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Rat-shaped hole in Chicago sidewalk not made by rat

admin - Latest News - October 16, 2025
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Rat-shaped hole in Chicago sidewalk not made by rat



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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 15, 2025, 5:08 PM EDTBy Kaitlin SullivanTwo months after she was born, Eliana Nachem got a cough that wouldn’t go away. Three weeks later, she also started having runny stool, prompting a visit to her pediatrician. Eliana didn’t have allergies or a gastrointestinal condition; instead, tests pointed to a problem with her immune system. At 4 months old, Eliana received her diagnosis: severe combined immunodeficiency, or SCID. Babies born with the extremely rare disease do not develop the cells required for a functioning immune system. Every germ becomes a potentially fatal threat and to stay healthy, children with the condition must live in a completely sterile environment. Without treatment, kids usually do not live past their second birthday.“I expected the worst, then I immediately went into research mode,” Eliana’s father, Jeff Nachem, said. The Nachems also got to work turning their home into a germ-free fortress, rehoming their pets, never opening the windows and opening the doors to outside as sparingly as possible. Eliana was kept inside, and on the rare instance when visitors came by, the family had disposable gowns, gloves and masks for them to wear. (SCID is sometimes referred to as “bubble boy disease.”) Eliana also started on a temporary therapy that replaced a missing enzyme in her body, called adenosine deaminase (ADA).In the midst of the strict protocol, they learned about a clinical trial in Los Angeles — 2,600 miles from their home in Fredericksburg, Virginia — that could help their daughter live a normal life.Jeff, Caroline and Eliana Nachem with Dr. Donald Kohn before Eliana’s gene therapy for ADA-SCID.Courtesy Caroline NachemScientists have identified about 20 gene variants that cause SCID. Eliana’s form of the disease, ADA-SCID, is diagnosed in fewer than 10 children born in the U.S. each year. (Under 100 babies are diagnosed with any form of SCID in a given year.)In 2014, when she was just 10 months old, Eliana was one of 62 children enrolled in a clinical trial for a gene therapy for ADA-SCID. In a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed up on the results of that Phase 2 clinical trial. The update reported that all 62 kids, who received the treatment from 2012 to 2019, are alive today. In 59 of them, including Eliana, the gene therapy completely restored immune function, without requiring any additional treatment — a success rate of 95%.“This is one of the most successful gene therapy trials for an ultra-rare genetic disease that we have,” said Dr. Talal Mousallem, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Duke University School of Medicine. He was not involved with the trial. Correcting stem cellsThe treatment begins with doctors harvesting stem cells from the patient’s own bone marrow. These stem cells are purified in a lab, and then modified using an inactivated form of the virus that causes HIV. Instead of carrying the human immunodeficiency virus, this version carries the ADA gene that people with ADA-SCID are missing, reinserting the gene into the stem cell DNA. Before the customized treatment is reinfused back into the patient, they must undergo chemotherapy to get rid of the body’s existing stem cells and make room for the new ones. Once back in the body, the cells — which no longer carry the virus, just the gene it left behind — get to work building an immune system over the next year.“It’s a one-time delivery vehicle that takes the gene into the DNA of the stem cell, so every time it divides to make other cells, those cells carry that ADA gene,” said Dr. Donald Kohn, a pediatric bone marrow transplant physician at UCLA’s Broad Stem Cell Research Center, who led the trial. A less risky optionGene therapy clinical trials are underway for four subtypes of SCID, but the standard of care is still a bone marrow transplant, which builds an immune system using stem cells from a donor. The treatment can be risky and side effects further down the line.It’s ideal for bone marrow transplants to occur between siblings — who share about half of the same DNA — but two siblings only have about a 25% chance of being a match. In most cases, the donor is not a sibling, which introduces the risk that the donor’s immune cells will attack the recipient’s body, a phenomenon called graft-versus-host disease.The risk of graft-versus-host means kids who receive functioning stem cells from another person have to be on immunosuppressant drugs following the transplant, which keep the foreign cells from attacking their immune system.“Which slows down the progress, because you are suppressing the immune system while also trying to build an immune system,” Kohn said. People also have to undergo much higher doses of chemotherapy before receiving a donor bone marrow transplant than they do before undergoing gene therapy. “There can be effects [later in life] from being treated with chemotherapy, including growth, endocrine or fertility effects,” said Dr. Whitney Reid, an attending physician in the division of allergy and immunology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who was not involved in the trial. With gene therapy, “you can give those patients much lower doses of chemotherapy and there is a much lower chance of rejection,” she said. Eliana “was able to go from living in isolation to being able to go to preschool and go swimming in a public pool and play on a playground, and do all the things that every other kid gets to do,” her father said. Courtesy Caroline Nachem Having another therapy for ADA-SCID is particularly important, Reid added. Changes in the ADA gene cause toxins to build up in clumps of white blood cells called lymphocytes. This can cause hearing loss and learning difficulties as kids get older. Unlike other types of SCID, “it doesn’t only affect the immune system,” Reid said. Mousallem, of Duke University, said he hopes the success of this trial will open the door to gene therapies for other rare diseases that often go untreated, as well as SCID caused by other gene variants. “The data is great for ADA-SCID, and it is our hope that one day this becomes the standard of care,” he said. Eliana turns 12 years old next week and loves going to dance classes.“It’s amazing that she was able to go from living in isolation to being able to go to preschool and go swimming in a public pool and play on a playground, and do all the things that every other kid gets to do,” her father said. Eliana still undergoes testing twice a year to make sure her immune system hasn’t weakened. So far, so good.“We think it’s a lifelong therapy,” Kohn said. “Some of these kids are now 15 years old and are living normal lives. We treated them when they were little babies and now they’re going to prom.”Kaitlin SullivanKaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleSept. 24, 2025, 5:49 PM EDT / Updated Sept. 24, 2025, 6:03 PM EDTBy Babak DehghanpishehIranian President Masoud Pezeshkian lashed out at the U.S and Israel for their attacks in June during a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, one day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the country, ruled out talks with President Donald Trump about Iran’s nuclear program.“The aerial assaults of [Israel] and the United States of America against Iran’s cities, homes and infrastructure, precisely at a time when we were treading the path of diplomatic negotiations, constituted a grave betrayal of diplomacy and a subversion of efforts towards the establishment of stability and peace,” he said. At the podium, Pezeshkian held up a book with the words “Killed By Israel” printed on the front and leafed through pages with pictures of families and children. There have been calls among moderates in Iran for direct talks with Trump, but on Tuesday Khamenei rejected negotiations with the U.S. about the country’s nuclear program and in many ways set the parameters of what Pezeshkian could discuss in New York.Trump: Iran ‘can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapon’01:56“In my view, negotiating with America about the nuclear issue and maybe other issues is an absolute dead end,” Khamenei said in an address, adding that Iran would not stop uranium enrichment because it would not be acceptable to the people of the country, according to his official website. He added, “This negotiation will be beneficial for the current American president. He will hold his head high, say I threatened Iran and I brought them to the negotiating table. He will be proud of this in the world. But for us it’s an absolute loss and has no benefit.”Khamenei also said on Tuesday that Iran does not intend to build a nuclear weapon, a point that Pezeshkian highlighted in his speech Wednesday, and that it will not negotiate on its ballistic missile program.NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment.Khamenei’s remarks came as the Trump administration appeared to be showing a willingness to hold talks. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Wednesday that Iran is in a tough position and that the administration wants to negotiate with it, according to Reuters.”We’re talking to them,” Witkoff said when asked if there is a diplomatic path forward with Iran.But the hard line drawn by Khamenei against talks with Trump about the nuclear issue could significantly ramp up tensions with the U.S. and Israel.The value of the Iranian rial against the U.S. dollar hit a record low Wednesday after Khamenei’s remarks.Moderate voices in Iran pushing for direct talks with the U.S. were hoping to stave off more devastating attacks on the country by either the Israeli or U.S. military, which pummeled the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites in late June with airstrikes, including the first combat use of massive “bunker buster” bombs. Trump, addressing the United Nations on Tuesday, said the attacks had targeted “Iran’s key nuclear facility, totally obliterating everything.” But analysts have raised questions about the extent of the damage caused by the attacks and the whereabouts of the approximately 880 pounds of enriched uranium that Iran is thought to have produced.The Israeli attacks, which Israeli officials said were intended to stop the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon, also hammered nuclear targets but expanded to include energy infrastructure and even the country’s notorious Evin prison, and killed more than 1,000 people, according to state media.Even if Iran does not talk to the U.S. directly, Pezeshkian and his foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, only have until Sep. 27 to negotiate a diplomatic solution with Britain, France and Germany before they face a “snapback” of sanctions. Negotiated under the 2015 nuclear deal, the snapback would lead to an arms embargo, freezing of assets outside the country and restrictions on enriching uranium, among other penalties.The sanctions could hit at a time when the country is reeling from an economic crisis, which critics blame on current sanctions as well as corruption and mismanagement. French President Emmanuel Macron met with Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the U.N. meeting in New York on Wednesday and posted on X that a diplomatic solution to avoid snapback could still be reached if Iran allows full access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, is transparent about its stockpile of enriched materials and resumes negotiations. “An agreement remains possible. Only a few hours are left,” Macron wrote. “It is up to Iran to respond to the legitimate conditions we have set.”In recent months, Pezeshkian has been fighting for his political, and actual, life. He narrowly escaped an Israeli attack on a meeting of top officials in June, and his conservative critics have pressed him hard on the economy as well as restrictions on social freedoms. Security forces kicked off a massive crackdown during and after the war. The crackdown was ostensibly to ferret out spies, but in many cases the security forces used the war as a pretext to detain ethnic and religious minorities as well as Afghan migrants, according to Amnesty International. A police spokesman said in mid-August that 21,000 people had been arrested in the 12-day period of the war and observers say that more arrests have subsequently taken place and pending executions have been expedited. “They’re targeting already marginalized groups even further, and that’s one way for them to exert and show the control that they have and try to retain their power while also instilling fear in the population,” said Nassim Papayianni, an Iran campaigner at Amnesty International. “You’re talking about scapegoating. So essentially they are trying to use the conflict as a way to ramp up the crackdown and the arrests.”With Pezeshkian’s hands tied on the international stage by the supreme leader and his hard-line opponents pressing a crackdown on real and perceived enemies at home, the Iranian president appears more isolated than at any point since assuming his position last year. Babak DehghanpishehBabak Dehghanpisheh is an NBC News Digital international editor based in New York.
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