ERIK MARTIN WILLÈN: August 2023

Thursday, August 31, 2023

NASA’s Trio of Mini Rovers Will Team up to Explore the Moon - ROBOTICS

A model rover drives over a rock during a test for NASA’s CADRE project in JPL’s Mars Yard in June. Bound for the Moon, the technology demonstration will show the potential for cooperative, autonomous exploration by a team of three small solar-powered rovers. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Working together without direct human input, three rovers each the size of a carry-on bag will map the lunar surface in 3D, using cameras and ground-penetrating radar.

NASA is sending a trio of miniature rovers to the Moon to see how well they can cooperate with one another without direct input from mission controllers back on Earth. A teamwork-minded experiment to demonstrate new technology, the CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) project marks another step the agency is taking toward developing robots that, by operating autonomously, can boost the efficiency of future missions. And, by taking simultaneous measurements from multiple locations, the rovers are meant to show how multirobot missions could potentially enable new science or support astronauts.

Currently slated to arrive aboard a lander in 2024 as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, CADRE’s three small rovers will be lowered onto the Reiner Gamma region of the Moon via tethers. Each about the size of a carry-on suitcase, the four-wheeled rovers will drive to find a sunbathing spot, where they’ll open their solar panels and charge up. Then they’ll spend a full lunar day – about 14 Earth days – conducting experiments designed to test their capabilities.

A pair of plastic prototypes of the CADRE rovers demonstrate driving in formation during a test at JPL last year. Seven of these “Mercury 7” prototypes were built, each named for one of NASA’s seven Mercury Project astronauts. John (for John Glenn) and Scott (for Scott Carpenter) are shown here. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Our mission is to demonstrate that a network of a mobile robots can cooperate to accomplish a task without human intervention – autonomously,” said Subha Comandur, the CADRE project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It could change how we do exploration in the future. The question for future missions will become: ‘How many rovers do we send, and what will they do together?’”

Mission controllers on Earth will send a broad directive to the rovers’ base station aboard the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) lander. Then the team of little robots will elect a “leader,” which in turn will distribute work assignments to accomplish the collective goal. Each rover will figure out how best to safely complete its assigned task.

Engineer Kristopher Sherrill observes a development model rover during a test for NASA’s CADRE technology demonstration in JPL’s Mars Yard in June. The team tested a new wheel design, surface navigation software, and mobility capabilities, among other aspects of the project. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“The only instruction is, for example, ‘Go explore this region,’ and the rovers figure out everything else: when they’ll do the driving, what path they’ll take, how they’ll maneuver around local hazards,” said JPL’s Jean-Pierre de la Croix, CADRE’s principal investigator. “You only tell them the high-level goal, and they have to determine how to accomplish it.”

Experiments in Teamwork

The rovers will face several tests – all within view of a monitoring camera on the base station atop the lander. The first is to drive in formation and stay on course using ultra-wideband radios to maintain their relative positions while relying on sensors to avoid obstacles. In a second experiment, the rovers will each take a path of their own choosing to explore a designated area of about 4,300 square feet (400 square meters), creating a topographic 3D map with stereo cameras. The project will also assess how well the team would adapt if a rover stopped working for some reason. Success will indicate that multirobot missions are a good choice for exploring hazardous but scientifically rewarding terrain.

A CADRE test rover appears to catch the attention of the much larger engineering model of NASA’s Perseverance rover, called OPTIMISM, at JPL’s Mars Yard. CADRE will demonstrate how multirobot missions can record data impossible for a single robot to achieve – a tantalizing prospect for future missions. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

And while CADRE isn’t focused on conducting science, the rovers will be packing multistatic ground-penetrating radars. Driving in formation, each rover will receive the reflection of radio signals sent by the others, creating a 3D image of the structure of the subsurface as much as 33 feet (10 meters) below. Together they can gather more complete data than can current state-of-the-art ground-penetrating radars like the one on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, RIMFAX (Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment).

“We’ll see how multiple robots working together – doing multiple measurements in different places at the same time – can record data that would be impossible for a single robot to achieve,” Comandur said. “It could be a game-changing way of doing science.”

Working Smart

But there’s more to CADRE than testing autonomy and teamwork capabilities: The rovers also need to survive the harsh thermal environment near the Moon’s equator, which poses a challenge for such small robots. In the searing sunlight, the rovers could face midday temperatures of up to 237 degrees Fahrenheit (114 Celsius). Made with a combination of commercial off-the-shelf parts and custom-built components, the rovers must be robust enough to make it through the daytime heat while being compact and lightweight.

At the same time, they need to have the computing power to run the JPL-developed cooperative autonomy software. It’s a difficult balance: The project’s rovers and base station get their brain power from a small processing chip (the next generation of the cellphone-class processor inside NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter), but using the processor contributes to the heat.

To prevent the rovers from cooking, the CADRE team came up with a creative solution: 30-minute wake-sleep cycles. Every half-hour, the rovers will shut down, cooling off via radiators and recharging their batteries. When they simultaneously awaken, they’ll share their health status with one another via a mesh radio network (much like a home Wi-Fi network) and once again elect a leader based on which is fittest for the task at hand. Then off they’ll go for another round of lunar exploration.

More About the Project

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. The technology demonstration will launch as a payload on the third lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines, called IM-3, under the CLPS initiative, which is managed by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, also in Washington. The agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, have both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company’s Pasadena, California, facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.

For further details about CADRE, go to: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/cadre

Melissa Pamer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Source: NASA’s Trio of Mini Rovers Will Team up to Explore the Moon | NASA

Study finds that brain tumors 'hack' the communication between neurons

The metastasis (lighter green) is shown to interact with a neuron (brighter green). This neuron has been artificially marked for research, but is surrounded by many more, also interacting with the metastasis. Credit: Manuel Valiente. CNIO

Nearly half of all patients with brain metastasis experience cognitive impairment. Until now, it was thought that this was due to the physical presence of the tumor pressing on neural tissue. But this "mass effect" hypothesis is flawed because there is often no relationship between the size of the tumor and its cognitive impact. Small tumors can cause significant changes, and large tumors can produce mild effects. Why is this?

The explanation may lie in the fact that brain metastasis hacks the brain's activity, a study featured on Cancer Cell's cover shows for the first time.

The authors, from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), have discovered that when cancer spreads (metastasizes) in the brain, it changes the brain's chemistry and disrupts neuronal communication—neurons communicate through electrical impulses generated and transmitted by biochemical changes in the cells and their surroundings.

In this study, the laboratories of Manuel Valiente (CNIO) and Liset Menéndez de La Prida (Cajal Institute CSIC) have collaborated within the NanoBRIGHT project, aimed at developing new technologies for the study of the brain, and with the participation of other agencies such as MICINN, AECC, ERC, NIH and EMBO.

Demonstration with artificial intelligence

The researchers measured the electrical activity of the brains of mice with and without metastases and observed that the electrophysiological recordings of the two groups of animals with cancer were different from each other. To be sure that this difference was attributable to metastases, they turned to artificial intelligence.

They trained an automatic algorithm with numerous electrophysiological recordings, and the model was indeed able to identify the presence of metastases. The system was even able to distinguish metastases from different primary tumors—skin, lung and breast cancer.

These results show that metastasis does indeed affect the brain's electrical activity in a specific way, leaving clear and recognizable signatures.

For the authors, the study represents a "paradigm shift" in the basic understanding of the development of brain metastases and has implications for the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of this pathology.

Pioneering study finds that brain tumours 'hack' the communication between neurons. Credit: Atlas / CNIO

On the trail of a drug against neurocognitive effects

In addition to recording changes in brain electrical activity in the presence of metastasis, the researchers have begun to explore the biochemical changes that might explain this alteration. By analyzing the genes expressed in the affected tissues, they have identified a molecule, EGR1, that may play an important role in this process. This finding opens up the possibility of designing a drug to prevent or alleviate the neurocognitive effects of brain metastasis.

As Manuel Valiente, head of the CNIO's Brain Metastasis Group explains, "our multidisciplinary study challenges the hitherto accepted assumption that neurological dysfunction, which is very common in patients with brain metastasis, is due solely to the mass effect of the tumor. We suggest that these symptoms are a consequence of changes in brain activity resulting from tumor-induced biochemical and molecular alterations. This is a paradigm shift that could have important implications for diagnosis and therapeutic strategies."

Liset Menéndez de la Prida, director of the Laboratory of Neural Circuits the Cajal Institute (CSIC), says, "Using machine learning, we have been able to integrate all the data to create a model that allows us to know whether there is or not metastasis in a brain, just by looking at its electrical activity. This computational approach may even be able to predict subtypes of brain metastases at an early stage. It is a completely pioneering work that opens up an unexplored path."

Both authors emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of this complex study that combines neuroscience, oncology and computational analysis, each using a wide range of different techniques.

Cognitive study of patients and development of non-invasive techniques

The change in focus brought about by this result means that researchers now want to analyze the cognitive status of patients with brain metastasis much more systematically.

For Valiente, this is one of the most important next steps. The key to this will be the National Brain Metastasis Network (RENACER) initiated and coordinated by CNIO, which has already served to generate the largest collection of living brain metastasis samples in the world (with prior consent from patients, tissue samples collected during surgical interventions are made available to the international scientific community in the CNIO Biobank), and in which they will now introduce protocols for the neurocognitive assessment of the participating patients.

For her part, Liset Menéndez de La Prida will work on integrating the recording of brain activity with the analysis of the molecules involved, "in order to develop new diagnostic probes for brain tumors," she says. This task is in line with the European NanoBRIGHT project, which aims to develop non-invasive techniques for studying the brain and treating its pathologies, and in which CSIC and CNIO are participating.

Another goal is to find drugs that protect the brain from cancer-induced disruptions in neuronal circuits, using the strategies described above. "We will look for molecules involved in metastasis-induced changes in neuronal communication, and evaluate them as possible therapeutic targets," explains Valiente.

In addition to the artificial intelligence developed by the CSIC team, they will use the METPlatform technology designed by CNIO to evaluate the potential therapeutic activity of hundreds of compounds simultaneously on brain tissue samples affected by metastasis.

by The Spanish National Cancer Research Centre

Source: Study finds that brain tumors 'hack' the communication between neurons (medicalxpress.com)

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Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Researchers Fully Sequence the Y Chromosome for the First Time

What was once the final frontier of the human genome — the Y chromosome — has been mapped out in its entirety.

Led by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and many other organizations used advanced sequencing technologies to read out the full DNA sequence of the Y chromosome — a region of the genome that typically drives male reproductive development. The results of a study published in Nature demonstrate that this advance improves DNA sequencing accuracy for the chromosome, which could help identify certain genetic disorders and potentially uncover the genetic roots of others.

DNA sequencing isn’t as simple as reading genetic material from a genome’s beginning to its end. DNA gets chopped up when it is extracted from cells, plus even the best sequencing equipment can only handle relatively small bits of DNA at a time. So, researchers and clinicians rely on special software to piece together fragments of sequenced code in the correct order like a puzzle.

A reference genome is a separate, already pieced-together genome that serves as a guide, similar to the pictures on the front of puzzle boxes. And because 99.9% of our species’ genetic code is shared, any human genome would closely match a reference.

Last year, a team from the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium, which is made up of experts from dozens of organizations such as NIST, generated the most complete reference genome at the time by using new sequencing technologies to crack previously indecipherable regions of the genome. But cells used in that work did not contain the most puzzling of all, the Y chromosome.

“Chromosomes all contain sections of very repetitive DNA, but well over half of the Y chromosome is like that,” said study co-author Justin Zook, who leads NIST’s Genome in a Bottle (GIAB) consortium. “If you use the puzzle analogy, a lot of the Y chromosome looks like the backgrounds often do, where all the pieces look really similar.”

With this new endeavor, T2T was not starting at zero as the GIAB had already gotten the ball rolling.

The GIAB’s mission is to produce test materials, or benchmarks, that can be used to evaluate sequencing technologies or methods. The materials themselves are highly accurate readouts of specific genes that can act as an answer key for checking the results of a particular sequencing method.

NIST has rigorously analyzed several individual human genomes to create their benchmarks. While GIAB has not yet produced a benchmark for the Y chromosome specifically, the consortium has studied one genome extensively, accumulating the largest collection of Y chromosome data prior to the new study.

That data served as a jumping-off point for the new study’s authors, who focused their analysis on the best understood GIAB Y chromosome. They examined the sample with a combination of cutting-edge technologies — namely high fidelity and nanopore sequencing — that make the DNA fragment puzzle pieces larger and thus easier to assemble.

A machine-learning analysis tool and gamut of other advanced programs helped the team identify and assemble the pieces of the chromosome. More than 62 million letters of genetic code later, the authors had spelled out the GIAB Y chromosome front to back.

The researchers pitted their complete Y chromosome sequence, named T2T-Y, against the most widely used reference genome’s Y chromosome parts, which are riddled with stretches of absent code. Using them both as guides for sequencing a diverse group of over 1,200 separate genomes, they found that T2T-Y drastically improved the outcomes.

T2T-Y, in combination with the group’s previous reference genome, T2T-CHM13, represents the world’s first complete genome for the half of the population with a Y chromosome.

The newest addition could be useful in identifying and diagnosing the few known conditions related to genes in the Y chromosome. But what’s more is the new reference’s potential to shed light on new genes and their function.

“There are certainly aspects of fertility and some genetic disorders that are connected to genes in the Y chromosome,” Zook said. “But because it’s been so hard to analyze up to this point, we may not even know yet just how important the Y chromosome is.”

At NIST, Zook and his fellow GIAB researchers have developed a new benchmark based on the X and Y chromosomes assembled by T2T to help translate the potential impact of the new reference material into reality.

Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2023/08/researchers-fully-sequence-y-chromosome-first-time

Journal article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06457-y

Source: Researchers Fully Sequence the Y Chromosome for the First Time – Scents of Science (myfusimotors.com)