Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Tumor morphology and location associate with immune cell composition in pleomorphic sarcoma.

BackgroundSoft-tissue sarcomas (STS) are a rare group of mesenchymal malignancies that account for approximately 1% of adult human cancer. Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) is one of the most common subtypes of adult STS. Clinical stratification of UPS patients has not evolved for decades and continues to rely on tumor-centric metrics including tumor size and depth. Our understanding of how the tumor microenvironment correlates to these clinicopathologic parameters remains limited.MethodsHere, we performed single-cell flow cytometric immune-based profiling of 15 freshly resected UPS tumors and integrated this analysis with clinical, histopathologic, and outcomes data using both a prospective and retrospective cohort of UPS patients.ResultsWe uncovered a correlation between physiologic and anatomic properties of UPS tumors and the composition of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. Specifically, we identified an inverse correlation between tumor-infiltrating CD8 + T cells and UPS tumor size; and a positive correlation between tumor-infiltrating CD8 + T cells and overall survival. Moreover, we demonstrate an association between anatomical location (deep or superficial) and frequency of CD4 + PD1hi infiltrating T cells in UPS tumors.ConclusionsOur study provides an immune-based analysis of the tumor microenvironment in UPS patients and describes the different composition of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes based on size and tumor depth

Exhausted intratumoral Vδ2− γδ T cells in human kidney cancer retain effector function

Gamma delta (γδ) T cells reside within human tissues including tumors, but their function in mediating antitumor responses to immune checkpoint inhibition is unknown. Here we show that kidney cancers are infiltrated by Vδ2- γδ T cells, with equivalent representation of Vδ1+ and Vδ1- cells, that are distinct from γδ T cells found in normal human tissues. These tumor-resident Vδ2- T cells can express the transcriptional program of exhausted αβ CD8+ T cells as well as canonical markers of terminal T-cell exhaustion including PD-1, TIGIT and TIM-3. Although Vδ2- γδ T cells have reduced IL-2 production, they retain expression of cytolytic effector molecules and co-stimulatory receptors such as 4-1BB. Exhausted Vδ2- γδ T cells are composed of three distinct populations that lack TCF7, are clonally expanded and express cytotoxic molecules and multiple Vδ2- T-cell receptors. Human tumor-derived Vδ2- γδ T cells maintain cytotoxic function and pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion in vitro. The transcriptional program of Vδ2- T cells in pretreatment tumor biopsies was used to predict subsequent clinical responses to PD-1 blockade in patients with cancer. Thus, Vδ2- γδ T cells within the tumor microenvironment can contribute to antitumor efficacy

Addressing climate change with behavioral science::A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors