The Fifth Annual Symposium of the Midwest Aging Consortium.

As the healthcare burden caused by an increasingly aging population rapidly rises, a pressing need exists for innovative geroscience research that can elucidate aging mechanisms and precipitate the development of therapeutic interventions to support healthy aging. The Fifth Annual Midwest Aging Consortium Aging Research symposium, held from April 28-30, 2024, was hosted by The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio and featured presentations from investigators across the Midwestern United States. This report summarizes the research presented at the symposium, whose topics included cellular senescence and the aging brain, metabolism and metabolic interventions, nutrition, redox mechanisms and biomarkers, and stress mechanisms.

How Important Is Informed Natal Dispersal for Modelling the Demographic and Genetic Effects of Environmental Variability?

Dispersal is a fundamental ecological process that influences population dynamics and genetic diversity and is therefore an important component of the models used to simulate population responses to environmental change. We considered informed dispersal in relation to settlement location, where individuals could optimise selection of settlement location with regard to per capita resource availability and investigated the importance of this type of informed dispersal for simulated demography and genetic diversity under different biological and environmental scenarios. We used an individual-based simulation model scaled with reference to the ecology of small mammals in fire prone savanna ecosystems.

Case report: HLA-B35-associated optic neuritis.

Purpose: To describe a unique presentation of optic neuritis associated with positive HLA-B35.

Observations: A woman presented with unilateral retro-orbital pain, mildly decreased vision, and optic disc edema with new-onset aphthous ulcers. Color vision was preserved, and no visual field deficits were noted.

Genomic analysis of global Mycobacterium abscessus isolates reveals ongoing evolution of drug-resistance-associated genes.

Mycobacterium abscessus (MAB) is intrinsically resistant to many antibiotics, but the evolution of acquired drug resistance is poorly understood. We analyzed published genomes of 5,617 clinical MAB isolates from 20 countries and searched for signals of ongoing evolution in 35 drug-resistance-associated genes. Of these, we found 14 genes were subject to positive selection and identified novel mutational sites under selection.

Clinical trial enrollment during first course of gynecologic cancer treatment and survival.

Objective: Among gynecologic cancer patients, it is unclear whether participation in clinical trials impacts survival outcomes. In addition, given the known racial and ethnic disparities in gynecologic cancer trial enrollment, it is important to assess whether clinical trial enrollment is similarly related to overall survival among racial and ethnic minorities. Therefore, we examined associations between clinical trial enrollment and overall survival and potential effect modification by race/ethnicity and cancer site among gynecologic cancer patients.