The first 100 days of the Trump administration have been nothing short of chaotic, both in the U.S. and throughout the world. Shining a light through the uncertainty, BioWorld continues to cover the administration’s latest policy decisions and actions affecting the life sciences sector, as well as their impacts across the globe. It’s all right here at Trump administration impacts.

Genes associated with lysosomal dysfunction increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to a study led by scientists at Northwestern University. The discovery also explains why some people who carry a pathogenic variant of the GBA1 gene develop PD or dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and others do not. The key lies in the Commander complex, involved in the transport of proteins to this organelle. This discovery raises the need for combinatorial therapies that act on more than one pathway for this type of neurodegenerative disorder.

In a roadmap to change animal testing requirements for INDs, the U.S. FDA said its new approach will improve drug safety, hasten the evaluation process, and lower costs for companies and patients. It’s another step in a process of changing rules put in place decades ago.

Scientists from the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICRONS) consortium have published the microconnectome of a cubic millimeter of the mouse brain. This is the most complete map of this organ to date at nanometer resolution for a mammal. It not only contains the structure and connections of each and every cell in that volume of tissue, but is also linked to the neuronal activity of that portion of the CNS, linking anatomy and function in the same cells.

Compared to other forms of prevention, a unique issue for pandemic preparedness is that it is forever unclear what pathogen, exactly, the world needs to be prepared for. There are an estimated 300,000 viruses that infect mammals; add in birds, and the estimate grows to more than half a million. Some of those viruses are much greater threats than others.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a serious disorder that develops after SARS-CoV-2 infection, could arise from latent infection of another pathogen, the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the German Rheumatology Research Center (DRFZ) have linked the inflammatory effect of this co-infection with transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), ruling out the possibility that MIS-C is caused by an autoimmune reaction, or persistence of the coronavirus in the body.

A new version of Evo, the AI developed at the Arc Institute that can be used to design genomes as long as that of a bacterium, has been retrained with the DNA sequences of three domains of life – viruses, bacteria and eukaryotes.

The lung and thrombosis may play a key role in cancer and metastasis progression, according to a collaborative study led by Cornell University scientists. In the nonmetastatic lung microenvironment of several cancer types, the development of a prothrombosis niche promotes metastasis formation through the release of small extracellular vesicles loaded with an integrin protein.

The former head of the U.S. NIH has sounded a warning that the uncertainty caused by the Trump Administration’s funding cuts and layoffs is blocking “critical work” and “paralyzing” biomedical research. “Every time we launch a new program, every time we continue to commit resources to ongoing work, those are important decisions that we make every single day, and in times like this, that decision-making is paralyzed,” said Monica Bertagnolli, who stood down as director of the NIH on Jan. 17.

With the first company in the world announcing more than $1 billion in annual revenue from pulsed field ablation on Feb. 5, Clarivate plc and BioWorld MedTech’s latest report provides well-timed insight into the stunning growth and bright future of this new medical technology for the treatment of atrial fibrillation.