(From left) Mr Duan Xin, Dr Lin Xudong, Dr Shi Peng, Professor Cheng Shuk Han and Dr Wang Xin. [Photo/City University of Hong Kong] HONG KONG - A research team led by the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a new platform to enhance the prediction of effectiveness of medicines treating brain diseases, the university told reporter on Monday. The result came after five years of collaboration between CityU's Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMS), and Harvard Medical School, the United States, aiming to provide a platform to predict compounds that have the potential to be developed into new drugs to treat brain diseases. The research team generated the maps from the brains of thousands of zebrafish larvae, each treated with a clinically used CNS drug. The maps showed the corresponding brain regions that reacted to those drugs. By employing machine learning strategy, the team predicted that 30 out of those 121 new compounds had anti-seizure properties. To validate the prediction, the research team randomly chose 14 from the 30 potential anti-seizure compounds to perform behavioral tests with induced seizure zebrafishes. The result showed that 7 out of 14 compounds were able to reduce the seizures of the zebrafish without causing any sedative effects, implying a prediction accuracy of around 50 percent. Shi Peng, Associate Professor of CityU's BME, said that the team used robotics, microfluidics and hydrodynamic force to trap and orient an awake zebrafish automatically in 20 seconds, which allowed the imaging for many zebrafishes to be carried out in one go. More importantly, our platform can immobilize the fish without anaesthesia, thus avoiding interference, he added. With this high-speed in vivo drug screening system combined with machine learning, Shi said that a shortcut is provided to help identify compounds with significantly higher therapeutic potentials for further development, hence speed up the drug development and reduce the failure rate in the process. The research is published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. custom bar braceletcustom sports braceletscustom logo wristbandsde securite pour personne ageeembossed wristbandscolorfilled wristbandsembossed printed wristbandsdual layer wristbands
A national campaign has been launched against online videos that use iconic cartoon characters in sexual and violent situations, authorities said on Monday.The campaign recently began in Beijing and Guangdong province and has now become a nationwide effort.The crackdown will end in late April, authorities added.Recently, some livestreaming videos with vulgar content and some online videos in which cartoon characters broadcast violent or sexual content have been spreading online, and these have misled juveniles and harmed their health, they said.In this situation, the five authorities, including China's Cyberspace Administration and the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications, decided to conduct the two-month national cleanup.Illegal or improper information must be deleted and sites without a livestreaming license will be shut down, they said. Those broadcasting harmful content and websites having seriously illegal content will be also held criminally liable.Online platforms providing livestreaming, videos and games, as well as those with many users, are the major targets of the crackdown, and we will urge them to take responsibility for reviewing the uploaded content, they added.On Feb 5, for example, police in Tianhe district of Guangzhou filed a case in which a local company allegedly produced and broadcast videos with violent depictions involving cartoon characters online, and the next day the district's industrial and commercial departments revoked its business license, it said.Some video service providers, including Tencent and Youku, which signed contracts with the company in November 2016, are also being investigated, it added.The campaign is to solve new problems brought by livestreaming, as well as to protect our cybersecurity, said Zhu Wei, deputy director of the China University of Political Science and Law's media legal center.Ensuring the safety of online content is not only to prevent children from being harmed, but also to clarify for online service operators what must not be posted in cyberspace, he said.The crackdown should be conducted regularly, he suggested.In January, some videos were found using popular cartoon characters, such as Elsa from Disney's Frozen and SpongeBob, in scenes of violence or sexuality to lure children to watch.Since then, Chinese video companies such as Tencent video and Youku, have announced the start of the cleanup and welcomed tips from the public.
