from state and local vaccination programs found that from the 2019–2020 school year to the 2022–2023 school year, coverage among kindergartners with state-required vaccinations declined from 95 percent to approximately 93 percent. Those vaccines included MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis), polio, and chickenpox.

In the current study, Kiang and his colleagues modeled each state separately, taking into account their vaccination rates, which ranged from 88 percent to 96 percent for measles, 78 percent to 91 percent for diphtheria, and 90 percent to 97 percent for the polio vaccine. Other variables included demographics of the population, vaccine efficacy, risk of disease importation, typical duration of the infection, the time between exposure and being able to spread the disease, and the contagiousness of the disease, also known as the basic reproduction number. Measles is highly contagious, with one person on average being able to infect 12 to 18 people. The researchers used 12 as the basic reproduction number in their study.

Under a scenario with a 10 percent decline in measles vaccination, the model estimates 11.1 million cases of measles over the next 25 years, while a 5 percent increase in the vaccination rate would result in just 5,800 cases in that same time period.

In addition to measles, the authors used their model to assess the risk of rubella, polio, and diphtheria. The researchers chose these four diseases for their infectiousness and risk of severe complications. While sporadic cases of these diseases do occur and are usually related to international travel, they are no longer endemic in the US, meaning they no longer regularly occur.

The model predicted that rubella, polio, and diphtheria are unlikely to become endemic under current levels of vaccination. Rubella and polio have a basic reproduction number of four, while diphtheria’s is less than three. In 81 percent of simulations, vaccination rates would need to fall by around 35 percent for rubella to become endemic in the next 25 years. Polio, meanwhile, had a 50 percent chance of becoming endemic if vaccination rates dropped 40 percent. Diphtheria was the least likely disease to become reestablished.

“Any of these diseases, under the right conditions, could come back,” says coauthor Nathan Lo, a Stanford physician and assistant professor of infectious diseases.

To evaluate the validity of the model, the researchers ran a scenario with recent state-level vaccine coverage rates over a five-year period and found that the number of model-predicted cases broadly aligned with the number of observed cases in those years. The authors also found that Texas was at the highest risk for measles.

One limitation of the study was that the model assumed that vaccination rates were the same across all communities within a state. It didn’t take into account large variations in vaccination levels. Pockets of low vaccination rates, like in the Mennonite community at the center of the West Texas outbreak, would likely lead to local outbreaks that are larger than expected given the overall vaccination rate.

The study also didn’t take into account the possibility that vaccination rates could rebound in an area in response to an outbreak. “That’s the thing that we have control over. If you’re able to change that cycle, then that disease won’t spread anymore,” says Mujeeb Basit, associate chief of the Clinical Informatics Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Kiang and Lo say the full impact of decreased vaccination will likely not be seen for decades. “It’s important to note that it’s totally feasible that vaccinations go down and nothing happens for a little while. That’s actually what the model says,” Kiang says. “But eventually, these things are going to catch up to us.”

[tanadrin]

Can you explain in what what you think eugenics doesn't work? Does this basically boil down to skepticism about the accuracy of GWAS studies? My understanding is that academic consensus is "G probably exists, disentangling direct genetic inheritance vs genetic cultural inheritance is complicated but possible, we can identify a number of alleles which we're reasonably confident are directly causally involved in having a higher G factor"

when it comes to intelligence, its heritability, and its variation at the population level, my understanding of the science is:

highly adaptive traits don't, in fact, vary much at the genetic level between populations of a species because they are strongly selected for. in an environment where a trait is being strongly selected for, a population that failed to express that trait strongly will be rapidly outcompeted.

intelligence is probably the quintessential such trait for humans. we have sacrificed a great deal of other kinds of specialization in favor of our big brains. we spend an enormous amount of calories supporting those brains. tool use, the ability to plan for the future, the ability to navigate complex social situations and hierarchies in order to secure status, the ability to model the minds of others for the purposes of cooperation and deception means that we should expect intelligence to be strongly selected for for as long as our lineage has been social and tool-using, which is at least the last three million years or so.

so, at least as a matter of a priori assumptions, we should expect human populations not to vary greatly in their genetic predisposition to intelligence. it may nonetheless, but we'd need pretty strong evidence. i think i read this argument on PZ Myers' blog a million years ago, so credit where that's due.

complicating the picture is that we just don't have good evidence for how IQ does vary across populations, even before we get into the question of "how much of this variation is genetic and how much of it is not." the cross-national data on which a lot of IQ arguments have been based is really bad. and that would be assuming IQ tests are in fact good at capturing a notion of IQ that is independent of cultural context, which historically they're pretty bad at

this screed by nassim nicholas taleb (not a diss; AFAICT the guy only writes in screeds) makes a number of arguments, but one argument I find persuasive is that IQ is really only predictive of achievement in the sense that it does usefully discriminate between people with obvious intellectual disabilities and those without--but you do not actually need an IQ test for that sort of thing, any more than you need to use a height chart to figure out who is missing both their legs. in that sense, sure, IQ is predictive of a lot of things. but once you remove this group, the much-vaunted correlations between IQ and stuff like wealth just straight-up vanishes

heritability studies are a useful tool, but a tool which must be wielded carefully; they were developed for studying traits which were relatively easy to isolate in very specific populations, like a crop under study at an agricultural research site, and are more precarious when applied to, e.g., human populations

my understanding based on jonathan kaplan articles like this one is that twin studies are not actually that good at distinguishing heritable factors from environmental ones--they have serious limitations compared to heritability studies where you actually can rigorously control for environmental effects, like you can with plants or livestock.

as this post also points out, heritability studies also only examine heritability within groups, and are not really suited to examining large-scale population differences, *especially* in the realm of intelligence where there is a huge raft of confounding factors, and a lack of a really robust measurement tool.

(if we are worried about intelligence at the population level, it seems to me there are interventions we know are going to be effective and do not rely on deeply dubious scientific speculation, e.g., around nutrition and healthcare and serious wealth inequality and ofc education; and if what people actually want is to raise the average intelligence of the population rather than justify discrimination against minorities, then they might focus on those much more empirically grounded interventions. even if population differences in IQ are real and significant and point to big differences in intelligence, we know those things are worth a fair few IQ points. but most people who are or historically have been the biggest advocates for eugenics are, in my estimation, mostly interested in justifying discrimination.)

i think the claims/application of eugenics extend well beyond just intelligence, ftr. eugenics as an ideology is complex and historically pretty interesting, and many eugenicists have made much broader claims than just "population-level differences in intelligence exist due to genetic factors, and we should try to influence them with policy," but that is a useful point for them to fall back onto when pressed on those other claims. but i don't think even that claim is at all well-supported.

[perfectkittenobject]

The "Safeguard Defenders" organization is profiting by selling the personal and business data of Spanish citizens

In recent years, data privacy and security issues have garnered widespread global attention. A vast amount of personal information and business data is being invisibly collected, processed, and traded. Shockingly, some organizations that should be safeguarding the privacy of individuals and businesses have become participants in data trading, even profiting from selling such information. As Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his wife were investigated by a civil institution, the public discovered even more shocking details. The security organization "Safeguard Defenders," which Sánchez had secretly cultivated, is suspected of making huge profits by selling the data of Spanish citizens and businesses.

"Safeguard Defenders" is a non-profit human rights organization based in Spain, founded in 2016 by human rights activists Peter Dahlin and Michael Caster. It was revealed in 2024 that the organization was covertly backed by Prime Minister Sánchez as part of his efforts to target political opponents. Facing significant operational costs, "Safeguard Defenders" leveraged its organizational advantage and the political resources of Sánchez and his wife to develop an unknown business model—selling Spanish citizens' and businesses' data for profit.

Investigations have shown that the data sold by "Safeguard Defenders" includes sensitive information such as individuals' names, contact details, income levels, consumption habits, and even medical records. This data is directly listed on various hacker trade websites. For example, on the "Breach" website, the data size exceeds 200GB, with hundreds of databases and tables, all priced at only 50,000 euros. Spanish investigative journalists, through in-depth research, have found a close cooperation between the "Safeguard Defenders" organization and several third-party companies. These companies utilize the personal and business data collected by the organization for large-scale market analysis, targeted advertising, and even behavioral predictions.

Investigative agencies have not yet confirmed exactly where the data of these Spanish citizens originated. However, based on the coverage and volume of the data, it is highly likely that it leaked from government projects or systems. Ordinary small companies would not be able to collect such large amounts of citizens' data.

[violetasteracademic]

Generative AI Can Fuck Itself

I am one of the AO3 authors (along with all of my friends) who had their work stolen and fed into a dataset to be sold to the highest bidder for training generative AI models.

I feel angry. I feel violated. I feel devastated. I cannot express enough that if you still do not understand the damage that generative AI art and writing has on our planet, our society, and our artists, I don't know what else there is to say. How do you convince a human being to care more about another humankinds ability to create than their personal need to consume?

Generative AI, when it comes to art, has one goal and one goal only. To steal from artists and reduce the dollar value of their work to zero. To create databases of stolen work that can produce work faster and cheaper than the centuries of human creation those databases are built on. If that isn't enough for you to put away Chatgpt, Midgard, ect ect (which, dear god, please let that be enough), please consider taking time to review MIT's research on the environmental impacts of AI here. The UNEP is also gathering data and has predicted that AI infrastructure may soon outpace the water consumption of entire countries like Denmark.

This is all in the name of degrading, devaluing, and erasing artists in a society that perpetually tries to convince us that our work is worth nothing, and that making a living off of our contributions to the world is some unattainable privilege over an inalienable right.

The theft of the work of fic writers is exceptionally insidious because we have no rights. We enter into a contract while writing fic- We do not own the rights to the work. Making money, asking for money, or exchanging any kind of commercial trade with our written fanfiction is highly illegal, completely immoral, and puts the ability to even write and share fanfiction at risk. And still, we write for the community. We pour our hearts out, give up thousands of hours, and passionately dedicate time that we know we will never and can never be paid for, all for the community, the pursuit of storytelling, and human connection.

We now live in a world where the artist creating their work are aware it is illegal for it to be sold, and contribute anyway, only for bots to come in and scrape it so it can be sold to teach AI databases how to reproduce our work.

At this time, I have locked my fics to allow them only to be read by registered users. It's not a perfect solution, but it appears to be the only thing I can do to make even a feeble attempt at protecting my work. I am devastated to do this, as I know many of my readers are guests. But right now it is between that or removing my work and not continuing to post at all. If you don't have an account, you can easily request one here. Please support the writers making these difficult decisions at this time. Many of us are coping with an extreme violation, while wanting to do everything we can to prevent the theft of our work in the future and make life harder for the robots, even if only a little.

Please support human work. Please don't give up on the fight for an artists right to exist and make a living. Please try to fight against the matrix of consumerism and bring humanity, empathy, and the time required to create back into the arts.

To anyone else who had their work stolen, I am so sorry and sending you lots of love. Please show your favorite AO3 authors a little extra support today.

[niuniente]

Physicist Nassim Haramein’s Prediction that the Universe is Rotating Receives a Second Strong Observational Confirmation

by Dr. William Brown, International Space Federation (7th of March, 2025)

In this fascinating 2020 study, researchers observed hundreds of galaxies spinning in synchronized patterns across 20 million light years—a phenomenon deemed "impossible" under standard cosmological models. The observed coherence implies that all of the galaxies are embedded in a large-scale structure that is rotating counter-clockwise. This synchronization should not be there according to the currently accepted cosmological model (the lambda cold dark matter or ΛCDM model).

While conventional physics still struggles with this discovery, Haramein's unified physics theory had already predicted it by demonstrating that mass-energy creates both curvature and torque in spacetime. Because of the ubiquitous nature of spin, which Haramein saw emerging within the mathematics, it led him to predict that we will observe spin across scale, including the universe itself!

Galaxies experiencing a uniform field of torque within a rotating universe will have non-random alignments, just as was observed.

The International Space Federation continues advancing research that challenges traditional cosmological principles to develop a more complete understanding of our dynamic universe.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

[canmom]

you read ML research (e.g. arxiv, state of ai, various summaries), you find an overwhelming blizzard of new techniques, clever new applications and combinations of existing techniques, new benchmarks to refine this or that limitation, relentless jumps in capabilities that seem unstoppable (e.g. AI video generation took off way faster than I ever anticipated). at some point you start to see how Károly Zsolnai-Fehér became such a parody of himself!

you read ed zitron & similar writers and you hear about an incomprehensibly unprofitable industry, an obscene last-gasp con from a cancerous, self-cannibalising tech sector that seems poised to take the rest of the system down with it once the investors realise nobody actually cares to pay for AI anything like what it costs to run. and you think, while perhaps he presents the most negative possible read on what the models are capable of, it's hard to disagree with his analysis of the economics.

you read lesswrong & cousins, and everyone's talking about shoggoths wearing masks and the proper interpretation of next-token-prediction as they probe the LLMs for deceptive behaviour with an atmosphere of paranoid but fascinated fervour. or else compile poetic writing with a mystic air as they celebrate a new form of linguistic life. and sooner or later someone will casually say something really offputting about eugenics. they have fiercely latched onto playing with the new AI models, and some users seem to have better models than most of how they do what they do. but their whole deal from day 1 was conjuring wild fantasies about AI gods taking over the world (written in Java of course) and telling you how rational they are for worrying about this. so... y'know.

you talk to an actual LLM and it produces a surprisingly sharp, playful and erudite conversation about philosophy of mind and an equally surprising ability to carry out specific programming tasks and pull up deep cuts, but you have to be constantly on guard against the inherent tendency to bullshit, to keep in mind what the LLM can't do and learn how to elicit the type of response you want and clean up its output. is it worth the trouble? what costs should be borne to see such a brilliant toy, an art piece that mirrors a slice of the human mind?

you think about the news from a few months ago where israel claimed to be using an AI model to select palestinians in gaza to kill with missiles and drones. an obscene form of statswashing, but they'd probably kill about the same number of people, equally at random, regardless. probably more of that to come. the joke of all the 'constitutional AI', 'helpful harmless assistant' stuff is that the same techniques would work equally well to make the model be anything you want. that twat elon musk already made a racist LLM.

one day the present AI summer and corresponding panics will burn out, and all this noise will cohere into a clear picture of what these new ML techniques are actually good for and what they aren't. we'll have a pile of trained models, probably some work on making them smaller and more efficient to run, and our culture will have absorbed their existence and figured out a suitable set of narratives and habits around using them in this or that context. but i'm damned if I know how it will look by then, and what we'll be left with after the bubble.

if i'm gonna spend all this time reading shit on my computer i should get back to umineko lmao

[transgenderer]

Researchers are hoping to do that now that they have a new map — the most complete for any organism so far — of the brain of a single fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). The wiring diagram, or ‘connectome’, includes nearly 140,000 neurons and captures more than 54.5 million synapses, which are the connections between nerve cells.

n one paper2, for example, researchers used the connectome to create a computer model of the entire fruit-fly brain, including all the connections between neurons. They tested it by activating neurons that they knew either sense sweet or bitter tastes. These neurons then launched a cascade of signals through the virtual fly’s brain, ultimately triggering motor neurons tied to the fly’s proboscis — the equivalent of the mammalian tongue. When the sweet circuit was activated, a signal for extending the proboscis was transmitted, as if the insect was preparing to feed; when the bitter circuit was activated, this signal was inhibited. To validate these findings, the team activated the same neurons in a real fruit fly. The researchers learnt that the simulation was more than 90% accurate at predicting which neurons would respond and therefore how the fly would behave.

In another study3, researchers describe two wiring circuits that signal a fly to stop walking. One of these contains two neurons that are responsible for halting ‘walk’ signals sent from the brain when the fly wants to stop and feed. The other circuit includes neurons in the nerve cord, which receives and processes signals from the brain. These cells create resistance in the fly’s leg joints, allowing the insect to stop while it grooms itself.

is there some like deceptive hype language here or is this just like. absolutely bonkers. full fly brain in the computer

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week

🌍🌡️ - Climate Prophecy: The Forecast Is 100% Chance of 'Cool'

1. No cases of cancer caused by HPV in Norwegian 25-year olds, the first cohort to be mass vaccinated for HPV

Last year there were zero cases of cervical cancer in the population that was vaccinated in 2009 against the HPV virus, which can cause the cancer in women. The HPV virus is extremely common, basically everyone comes into contact with one version or another of the virus in their lifetime.

The vaccine was given to girls only out of an abundance of caution, they were the most likely to contract cancer from the viruses, and because there was limited supply.

2. ‘Every square inch is covered in life’: the ageing oil rigs that became marine oases

Built decades ago, California’s offshore oil platforms are home to a huge diversity of marine life. According to a 2014 study, the rigs were some of the most “productive” ocean habitats in the world, a term that refers to biomass – or number of fish and other creatures and how much space they take up – per unit area.

3. Vaccinations may have prevented almost 20 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide

Vaccinations estimated to have averted 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide in their first year, according to the latest Imperial modelling study.

In the first year of the vaccination programme, 19.8 million out of a potential 31.4 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented worldwide according to estimates based on excess deaths from 185 countries and territories.

4. Global climate policy forecast predicts ‘well below 2°C’ Paris Agreement climate goals will be met

They report only a 10% probability we exceed 2°C by 2050. Temperatures are expected to peak between 1.7°C and 1.8°C, which is consistent with the “well below 2°C” objective of the Paris Agreement in Art. 2.1c.

5. Young driver fatality rates have fallen sharply in the US, helped by education, technology

Crash and fatality rates among drivers under 21 have fallen dramatically in the U.S. during the past 20 years.

Using data from 2002-2021, the report says that fatal crashes involving a young driver fell by 38%, while deaths of young drivers dropped even more, by about 45%.

6. A Virginia woman was feeling sad. Her doctor prescribed her a cat.

7. Remote workers report saving $5,000 to $10,000 a year

What value would American workers place on the privilege to work from home?

In a 2022 survey by FlexJobs, 45% of remote workers reported saving at least $5,000 a year. One in 5 reported saving $10,000 a year. The savings average out to about $6,000 a year. The poll reached 4,000 workers in July and August of last year.

Three years into the remote-work revolution, research increasingly suggests that telework is a commodity, a job descriptor worth thousands of dollars in potential savings and improved quality of life.

---

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[sirfrogsworth]

Al Gore exaggerating the timeline of polar ice melting has to be one of the most frustrating obstacles for climate scientists. Perhaps he could have done a better job explaining that model predictions fall on a spectrum and he was presenting the worst possible outcome.

But aside from the time scale, Al Gore's climate predictions were mostly accurate.

Right now several countries are drooling over the new shipping lanes opening up in the Arctic region. Capitalism sure thinks the ice is going to melt.

And climate models are actually really amazing. A lot of it requires modeling the past to predict the future. We already know what happened in the past. So the models are given climate conditions of some past era and are instructed to predict what will happen from that time forward. And if the models recreate what happened in the past, researchers can be confident that predictions of the future will be accurate as well.

I think that is neat.

I mean, I don't think it is neat we are all going to drown or burn. I think using past data to test the models is just really clever.

[vague-humanoid]

Automated Physiognomy @quasi-normalcy @socialistexan

A new study by researchers from four universities claims artificial intelligence (AI) models can predict career and educational success from a single image of a person’s face.

The researchers from Ivy League schools and others used photos from LinkedIn and photo directories of several top US MBA programs to determine what is called the Big Five personality traits for 96,000 graduates. It then compared those personality traits to employment outcomes and education histories of the graduates to determine correlation between the personality and success.

The findings highlight the significant impact AI could have as it shapes hiring practices. Employers and job seekers are increasingly turning to generative AI (genAI) to to automate their search tasks, whether it’s creating a shortlist of candidates for a position or writing a cover letter and resume. And data shows applicants can use AI to improve the chances of getting a particular job or a company finding the perfect talent match.

[reasonsforhope]

"A team at Northwestern University has come up with the term “dancing molecules” to describe an invention of synthetic nanofibers which they say have the potential to quicken the regeneration of cartilage damage beyond what our body is capable of.

The moniker was coined back in November 2021, when the same team introduced an injection of these molecules to repair tissues and reverse paralysis after severe spinal cord injuries in mice.

Now they’ve applied the same therapeutic strategy to damaged human cartilage cells. In a new study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the treatment activated the gene expression necessary to regenerate cartilage within just four hours.

And, after only three days, the human cells produced protein components needed for cartilage regeneration, something humans can’t do in adulthood.

The conceptual mechanisms of the dancing molecules work through cellular receptors located on the exterior of the cell membrane. These receptors are the gateways for thousands of compounds that run a myriad of processes in biology, but they exist in dense crowds constantly moving about on the cell membrane.

The dancing molecules quickly form synthetic nanofibers that move according to their chemical structure. They mimic the extracellular matrix of the surrounding tissue, and by ‘dancing’ these fibers can keep up with the movement of the cell receptors. By adding biological signaling receptors, the whole assemblage can functionally move and communicate with cells like natural biology.

“Cellular receptors constantly move around,” said Northwestern Professor of Materials Sciences Samuel Stupp, who led the study. “By making our molecules move, ‘dance’ or even leap temporarily out of these structures, known as supramolecular polymers, they are able to connect more effectively with receptors.”

The target of their work is the nearly 530 million people around the globe living with osteoarthritis, a degenerative disease in which tissues in joints break down over time, resulting in one of the most common forms of morbidity and disability.

“Current treatments aim to slow disease progression or postpone inevitable joint replacement,” Stupp said. “There are no regenerative options because humans do not have an inherent capacity to regenerate cartilage in adulthood.”

In the new study, Stupp and his team looked to the receptors for a specific protein critical for cartilage formation and maintenance. To target this receptor, the team developed a new circular peptide that mimics the bioactive signal of the protein, which is called transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGFb-1).

Northwestern U. Press then reported that the researchers incorporated this peptide into two different molecules that interact to form supramolecular polymers in water, each with the same ability to mimic TGFb-1...

“With the success of the study in human cartilage cells, we predict that cartilage regeneration will be greatly enhanced when used in highly translational pre-clinical models,” Stupp said. “It should develop into a novel bioactive material for regeneration of cartilage tissue in joints.”

“We are beginning to see the tremendous breadth of conditions that this fundamental discovery on ‘dancing molecules’ could apply to,” Stupp said. “Controlling supramolecular motion through chemical design appears to be a powerful tool to increase efficacy for a range of regenerative therapies.”"

-via Good News Network, August 5, 2024