An international team of scientists, led by the company Aivocode and including researchers from the Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has discovered that a small compound—a peptide made up of four amino acids called CAQK—has a significant neuroprotective effect in mouse models of traumatic brain injury. When administered intravenously shortly after injury in animal models (mice and pigs), CAQK specifically targets the damaged areas of the brain, attracted by a protein that is overexpressed in injured tissue following trauma. CAQK accumulates in the region marked by this protein and is able to reduce inflammation, cell death, and damage to brain tissue. Moreover, in mice, it improved functional recovery without apparent toxicity.

The June 2023 heatwave in northern European seas was “unprecedented but not unexpected”, new research shows.

A recent study conducted by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in collaboration with the University of Barcelona (UB) has detected worrying lead levels in the blood of 95% of the indigenous population of a remote region of the Amazon. The research suggests that lead-based ammunition used for subsistence hunting and water consumption could be important routes of exposure to the metal.

 

‘Defying climate change calls for new approaches in breaking down greenhouse gases’, Professor Jan Paradies of Paderborn University said. The chemist and his team have now moved a step closer to this goal: the scientists have successfully managed to reduce ozone-damaging nitrous oxide (‘laughing gas’) to its harmless constituent parts using metal-free catalysis at low temperatures. The results were published in the internationally renowned Journal of the American Chemical Society.