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In the midst of the controversy sparked by a NEET (UG) 2022 female applicant filing a complaint over the removal of her innerwear outside the examination venue in Kerala’s Kollam, BJP activists staged a protest outside the examination centre on Wednesday.

According to reports, on July 18, a few claimed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists staged a protest outside the Mar Thoma Institute of Information Technology, where female applicants were purportedly requested to remove their innerwear before entering the examination venue.

They were spotted protesting outside the institution while carrying BJP flags.

The incident was brought to light after a student submitted a report with the Superintendent of Police in Kollam.

Also Read: Cancer research discovers new path in its evolution, paving door for cancer treatment

According to reports, the girl students were compelled to take the exam in front of other guy students and male invigilators, which made them very uncomfortable and affected them psychologically and physically.

The parent cited the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) rules, noting that the NTA “had not indicated any prohibition on any sort of brassiere (bra) and hooks.”

The state’s women’s commission also opened an investigation into the affair.

According to reports, the number of complaints about the incidence is growing.

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A vital cancer development pathway was uncovered in 90% of cancer cells, according to research. This research will drive the following development of cancer-specific drugs with fewer adverse effects.

The study’s findings were published in the journal ‘Nucleic Acids Research.’ Telomeres and protective caps at the ends of chromosomes control the life span of a typical healthy cell. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten until they are no longer long enough to safeguard the DNA and the cell dies naturally.

Characteristics Of Cancer cell

Cancer cells, on the other hand, survive by reactivating telomerase, an enzyme that can lengthen telomeres but is dormant in most adult cells.

Cancer cells can proliferate and grow endlessly in the body if the Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (hTERT) gene is activated.

According to studies, telomerase is reactivated in up to 90% of malignancies, making hTERT, which activates telomerase, an ideal choice for targeting cancer cells.

Because of the substantial negative effects on healthy cells, current efforts to cure cancer by suppressing telomerase with medicines have proven to be too hazardous for patients. The researchers discovered a unique DNA structure that only occurs in cancer cells and delivers the required molecular machinery into the precise location to activate the hTERT gene.

The exact process of hTERT activation described in this paper will be useful in developing medications that block hTERT selectively in cancer cells while causing fewer adverse effects.

“The most prevalent oncogenic event that gives cancer cells longevity is telomerase activation. We now know how to directly target cancer cells by inhibiting telomerase activity. This research will be used to build next-generation cancer inhibitors “Semih Akincilar, Senior Research Fellow at A*STAR’s IMCB and study lead researcher, remarked

GIS-generated patient-derived colorectal cancer cell lines were used to discover correlated gene expression for hTERT activation and determine the physiological significance of the findings in this work.

These models will be used as a test bed for future investigations targeted at developing cancer-specific telomerase inhibitors.

Also Read: Tracking everyday movement patterns may help diagnosing dementia: Study

Building on this findings, the team will engage with industrial and clinical partners to create cancer-specific telomerase inhibitors and advance them to the clinical stage.

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Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s letter to the country’s vaccinators on Wednesday, saying it aimed to stimulate the country’s healthcare personnel.

“PM @NarendraModi ji has sent a letter congratulating the world’s largest immunisation programme against COVID-19 on reaching 200 crore vaccines.” I appreciate and thank everyone who has contributed to our campaign. This has boosted the confidence of all vaccine recipients. “With this energy, all of us will continue to work on this campaign,” Mandaviya tweeted. As India just exceeded the 200-crore vaccination threshold, Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a letter to all vaccinators in the country, praising their efforts in the fight against COVID-19.

“The magnitude and speed that India imparted to the world’s largest vaccination programme has been phenomenal, and this has happened owing to the efforts of individuals like you,” Prime Minister Modi said in an appreciation letter to vaccinators on Wednesday.

“Our COVID-19 immunisation adventure began on January 16, 2021, and we reached another milestone on July 17, 2022.” It was a historic day for the country as India exceeded the 200-million immunisation threshold. “This is a watershed moment in our fight against the COVID-19 epidemic,” PM Modi wrote in his letter.

“Our vaccinators, healthcare workers, healthcare support personnel, and frontline employees have played an important part in saving Indians,” he continued.

This is a great example of devotion to duty and delivering when it counts the most.”

This comes only days after the country reached 200 crore vaccine doses on July 17.

“India makes history once more! Congratulations to all Indians on reaching the milestone of 200 crore vaccination doses. Proud of all who helped make India’s immunisation effort unprecedented in volume and speed. This has bolstered the international campaign against Covid-19 “PM Modi had tweeted about it.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya began the ‘Covid Vaccination Amrit Mahotsav’ at the COVID Vaccination Camp in Nirman Bhawan on Friday. He also urged individuals to take advantage of the free dose in order to be protected against COVID-19.

also Read: Delhi: 585 new COVID cases reported in previous 24 hours

“The free dosages were administered to all Health Ministry workers. “I urge all residents over the age of 18 to acquire the free dosage to safeguard your protection against Covid-19,” Mandaviya added.

“All eligible persons (18+) can obtain a free prophylactic dosage for the following 75 days on ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,'” Mandaviya stated.

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According to a bulletin issued by the Delhi Health Department on Tuesday, the national capital recorded 585 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours, with a case positivity rate of 4.35 percent.

With this, the city’s active caseload is 2,040, while the national active caseload is 1,44,264. In the previous 24 hours, 429 COVID patients recovered, bringing the overall number of recoveries since the city’s inception to 19,16,642.

Two patients died as a result of the illness, bringing the city’s death toll to 26,296.

Covid Vaccination in Delhi

In the previous 24 hours, 29,661 COVID vaccine injections were administered as part of the immunisation effort, which just passed the 2 billion milestone. The total number of dosages administered thus far is 3,54,77,177.

Meanwhile, the country reported a modest decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases on Monday, with 16,935 new infections confirmed, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India registered 20,528 Coronavirus infections on Sunday.

The overall number of cases has increased to 4,37,67,534 with the addition of the additional COVID-19 cases, including 1,44,264 active cases. Active cases account for 0.33 percent of all cases.

According to government figures, 51 deaths have brought India’s COVID-19 death toll to 5,25,760.

Also Read: COVID-19: PM Modi congratulates vaccinators on India’s 200-million-dose milestone

The recovery rate is presently at 98.47 percent, with 16,069 new recoveries registered in the previous 24 hours, bringing the overall number of recoveries to 4,30,97,510.

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According to new research, loneliness as a pre-adolescent kid can lead to a drinking problem in early adulthood years later. Alcoholism is not the only health issue associated with loneliness. Loneliness relates to poor physical health in older persons, including dementia, heart disease, and stroke. Arizona State University researchers investigated the impact of childhood loneliness on contemporary stress levels and drinking patterns in young people. The findings of the study will be published in Addictive Behaviors Reports.

“Childhood loneliness before the age of 12 was connected with felt stress today and influenced dysregulated drinking in young adults,” said Julie Patock-Peckham, assistant research professor in the ASU Department of Psychology.

Because stress influences whether individuals drink excessively, particularly women, the researchers investigated if previous experiences with loneliness influenced the tension people feel now.

Over 300 college students took part in the study, completing questionnaires on their childhood loneliness, present stress levels, and drinking habits. Loneliness in the past was linked to current stress levels and drinking habits.

Higher degrees of loneliness before the age of 12 predicted increased stress in early adulthood, which was linked to increased alcohol consumption and alcohol-related issues.

Also Read: COVID-19: Mandaviya praises PM Modi for his ‘encouraging’ letter to country’s vaccinators

“The data utilised in this study were obtained prior to the pandemic, and the findings imply that we might be dealing with another public health problem in a few years as today’s youngsters grow up,” Patock-Peckham said.

“More study is needed to determine if reducing childhood loneliness might alter the pathways that lead to alcohol use problems in adulthood. Combating early loneliness should aid in the reduction of poor drinking control, particularly among women.”

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A research that compared four SARS-CoV-2 variations found that the Omicron variant is excellent at entering cells and evading neutralisation from current vaccines or past infection, likely contributing to the variant’s high transmissibility.

A research published on July 19 in the journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ (PNAS) reveals that Omicron mutations boost the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles while decreasing antibody neutralisation.

The virus is being studied using virus-like particles (VLPs) that mimic the structural properties of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Jennifer Doudna, Melanie Ott, and colleagues tested VLPs of the B.1, B.1.1, Delta, and Omicron variants against antisera samples from 38 COVID-19 survivors, both vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Antisera from the same individual who had had two vaccines were up to 15 times less efficient at neutralising Omicron in vitro than the initial B.1 strain. Nonetheless, sera from subjects who received a third mRNA vaccination within 16 to 21 days exhibited considerably higher in vitro neutralising activity against Omicron. The authors next evaluated the in vitro neutralising power of four presently available monoclonal antibody therapies: casirivimab, imdevimab, sotrovimab, and bebtelovimab. Only bebtelovimab was shown to be considerably effective against Omicron.

According to the data, the authors hypothesise that Omicron is especially infectious because it is a more difficult strain to neutralise. The researchers also discovered an existing monoclonal antibody that may be able to neutralise the mutation in vitro.

Understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern the viral fitness of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is critical for the development of effective vaccines and treatments. Because of biosafety level 3 handling restrictions, research on intact SARS-CoV-2 is being undertaken slowly. Despite the capacity to assess S-mediated cell binding and entry via the ACE2 and TMPRSS2 receptors, lentiviruses pseudotyped with the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein cannot detect the impact of mutations outside the S gene (1, 2).

To overcome these obstacles, the researchers created SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles (SC2-VLPs), which combine the S, N, M, and E structural proteins with messenger RNA (mRNA) that contains a packaging signal to generate RNA-loaded capsids that are capable of spike-dependent cell transduction (3). This approach allowed for quick testing of SARS-CoV-2 structural gene variants for their impact on both infection efficiency and antibody or antiserum neutralisation. It correctly represents the impact of changes in structural proteins that are reported in infections with viral isolates.

In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 VLPs that transduce reporter mRNA into ACE2- and TMPRSS2-expressing cells allowed for a quick and thorough evaluation of the impact of structural protein (S, E, M, N) variants on both particle infectivity and antibody-neutralisation. Using this approach, the researchers discovered that, in comparison to ancestral viral variations, such as Delta, the S and N Omicron versions increase VLP infectivity. Omicron continues to carry the N mutational hotspot mutations that have been found to significantly increase VLP infectivity in the past.

Surprisingly, Omicron M and E gene variations seem to reduce the virus’ ability to infect, at least when compared to ancestral forms of the other structural genes. This suggests that genes like S and N take precedence over less-effective forms of M, E, and maybe other genes in the whole virus. Monitoring the evolution of the S and N genes and figuring out why the N gene has such a strong impact on the infectiousness of viral particles may lead to the creation of more accurate diagnostic tools, broadly neutralising vaccines, and maybe new treatments.

Notably, compared to ancestral variants, including Delta, all antisera from vaccine recipients or convalescent sera from COVID-19 survivors demonstrated lower neutralisation of Omicron VLPs, with mRNA vaccines substantially outperforming a viral vector vaccine or natural infection in initial potency. The T cell-based immunity brought on by immunisation or prior infection is not taken into consideration in these results.

The researchers also discovered that Omicron S mutations entirely negate the ability of several commercially available therapeutic antibodies to bind to Class 1 and Class 3 monoclonal antibodies. These findings imply that, prior to vaccine boosting, the efficacy of antibodies produced by mRNA vaccines against Omicron is 15-18 times lower, and that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine only generates a small amount of neutralising antibodies against any SARS-CoV-2 type. Booster shots raise Omicron’s neutralisation titers, but they are still significantly lower than for earlier types.

These results support the use of mRNA vaccination boosters to improve antibody-based protection against Omicron infection instead of vaccines specifically designed to protect against Omicron itself, which is consistent with evidence from previous pseudovirus neutralisation trials (5, 6).

Also Read: India reported 20,557 new COVID-19 infections and 40 fatalities in 24 hours

The researchers’ approach to analyzing the impact of mutations in structural proteins has a few limitations. They assume that mutations in the structural proteins act independently of each other and of the other non-structural genes of the virus. The results are consistent with additive effects of N, M, E, and S mutations, but this may not be the case when combined with other viral proteins. It would be interesting to see if similar results would be obtained in infectious clones incorporating the entire genome and testing these mutations combinatorially, but this is infeasible due to a large number of mutations.

In addition, The researchers believe that infectious VLPs cannot be separated from defective particles and exosomes, which may affect the interpretations of our conclusions regarding the compositions of VLPs.

However, the Researchers think that their method for evaluating the effects of structural protein changes has some drawbacks. It is assumed that the structural protein mutations function independently of one another and the virus’s other non-structural genes. Our findings support the cumulative impact of N, M, E, and S mutations, but when paired with additional viral proteins, this may not hold true.

Although this is impractical because of the sheer number of mutations, it would be intriguing to investigate if similar results could be produced in infectious clones that included the full genome and tested these mutations in combination. Additionally, the researchers are unable to distinguish between infectious VLPs and defective particles and exosomes, which could have an impact on how our findings about the composition of VLPs are interpreted.

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A new study found a link between depression, diet, and the onset of frailty.

The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences published this study. Frailty, which affects 10-15% of the elderly, is defined as an identified condition of heightened vulnerability caused by a loss of function across numerous physiological systems. It typically happens in conjunction with other medical issues, such as depression. Frailty, which affects 10-15% of the elderly, is defined as an identified condition of heightened vulnerability caused by a loss of function across numerous physiological systems.

Diet is considered to have a substantial impact on the development of frailty. This is one of the first studies to look at the link between dietary inflammation and frailty and depression.

Previous research has linked an inflammatory diet high in artificial trans fats (such partly hydrogenated oil), processed carbohydrates, and saturated fats to an increased risk of frailty.

The Framingham Offspring Study’s results were used in a study titled “Association of the pro-inflammatory diet with frailty onset among adults with and without depressive symptoms,” which sought to ascertain whether people with depressive symptoms are more prone to developing frailty in response to dietary inflammation. Data from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort were used in the study.

Also Read: Scientists discover technique to know the impact of food on human health

The 1,701 non-frail participants provided baseline information on their diet and mental symptoms and were tracked for approximately 11 years before their frailty status was reevaluated. Inflammatory food was linked to an increased risk of frailty, according to the study, and this link was somewhat stronger in people who had depressive symptoms. According to the researchers, since people who experience depressive symptoms frequently have greater levels of inflammation, adding dietary inflammation to that level could hasten the onset of frailty.

The 1,701 non-frail participants provided baseline information on their diet and mental symptoms and were tracked for approximately 11 years before their frailty status was reevaluated. Inflammatory food was linked to an increased risk of frailty, according to the study, and this link was somewhat stronger in people who had depressive symptoms. According to the researchers, since people who experience depressive symptoms frequently have greater levels of inflammation, adding dietary inflammation to that level could hasten the onset of frailty.

The study’s principal author is Courtney L. Millar, PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Marcus Institute of Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife, and Harvard Medical School. This study discovered that depressive feelings may make people more prone to becoming feeble as a result of eating an inflammatory diet. This shows that eating a diet high in anti-inflammatory substances (such as fibre and plant-based chemicals called flavonoids) may benefit in preventing the onset of frailty, according to Dr Millar.

According to the exploratory data, middle-aged and older persons who consume a pro-inflammatory diet are more likely to simultaneously acquire frailty and depression symptoms than they are to do so separately.

According to the exploratory data, middle-aged and older persons who consume a pro-inflammatory diet are more likely to simultaneously acquire frailty and depression symptoms than they are to do so separately.

Mediterranean Diet may prevent frailty

This study builds on two earlier ones by Dr Millar, one of which showed that eating a Mediterranean-style diet may prevent the onset of frailty and the other which demonstrated that a pro-inflammatory diet increased the risk of frailty development. Both of these studies were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

According to Dr Millar, “this study adds to our understanding of the connection between dietary inflammation, depression, and frailty.” “Increasing intake of fruits and vegetables that are high in fibre, flavonoids, and other dietary antioxidants may be even more crucial for individuals who are depressed.”

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