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Vladimir Putin left me stuck in traffic so I ditched my car, says former Ireland man Aiden McGeadyAs part of a national “moonshot” to cure blindness, researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years to pursue a first-of-its-kind full eye transplantation. “This is no easy undertaking, but I believe we can achieve this together,” said Dr. Kia Washington, the lead researcher for the University of Colorado-led team, during a press conference Monday. “And in fact I’ve never been more hopeful that a cure for blindness is within reach.” The CU team was one of four in the United States that received funding awards from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health , or ARPA-H. The CU-based group will focus on achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant by using “novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies,” according to a news release announcing the funding. The work will be interdisciplinary, Washington and others said, and will link together researchers at institutions across the country. The four teams that received the funding will work alongside each other on distinct approaches, though officials said the teams would likely collaborate and eventually may merge depending on which research avenues show the most promise toward achieving the ultimate goal of transplanting an eye and curing blindness. Dr. Calvin Roberts, who will oversee the broader project for ARPA-H, said the agency wanted to take multiple “shots on goal” to ensure progress. “In the broader picture, achieving this would be probably the most monumental task in medicine within the last several decades,” said Dr. Daniel Pelaez of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which also received ARPA-H funding. Pelaez is the lead investigator for that team, which has pursued new procedures to successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors, amid other research. He told The Denver Post that only four organ systems have not been successfully transplanted: the inner ear, the brain, the spinal cord and the eye. All four are part of the central nervous system, which does not repair itself when damaged. If researchers can successfully transplant the human eye and restore vision to the patient, it might help unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, Pelaez said, as well as addressing hearing loss. To succeed, researchers must successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors and then successfully connect and repair the optical nerve, which takes information from the eye and tells the brain what the eye sees. A team at New York University performed a full eye transplant on a human patient in November 2023, though the procedure — while a “remarkable achievement,” Pelaez said — did not restore the patient’s vision. It was also part of a partial face transplant; other approaches pursued via the ARPA-H funding will involve eye-specific transplants. Washington, the lead CU researcher, said she and her colleagues have already completed the eye transplant procedure — albeit without vision restoration — in rats. The CU team will next work on large animals to advance “optic nerve regenerative strategies,” the school said, as well as to study immunosuppression, which is critical to ensuring that patients’ immune systems don’t reject a donated organ. The goal is to eventually advance to human trials. Pelaez and his colleagues have completed their eye-removal procedure in cadavers, he said, and they’ve also studied regeneration in several animals that are capable of regenerating parts of their eyes, like salamanders or zebra fish. His team’s funding will focus in part on a life-support machine for the eye to keep it healthy and viable during the removal process. InGel Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based Harvard spinoff and the lead of a third team, will pursue research on 3-D printed technology and “micro-tunneled scaffolds” that carry certain types of stem cells as part of a focus on optical nerve regeneration and repair, ARPA-H said. ARPH-A, created two years ago, will oversee the teams’ work. Researchers at 52 institutions nationwide will also contribute to the teams. The CU-led group will include researchers from the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University, as well as from the National Eye Institute . The teams will simultaneously compete and collaborate: Pelaez said his team has communicated with researchers at CU and at Stanford, another award recipient, about their eye-removal research. The total funding available for the teams is $125 million, ARPA-H officials said Monday, and it will be distributed in phases, in part dependent on teams’ success. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who represents Denver in Congress, acknowledged the recent election results at the press conference Monday and pledged to continue fighting to preserve ARPA-H’s funding under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. The effort to cure blindness, Washington joked, was “biblical” in its enormity — a reference to the Bible story in which Jesus cures a blind man. She and others also likened it to a moonshot, meaning the effort to successfully put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon nearly 50 years ago. If curing blindness is similar to landing on the moon, then the space shuttle has already left the launchpad, Washington said. “We have launched,” she said, “and we are on our trajectory.”
Charles attended the show at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the first time as patron of the Royal Variety charity, following in the footsteps of his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. In a statement from Buckingham Palace, he said: “The charity’s crucial work in assisting those who have fallen ill, had an accident or hit hard times is as essential now as it ever has been. “I would like to thank all of those who have worked so hard to stage this year’s production and wish everyone a very enjoyable evening.” The performance saw political comic Forde reference the unfounded claims Mr Trump repeated during his presidential debate against Democrat candidate Kamala Harris earlier this year, that illegal immigrants from Haiti were eating locals’ pets in the small Ohio city of Springfield. Forde exclaimed in the president-elect’s voice: “They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs!” He then turned to address Charles from the stage, saying in Mr Trump’s voice: “Your Majesty King Charles, you’re named after a spaniel – be very careful, they’ll eat you alive.” The King was seen laughing in response to the joke from the royal box. Charles appeared at the event without the Queen, who insisted the “show must go on” after pulling out of attending the performance on Friday evening as doctors advised that she should prioritise rest. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “Following a recent chest infection, the Queen continues to experience some lingering post-viral symptoms, as a result of which doctors have advised that, after a busy week of engagements, Her Majesty should prioritise sufficient rest. “With great regret, she has therefore withdrawn from attendance at tonight’s Royal Variety Performance. His Majesty will attend as planned.” A royal source said the Queen was “naturally disappointed to miss the evening’s entertainments and sends her sincere apologies to all those involved, but is a great believer that ‘the show must go on'”. “She hopes to be back to full strength and regular public duties very soon,” the source added. The Royal Variety Performance will air on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player in December. Money raised from the show will go to help people from the world of entertainment in need of care and assistance, with the Royal Variety Charity launching an initiative to help those with mental health issues this year.
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Manchester City, Arsenal, and now Tottenham. The list of top Premier League teams beaten at Bournemouth this season is growing. Dean Huijsen took advantage of Tottenham’s weakness at set pieces to head home a 17th-minute winner in Bournemouth’s 1-0 victory on Thursday. After the game, some Spurs fans appeared to vent their frustration at manager Ange Postecoglou when he went over to the away contingent following his team's insipid display. “They are pretty disappointed, rightly so, and I got some pretty direct feedback as to how we are going,” the Australian coach said, “and that's fair enough.” Bournemouth climbed to ninth — a point and a place above Tottenham in the standings — and underlined its penchant for surprising high-profile visitors to Vitality Stadium. Man City’s remarkable four-game losing run in the Premier League started with a 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth, while fellow title contender Arsenal’s first loss of the season also came at the Vitality, 2-0 on Oct. 19. This was Spurs' sixth defeat of the campaign. They now have as many wins as losses, highlighting the inconsistency blighting their season, and their seven away results so far make remarkable reading: aside from a 3-0 win at Manchester United and a 4-0 thrashing of Man City, Tottenham has lost four and drawn the other at relegation candidate Leicester. “We've got to get out of this space we're in at the moment where we're just not able to get a real grip on our season,” Postecoglou said. An inability to defend set plays continues to hurt Postecoglou’s team. A week after Roma scored twice from them in a 2-2 draw in the Europa League, Huijsen roamed free in the area at a corner and headed home unmarked. Postecoglou said in May said he “wasn’t interested” about his side’s fallibility while defending set pieces, and said after losing 1-0 to Arsenal in September — after a goal from Gabriel at a corner — that “it’s my burden to carry and I’m happy to do that.” “We started well and conceded a really poor goal," Postecoglou said after the Bournemouth game. “It’s a difficult place to come when giving the opposition the opportunity to play in the manner they want.” IWOBI DOUBLE Alex Iwobi scored goals early and late in the game to lead Fulham to a 3-1 win over Brighton. The Nigeria winger intercepted a stray pass out from the back by Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen and slotted into an unguarded net for the opener in the fourth minute and curled home Fulham’s clinching goal in the 87th. Carlos Baleba equalized for Brighton in the 56th before Brighton midfielder Matt O’Riley – a former Fulham academy player – deflected the ball into his own net from a corner to put the home side back in front. Fulham climbed to sixth in the standings, a point and a place behind Brighton. AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccerUkraine preparing for end to conflict – mediaNone
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