The Science & Technology desk gathers a weekly digest of impactful and fascinating analysis publications and developments at Stanford. Read the newest on this week’s Research Roundup.
Using AI to foretell the well being of premature infants
Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a man-made intelligence (AI) software that may predict how premature infants will fare utilizing blood samples collected shortly after delivery.
The research, which used the newly developed software, shows that prematurity just isn’t a single medical situation however a set of distinct organic trajectories serving to clarify why infants born on the similar gestational age can expertise very totally different outcomes.
“We can’t just throw everybody born early into one ‘premature’ category,” mentioned co-author Nima Aghaeepour, a professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and ache medication, pediatrics and biomedical information science.
By analyzing blood-spot information from greater than 13,000 preterm infants in California, the AI recognized metabolic patterns that sign a child’s danger of growing main problems affecting the mind, lungs, eyes or digestive system. The group created a metabolic well being index that, mixed with fundamental medical data, predicted problems with greater than 85% accuracy.
The findings transfer neonatal care towards extra customized medication, permitting medical doctors to anticipate dangers, tailor interventions and higher information households by vital early choices.
Taking on world lead poisoning by ‘Project Unleaded’
Stanford’s Project Unleaded, an initiative that started in 2020 and is increasing because of current funding items, is confronting the worldwide lead poisoning disaster by figuring out and eliminating main sources of publicity that proceed to hurt tens of millions of individuals worldwide.
Professor of medication Stephen Luby, the venture’s principal investigator, mentioned that regardless of what many might assume, lead contamination continues to stay a topical problem. “Americans generally think we’ve solved the lead problem,” he mentioned. “This is fundamentally not true.”
One of the initiative’s most impactful efforts occurred in Bangladesh, the place researchers traced dangerously excessive blood lead ranges to contaminated turmeric. Processors have been including an industrial pigment containing lead to boost the spice’s colour, unaware of the well being penalties.
After researchers labored with the federal government to strengthen testing and regulation, lead ranges in turmeric fell by greater than 90% inside a yr and have been later eradicated completely, saving an estimated 20,000 lives.
The group now investigates different main publicity sources, including casual battery recycling industries, whereas increasing reasonably priced detection instruments and partnerships to drive lasting, world reductions in lead contamination.
Shaping new mannequin for marine conservation
Stanford researchers are serving to form one of many world’s largest marine protected areas by creating a mannequin that blends environmental conservation with cultural justice and sustainable resettlement.
The Chagos Archipelago Marine Protected Area, planned by the federal government of Mauritius, will defend an unlimited area of the Indian Ocean whereas supporting the return and livelihoods of the Chagossian individuals, who have been forcibly faraway from the area many years in the past.
Stanford researchers collaborated with policymakers and displaced group members to develop a framework that integrates conventional data, local weather science and ocean governance.
“We can really use science in an effective way to bring Chagossian knowledge and regional cultural heritage to bear on ocean governance,” mentioned Krish Seetah, venture researcher and affiliate professor of environmental social sciences and oceans within the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
The new plan divides the protected space into zones that embody strict conservation areas, areas for group resettlement and areas permitting restricted fishing for subsistence and ceremonial use. The venture represents a novel method to marine safety that prioritizes each ecological sustainability and cultural restoration.