Category Archives: Genetic Medicine

54gene

Picked by: Cain McClary, founder and managing partner at KdT Ventures

What the company does: 54gene wants to address the knowledge gaps that have made it harder to develop drugs that address certain characteristics of people from Africa. It plans to collect better data from these people and patients before developing drugs internally and also partnering with other drug companies.

Funding raised: $46 million

Number of employees: 162

Why it's going to take off next year: Most of the medications that are available in African countries are imported from abroad, but foreign drugmakers haven't focused much attention on these countries.

That's starting to change.

"From a global business development perspective, it's either 54gene or a Chinese company that's going to come in and start manufacturing drugs in Africa. We prefer an African-first company," McClary said.

McClary said the startup is in conversations with several Big Pharma companies, with a deal coming in 2022.

Allison DeAngelis

Alto Neuroscience

Picked by: Christian Angermayer, founder of Apeiron Investment Group (investor)

What the company does: This Los Altos, California-based biotech is developing new ways to measure brain activity that will lead to better-designed studies for mental-health treatments.

Funding raised: $40 million

Number of employees: 42

Why it's going to take off next year: The startup is off to a fast start since publicly launching in October with $40 million in initial financing. Dr. Amit Etkin left his position as a tenured psychiatry professor at Stanford University to lead Alto as CEO.

Alto already has multiple drug candidates it is developing to treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder that are in human studies. In addition to making progress on its research, Angermayer said Alto will raise a Series B round in early 2022.

Andrew Dunn

Artios Pharma

Picked by: Barbara Dalton, Pfizer Ventures senior managing partner (investor)

What the company does: UK-based Artios is developing a class of therapies aiming to sabotage cancer cells. Cancerous cells multiply fast in the body and often make mistakes in copying DNA in that process. These cancer cells have ways to repair damage to their DNA. Artios is aiming to block that mechanism, hoping the malignant cells die without hurting healthy ones.

Funding raised: $320 million

Number of employees: 77

Why it's going to take off next year: The biotech is right on the cusp of an inflection point, with its first drug candidates starting human testing.

"Their clinical work is advancing tremendously," Dalton said, who sits on Artios' board. "I'm excited for what they will be able to do in the next year to 18 months."

Andrew Dunn

Babyscripts

Picked by: Cigna Ventures senior vice president Tom Richards (investor)

What it does: The software platform lets medical professionals remotely monitor and manage pregnant and postpartum patients.

Funding raised: $37.12 million

Number of employees: 55

Why it's going to take off next year: Babyscripts' technology reaches both providers and patients using the app to manage their own health, and leans on artificial intelligence to improve routine self-assessments, Richards said.

Overall, maternal and women's health spanning fertility treatment to postpartum care to even menopause management reaches half the population and it's "a large spend area, and an area that's very important to our customers."

Mohana Ravindranath

Beacon Biosignals

Picked by: Cain McClary, founder and managing partner at KdT Ventures

What the company does: Beacon has developed a platform using a test called an electroencephalogram, or EEG, to measure brain waves and identify new biomarkers or targets for neurological disease drugs.

Funding raised: $29.85 million

Number of employees: 25

Why it's going to take off next year: Drug companies need to better understand how the brain works and what's causing different mental-health and degenerative conditions in order to treat them. Beacon and a few other companies are turning to EEGs, which aren't invasive and are already widely available but have been difficult for healthcare providers to interpret.

"Thanks to advances in computational analysis, we can now (hopefully) find signals that have been right in front of us the whole time, expediting drug development and precision medicine in neurotherapeutics," McClary said.

Allison DeAngelis

Daybreak

Picked by: Greg Yap, partner at Menlo Ventures

What the company does: Daybreak is an online mental-health-care company specifically designed for adolescent patients ages 11 through 19. It offers support and services for teens experiencing anxiety, depression, lack of motivation, and academic stress, among other conditions.

Funding raised: $1.95 million, according to Pitchbook

Number of employees: 40, according to Pitchbook

Why it's going to take off next year: "Mental health for adults has a number of competitors, but I think there are some unique aspects to mental health for children and teenagers that require different caregivers and different types of care," Yap said.

Yap says that Daybreak is particularly interesting because it partners with schools, where a lot of children and teens struggle with mental-health issues. However, those settings are typically understaffed and underfunded, making it difficult for teachers or counselors to help students experiencing mental-health conditions in an ongoing way.

Daybreak did not return Insider's request for confirmation on both funding raised and number of employees.

Megan Hernbroth

Eikon Therapeutics

Picked by: Jerel Davis, Versant Ventures managing director

What the company does: Bay Area-based Eikon uses super-resolution fluorescence microscopy to track and measure the movement of individual proteins inside of cells for drug discovery. Dr. Eric Betzig, a founder of Eikon and scientific advisor, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for his work on the underlying technology behind Eikon's high-resolution microscopes.

Funding raised: $148 million

Number of employees: 75

Why it's going to take off next year: Eikon is now being led by one of the drug industry's most accomplished R&D leaders: Roger Perlmutter, who left the drug-making giant Merck to become CEO of Eikon in May 2021.

"They have brought together an exceptional and diverse team to do this," Davis said.

Andrew Dunn

Equip Health

Picked by: Alyssa Jaffee, a partner at 7wire Ventures; Ambar Bhattacharyya, a managing director at Maverick Ventures; and Holly Maloney, a managing director at General Catalyst

What the company does: Equip Health offers virtual care for eating disorders and illnesses that often accompany them, like anxiety.

Funding raised: $17 million

Number of employees: 64 full-time employees and 49 part-time clinicians

Why it's going to take off next year:It's not easy to get care for eating disorders offline because it often requires inpatient treatment, and there aren't that many centers, per Bhattacharyya and Jaffee. Maverick's research suggests that if more options were available, more people would probably seek treatment.

"Equip is a bridge with a network of providers there to help patients deal with what is really a lifelong chronic condition," Jaffee said.

Megan Hernbroth and Blake Dodge

Firefly Health

Picked by: Holly Maloney, a managing director at General Catalyst

What the company does: Firefly is a health plan and provider, offering virtual primary care, for example, but also helping members find in-person services when needed.

Funding raised: $52 million

Number of employees: 75

Why it's going to take off next year: As 2022 brings more investment in groups that are combining mental and physical healthcare, startups like Firefly which includes access to behavioral-health specialists in its primary-care packages should benefit, Maloney said.

The company's also been effective at driving overall health and patient engagement, she said.

Blake Dodge

Haystack Oncology

Picked by: Christian Angermayer, founder of Apeiron Investment Group

What the company does: Haystack is developing ways to detect trace residue of cancer cells in the blood to identify patients with residual, recurrent, and resistant cancer.

Funding raised: N/A

Number of employees: 20

Why it's going to take off next year: George Petrocheilos, cofounder of Catalio Capital, which has invested in Haystack, said that the company plans to raise a Series A round in the first quarter of 2022. It also plans to release its first clinical-trial data next year, and Petrocheilos said that its cancer-screening blood test could be available as early as the fourth quarter of 2022.

Angermayer said he admires some of the people who founded Haystack, particularly the Johns Hopkins researchers Bert Vogelstein, Ken Kinzler, and Nickolas Papadopoulos, who previously founded Thrive Earlier Detection, another cancer-detection company that was acquired by EXACT Sciences in 2020.

Andrew Dunn

Hazel Health

Picked by: Liz Rockett, managing director at Kaiser Permanente Ventures

What the company does: Hazel provides virtual care to kids in grade school.

Funding raised: $63.5 million, according to Pitchbook

Number of employees: 150 full-time employees

Why it's going to take off next year: School systems play a big role in providing care to kids, especially during the pandemic, but some grade schools aren't equipped to do so. Hazel gives those schools a way to connect kids with a doctor or nurse practitioner virtually, instead of sending the kids to a more expensive medical facility.

"They create a much better safety net around kids and ensure schools can deal with health issues as they arise, and not have to rely on emergency rooms," Rockett said.

Shelby Livingston

Health In Her HUE

Picked by: Brittany Davis, general partner at Backstage Capital

What it does: Health In Her HUE offers an online directory of culturally competent healthcare providers focused on women's health.

Funding raised: $1.05 million

Number of employees: 7

Why it's going to take off next year: Women can use the platform to connect with each other and ask questions, Davis said. It's a "stickiness factor" that keeps patients engaging more regularly instead of only when they have a medical issue.

Mohana Ravindranath

HealthVerity

Picked by: Michael Greeley, general partner at Flare Capital Partners (investor)

Originally posted here:
List: Healthcare and Biotech Startups That Will Take Off in 2022, According to Investors - Business Insider

AI and big data analytics are allowing healthcare providers in the Middle East to make faster, more cost-effective diagnostics, according to a broad cross-section of healthcare professionals. Along with the increasing use of AI and big data, though, security concerns about data privacy are also growing.

AI is one of the fastest growing segments of the global healthcare market today. According to Frost & Sullivan forecasts, it will reach US$6.6 billion by the end of this year. Such growth rates are possible thanks to the huge amounts of data generated by a wide variety of devices, which can be analysed and acted on.

In the Middle East, healthcare professionals attest to the effectiveness and increasing usage of AI.

We started the digital transformation journey last year with the focus on technology being the core to the foundation of the American Hospital. Weve teamed up with some big names like Oracle and Microsoft to build a new level of intelligence when it comes to models, said Ahmad Yahya, CIO of American Hospital Dubai.

The hospitals IT team created a new COVID diagnostics application built on its clinical database and modelling from Cerner. It was customised and validated by the clinical staff at the hospital intensive care unit, and helped identify risk factors for patients, as well as in deciding who would go to the ICU.

Two other AI-based diagnostic applications are aimed at identifying asthma patients and predicting whether emergency patients will go to an in-patient ward.

We are currently working on all these AI models with one of them, the COVID one, having been already validated, while the other two are close to being validated. We are also working on going live early next year with real-time monitoring of patients sentiments, satisfaction, and (hospital) capacity, which can serve to help allocate resources, Yahyah disclosed earlier this year, at the Arab Health 2021 event in Dubai.

With a wealth of historical medical records available for analysis, AI can be helpful in making a diagnosis and choosing an appropriate treatment, providing the doctor with a third opinion, healthcare professionals say. AI applications are able to analyse all available medical information about a specific disease, and find out which treatments and drugs have been the most effective in the entire history of medical practice.

Medicine is a data-rich field in which accuracy is perhaps the most critical factor. The more data that algorithms process, the more accurately and correctly they will be able to formulate conclusions based on them. Meanwhile, different types of technology in use today are generating an increasing volume of health data, according to Massimo Cannizzo, CEO of Gellify, a venture capital company that in October launched a US$50 million fund with management group Azimut to invest in companies providing healthcare and emerging technology in the Middle East.

There are, for example, various wearable devices that are gaining popularity and generating health information, including portable heart rate and blood pressure monitors devices that can continuously monitor your heart rate or blood sugar.

As their cost decreases and the functionality of the already popular fitness bracelets expands, AI-based diagnostic systems will receive even more data on the health of each individual patient, giving the doctor the opportunity to more accurately and efficiently prescribe a treatment plan.

The rise of so-called augmented healthcare is demonstrated by the growth figures of wearables market in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, where 25% of the adult population is expected to be using a wearable device by 2022, according to Cannizzo.

Algorithms and AI models programmes or sets of algorithms that use a set of data to recognise patterns and perform tasks are constantly improving, and this progress is already finding expression in specific applications in the medical field.

AI will not only help make clinical assessments, but will also streamline operations and workflow, according to Kentaro Suzuki, general manager at medical equipment maker Canon Medical. For example, it can shorten the scan time in MRI, Suzuki said.

We believe AI is a tool for the medical profession in order to improve the current capability of the imaging equipment, Suzuki said.

AI applications can analyse medical images and find early signs of a disease that a doctor may not notice. It will never replace humans or directly diagnose patients, Suzuki said. The third opinion that AI can offer, though, is especially relevant for oncological diseases, in which an early start of treatment can significantly improve the prognosis for a speedy recovery.

AI can also change the way we think about genetics, and push the boundaries of genomics research. Recent research shows that an artificial neural network is capable of identifying and detecting patterns in large amounts of genetic data, thus revealing groups and sequences of genes associated with specific diseases.

Since diseases are encoded in the genetic sequence of a person, the ability to understand genetic information at the most detailed level is currently the key to determining how to treat them.

Advances in genomics have been difficult to make due to the complexity of genetic data. Thanks to the ability of AI to classify and analyse a wide range of data in a short period of time, though, practitioners now expect breakthroughs in genomic study.

I think we are all shifting towards more automated work flows and smart technologies, including in genomics by default because we generate large amount of data that is impossible to manually assess and to make sense of, said Prof. Walid Mohammad Abuhammour, clinical molecular geneticist, director of the genomics centre at Al Jalila Childrens Specialty Hospital, and associate professor of genetics at Mohammed bin Rashid University.

AI can, in particular, make headway in helping to cure rare diseases. Some 80% of the so-called rare diseases are genomic, with 50% of them found in children, noted Joshua Symons, director of data strategy at Genomics England.

We want to embed the combination of AI and genomics into routine medical care to approve outcomes and therapies for patients to discover new drugs and improve lives on a national scale, Symons said.

These types of approaches, embedded into routine clinical medicine, will enable decision support systems to determine what the best therapies are for patients, who, for example, now can perform diabetes blood tests at home, Symons said. Technology is evolving that will allow cancer patients to take their own blood sample and have the ctDNA(circulating tumor DNA) analysed to determine whether they are responding to treatment, he said.

As an increasing number of companies apply emerging technologies such as AI and robotics to healthcare, however, concerns about security and patient privacy are on the rise.

We have a lot of companies in digital health and many of them use AI. We also have companies that use surgical robots or manufacture robotics. The number of those companies is increasing, said Marwan Janahi, managing director of Dubai Science Park (DSP), created to position the UAE as a major destination for research and development.

There are more than 400 companies at DSP, with over 4,000 people working there and the healthcare sector is constantly evolving, Janahi said. The role of AI in healthcare is increasingly important, but at the same time healthcare professionals should be very careful about the information concerning patients and how their privacy is secured, he said.

There are a variety of ways to approach security for patient data. For instance, the UAE ICT law that was issued in January 2019 requires patient data to be stored in the country, where there are very strict data protection laws, Janahi said.

The data should be owned by the patient, but the same time there is a need for flexibility because sometimes there is a need to share information with other parts of the world to advance healthcare knowledge, and to get second opinions, Janahi pointed out.

Healthcare officials should take a variety of approaches toward data security, said American Hospitals Yahyah. We use a typical approach when it comes to cybersecurity, like having firewalls, etc. But the weakest link is your people and what is really important is [security] awareness, which is critical to us, he said.

As a preventive measure the hospital does some mock demo attacks to raise awareness among its people within the enterprise, he said.

While healthcare has evolved to be one of humanitys great success stories due to advances in medicine and technology, at the same time it is in a crisis because of challenges it is facing, said Khalid Ghaloua Adine, director of solutions marketing for digital healthcare at Etisalat Digital.

While life expectancy is higher today than ever before, there is a huge shortage of healthcare professionals to cover the demand. There is also a concern on how to manage and control costs. Thats the reason why healthcare professionals seek new technologies that can optimise costs and support human caregivers, he said.

To be prepared for the challenges ahead, there is a need for more data scientists, data governance engineers, and other types of roles. In addition to CIOs, why not a chief AI officer? Adine asked.

Healthcare organisations should look ahead at skill sets they need to have in the future, he suggested.

For the last 20 years we have been generating data that will need a huge number of people to process it. If we dont have people with the right set of skills to interpret and model that information then we will not be able to overcome those challenges, Adine said.

Read the original:
How AI and big data are changing healthcare in the Middle East - CIO

In every visible way, Marley Gaskins is an average 12-year-old she enjoys painting, playing online games like Roblox with her friends and taking ukulele lessons. But until recently, her life was far from normal.

Marley was born with a one-in-a-million genetic disorder called leukocyte adhesion deficiency-1, or LAD-1, which cripples the immune system and results in recurring infections, coupled with slow wound healing.

She started getting what looked like ant bites on her skin when she turned 1, said Marleys mother, Tamara Hogue. When she was 3, she got a really big skin abscess on her stomach that landed her in the hospital for five weeks because it was just a massive infection they couldnt control. The infections, Tamara said, continued to get worse and more frequent, and Marley eventually needed round-the-clock attention.

Due to a defective gene, Marley was missing a protein that enables white blood cells to stick to blood vessel walls a crucial step these cells take before moving outside the vessel walls and into tissues to fight infections. Most kids with Marleys disorder, if untreated, die before the age of 2. The fact that she survived well past that mark without a diagnosis is remarkable in itself.

When Marley was officially diagnosed at age 8, after years of uncertainty and hospital stays, doctors in her home state of Florida said the only possible cure would be a bone marrow transplant from a matched donor. Tamara said Marleys doctors couldnt even provide a survival rate for LAD-1 patients who undergo bone marrow transplants because so few people are diagnosed with the disorder.

I just felt like there had to be another option, and that's when I started asking for a second opinion, Tamara said.

A new hope: Gene therapy at UCLA

Tamaras search for other treatment options led her to Dr. Donald Kohn, a physician-scientist and member of theEli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

He was leading a new clinical trial sponsored by Rocket Pharmaceuticals and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the states stem cell agency for children with LAD-1 in which doctors collect blood-forming stem cells with the defective gene from each child, add in a healthy copy of the gene in the lab and then return the corrected cells into the childs body. The therapy works by promptingthe childs body to create a continuous supply of healthy white blood cells capable of fighting infection. And because the corrected cells are the patients own, there is no risk of rejection, making the treatment far less risky than a bone marrow transplant.

By the time a patient gets a bone marrow transplant, theres a lot of infection and they may have already had lung problems or other complications, said Kohn, a distinguished professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in the UCLA College and of pediatrics and molecular and medical pharmacology at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. They have manyskin lesions and those tend to be the sites where the donor cells attack the recipients body in whats known as graft-versus-host disease.

To avoid the rejection risks of a bone marrow transplant, Marley became the first LAD-1 patient ever to receive the stem cell gene therapy.

I didnt hesitate in letting her be a participant in the trial because I knew in my heart that this would give her a chance at having a normal life, Tamara said.

Treatment and recovery

In July 2019, Tamara and Marley traveled from their hometown Live Oak, Florida, to UCLA. There, doctors gave the then 9-year-old Marley two medications to move the stem cells from her bone marrow into her bloodstream so that they could be collected. Her harvested stem cells were then sent to a Rocket Pharmaceuticalslab where a healthy copy of the defective gene was delivered into them.

A month later, mother and daughter returned to Los Angeles so that Marley could undergo chemotherapy. This step was necessary to clear Marleys bone marrow of the remaining defective stem cells and make space for the new transplanted ones to grow. Next, the genetically corrected stem cells were injected back into her bloodstream to replicate and make fully functioning new white blood cells.

One month after receiving the transplant, she was already feeling pretty well and her immune system was working great, Kohn said.

Last week, Kohn reported at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition that Marley and five other children who received the gene therapy at UCLA,including three siblings,remain healthy and disease-free.Doctors expect that the one-time therapy will keep LAD-1 patients healthy for life.

None of the six kids have experienced new infections or inflammatory skin lesions since receiving treatment, Kohn said. He added that patients treated with the same type of gene therapy for more than a dozen other blood diseases have also shown very good recovery.

Marley and her mom went into this as the first ones ever, Kohn said. What they did was an act of bravery, so its great that weve been able to really help.

A string of firsts

More than two years out of treatment and no longer limited by the severe infections that used to keep her in the hospital for months, Marley is experiencing a lot of firsts: first time camping, first time getting her ears pierced and first time going to what she calls big school this year.

She tells me that shes thankful she has a story that makes her unique, Tamara said. Now she shares her journey even with kids at school to give others courage and hope.

For Tamara, who quit her job in banking to homeschool Marley from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, the gene therapys success has also opened up new possibilities for her own future.

Its a rebirth for the patients and the parents, Kohn said. Its life-changing, from a life of worry to a life of health.

See the article here:
UCLA gene therapy gives new life to girl born with fatal immune disorder | UCLA - UCLA Newsroom

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK Morrisville-basedMetabolon, a metabolomics data and insights company, will work with two major medical centers in Boston to study the biology underlying lactation for better maternal and infant health.

The company will perform metabolomics analysis of breast milk from mothers and plasma samples from mothers and their babies in a first-of-its-kind Lactation Lab in collaboration with Brigham and Womens Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

Metabolons data will enable the identification of the metabolomic signatures of mothers and infants following birth and through the breastfeeding period, providing data to identify key biochemicals that may be crucial for improving the health of both the mother and baby, said Patricia Sheridan, Ph.D., associate director of biological development at Metabolon.

In the short term, the Lactation Lab aims to generate fundamental knowledge required for new interventions to improve maternal and infant health outcomes. Longer term, the Lab will provide a model for discovery in the field of lactation science, bringing much-needed scientific rigor to investigations during lactation, a critical period that influences the lifelong health of two generations.

Demystifies the gut: RTP biotech Metabolon unveils new metabolome platform

Metabolon will work with Sarbattama Sen, M.D., a neonatologist and researcher in the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine at Brigham and Womens Hospital, and Camilia Martin, M.D., director of clinical-translational research in the Department of Neonatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Over 60% of U.S. women are unable to achieve their lactation goals, and the variability in human breastmilk has been understudied, said Sen. Leveraging techniques such as metabolomics will be critical to moving forward the field of lactation science and optimizing care for every mother and infant.

Research has shown that longer breastfeeding duration can decrease post-partum weight retention andmetabolic problems while also decreasing the possibility of post-partum depression and rates of breast and ovarian cancer.

Detailed characterization of human milk coupled with clinical outcomes will identify important pathways in health and disease for both mother and infant, said Martin. These findings will catalyze new areas of research on previously unrecognized metabolites that are important for health outcomes.

Metabolons collaboration with the two medical centers is part of 11 independent projects that are receiving funding from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which is contributing $8.3 million in capital programs to support innovation and cross-sector collaboration to address pressing life science challenges in womens health.

Metabolomics is the large-scale study of all small molecules in a biological system. It helps researchers see beyond the genetic variation of individuals by capturing the combined impact of genetic and external factors, such as the effect of drugs, diet, lifestyle and the microbiome on human health.

By measuring thousands of discrete chemical signals that form biological pathways in the body, metabolomics can reveal important biomarkers that can enable understanding of a drugs mechanism of action, pharmacodynamics, safety profile, and individual response to therapy.

Over the last 20 years Metabolon has worked on more than 10,000 projects with 1,300 clients throughout the life sciences. Its Precision Metabolomics Platform has enabled the development of the worlds largest proprietary metabolomics reference library.

(C) N.C. Biotech Center

See the rest here:
Triangle firm to study better maternal, infant health at first-of-its-kind lactation lab - WRAL TechWire

School of Biological Sciences

Location: Highfield CampusClosing Date: Thursday 31 March 2022Reference: 1647221BJ

PhD Supervisor: James Dillonco supervisor: Katrin Deinhardt

Towards understanding autism a pipeline to identify genetic variations contributing to autism spectrum disorders and dissect their mechanism of action

PhD Description: Autistic individuals have impaired communication and social behaviour. Genes operating across a wide range of different biological functions have been identified as being associated with an increased risk of autism. However, it is currently unclear how variation in a number of these genes brings about changes in signalling to disrupt the output of neural circuits. We have developed a pipeline using the model organism C. elegans to identify genes that function to co-ordinate social behaviour. Of these, a subset function within epigenetic and lipid signalling pathways and represent interesting targets for the development of therapeutic approaches. The student will extend the existing pipeline by using molecular genetic approaches, such as CRISPR, in C. elegans and mammalian neurons to introduce genetic variation identified from human cohorts and develop knowledge of the molecular, cellular and circuit level affects.

The project is funded for 3.5 years and welcomes applicants from the UK and EU who have or expect to obtain at least an upper second class degree in Biological Sciences or allied subjects. Funding will cover fees and a stipend at current research council rates of 15,609 per annum for 2021/22 subject to rise for 202223.

Due to funding restrictions this position is only open to UK/EU applicants

Applications for a PhD in Biological Sciences should be submitted online at:

https://studentrecords.soton.ac.uk/BNNRPROD/bzsksrch.P_Login?pos=7187&majr=7187&term=202223

Please place James Dillon in the field for proposed supervisor.

General enquiries should be made to James Dillon at jcd@soton.ac.uk. Any queries on the application process should be made to fels-pgr-apply@soton.ac.uk

Applications will be considered in the order that they are received, and the position will be considered filled when a suitable candidate has been identified.

The University of Southampton and the School of Biological Sciences both hold an Athena Swan Silver Award, demonstrating their commitment to provide equal opportunities and to advance the representation of women in STEM/M subjects: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. Due consideration will be given to applicants who have taken a career break. University benefits include onsite childcare facilities, state-of-the-art on-campus sports, arts and culture facilities, a full programme of events and a range of staff discounts.

Read the original:
PhD Scholarship, School of Biological Sciences job with UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON | 275775 - Times Higher Education (THE)

image:Journal publishes original scientific papers, reviews, and case studies on a broad spectrum of topics in lactation medicine. It presents evidence-based research advances and explores the immediate and long-term outcomes of breastfeeding, including the epidemiologic, physiologic, and psychological benefits of breastfeeding view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

The percentage of infants fully breastfed at 1,3, and 6 months significantly decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic among participants of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in Southern California. The percentage of infants who received any breastfeeding also decreased during these time periods, as reported in a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Breastfeeding Medicine. Click here to read the article now.

Breastfeeding education is one of the pillars of the WIC program. It provides staff with the proper lactation training. During the COVID-19 pandemic, WIC services began to be offered remotely instead of face-to-face.

Investigators Maria Koleilat, DrPH, MPH, from California State University, and coauthors, compared fully breastfeeding rates pre-COVID-19 to during COVID-19 among WIC participants and found that rates dropped significantly from 41.79% to 28.09% at 1 month, 28.51% to 18.06% at 3 months, and 15.66% to 10.38% at 6 months.

The investigators offer several possible explanations for the decrease in breastfeeding rates. Breastfeeding support is a priority in the WIC program, they state. However, the shift to remote services delivery and the corresponding reduction in live support of WIC services due to the pandemic may explain the decline in breastfeeding rates and the increase in early weaning in 2020. Another possible explanation is the mixed messages that new parents received regarding the safety of COVID-19 and breastfeeding.

These data document the disruptive and negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on infant well-being and the challenges to our health and social system to reestablish basic public health practices, says Arthur I. Eidelman, MD, Editor-in-Chief ofBreastfeeding Medicine.

About the JournalBreastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of theAcademy of Breastfeeding Medicine, is an authoritative, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal published 10 times per year in print and online. The Journal publishes original scientific papers, reviews, and case studies on a broad spectrum of topics in lactation medicine. It presents evidence-based research advances and explores the immediate and long-term outcomes of breastfeeding, including the epidemiologic, physiologic, and psychological benefits of breastfeeding. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on theBreastfeeding Medicine website.

About the Academy of Breastfeeding MedicineThe Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) is a worldwide organization of medical doctors dedicated to the promotion, protection, and support of breastfeeding. Our mission is to unite members of the various medical specialties with this common purpose. For more than 20 years, ABM has been bringing doctors together to provide evidence-based solutions to the challenges facing breastfeeding across the globe. A vast body of research has demonstrated significant nutritional, physiological, and psychological benefits for both mothers and children that last well beyond infancy. But while breastfeeding is the foundation of a lifetime of health and well-being, clinical practice lags behind scientific evidence. By building on our legacy of research into this field and sharing it with the broader medical community, we can overcome barriers, influence health policies, and change behaviors.

About the PublisherMary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersis known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research. A complete list of the firm's more than 100 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on theMary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

Breastfeeding Medicine

Case study

People

The Impact of COVID-19 on Breastfeeding Rates in a Low-Income Population

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Impact of COVID-19 on breastfeeding - EurekAlert