Research News Roundup: Stories About Research at UW–Madison
The University of Wisconsin launches new center to test and implement dementia care interventions
Over half of the nearly 7 million individuals living with dementia in the U.S. visit an emergency department each year. Many of these visits can be avoided with improved care in the community, where support for people living with dementia and their caregivers is needed most.
A new research center co-led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison will provide critical infrastructure and resources to support the testing of mechanisms in home and community dementia care intervention trials. The goal is to deliver practical solutions at scale.
Academia plays a crucial role in advancing dementia care by driving research that deepens our understanding of the disease,” says Andrea Gilmore Bykovskyi, associate professor of emergency medicine and co-director for the new Establishing Mechanisms of Benefit to Reinforce the Alzheimer’s Care Experience (EMBRACE) AD/ADRD Roybal Center. “The challenge has been making sure that the promising interventions developed in these studies reach the millions of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, as well as their caregivers—the EMBRACE Center aims to help bridge that gap.”
Read the story here: https://emed.wisc.edu/news/uw-launches-new-center-to-test-implement-dementia-care-interventions/
New Tool Makes Quick Health, Environmental Monitoring Possible
Researchers in the Raman Lab developed a tool that quickly detects harmful and health-relevant substances in our bodies and environments. Dubbed Sensor-seq, the assay screens tens of thousands of protein mutations simultaneously to identify which ones bind to a molecule of interest. The proteins can be further modified to create a biosensor that flips on a visual signal when a small molecule is present.
The researchers tested Sensor-seq with several small molecules of interest, including naltrexone, a drug that mimics opioids. Biochemistry professor Vatsan Raman, who received a provisional patent for this work, sees broad applications for the technology his lab developed, including field tests that identify pollutants in local water sources in minutes and at-home tests that track health indicators.
“We started with naltrexone because there’s a strong need for low-cost ways to detect opioid use in rural communities with limited access to health care,” explains Raman. “But, in principle, we can create a biosensor for any small molecule. That is exciting because there are so many commercial applications for this with the potential to transform at-home and field-based health care and environmental health.”
Read more: https://biochem.wisc.edu/2024/11/26/new-tool-makes-quick-health-environmental-monitoring-possible/
Researchers Seek Metal Miners in the Mustard Family
An international team of researchers, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry professor Rick Amasino, was awarded $1.47 million to enhance plants’ abilities to mine metals from naturally enriched soils. The three-year Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (APRA-E) grant from the Department of Energy supports the researchers’ efforts to mine nickel — a metal essential to the production of lithium batteries — more sustainably by using plants to extract nickel from the soil. ARPA-E advances high-potential, high-impact clean energy technologies across a wide range of technical areas that are strategic to America’s energy security.
The team, which includes researchers from UW–Madison, Illinois State University, Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and Botanickel in France, will focus on two plants in the mustard family that are known for their ability to pull metal from the soil and incorporate it into their own tissue, a process known as phytomining. Nickel from the metal-rich plant tissue can then be harvested, isolated, and used for industrial purposes.
Read more: https://biochem.wisc.edu/2024/11/11/researchers-seek-metal-miners-in-the-mustard-family/