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A substance typically extracted from a rare Chinese plant may offer an effective and environmentally friendly way to control rats on a large scale, according to a new study.

And because the product impedes the ability of rats to reproduce instead of killing them, it is humane.

Rats thrive wherever there are humans. They have colonized every continent except Antarctica. Destruction and disease comes in their wake. Yet our fight against them has proven both ineffective—partly due to resistance—and dangerous to ecosystems.

“I joke a bit about this being a ‘woke’ product. It is sustainable, ethical to animals, and even strong on gender equality, as male rats are also targeted by this contraception. They become infertile for about a month after consuming it, which causes rat populations to drop dramatically,” says Johan Andersen-Ranberg of the plant and environmental sciences department at the University of Copenhagen and a founder of TripBIO, a spinout company involved in the substance’s development.

Rats are lured to a sweet and sticky liquid from a feeder developed by SenesTech, an American company. Among the sweet rat treat’s active ingredients is triptolide, a substance that makes the liquid a kind of contraceptive stew for male and female rats alike.

The substance is derived from Tripterygium wilfordii, also known as Thunder god vine, a rare Chinese vine plant that is harvested in the mountains by local gatherers. According to Andersen-Ranberg, in addition to being difficult to find and unstable in delivery, the plant also produces very little of the active substance. So little, that its value by weight is fifteen times more than gold.

As reported in Nature Communications, the researchers have found the enzymes and genes in the plant responsible for the substance, decoded the relevant DNA, and encoded it in the genetic material of a yeast. By doing so, they can ferment and produce the substance in a much faster, more stable, and, not least, cheaper way.

Dangerous rats, dangerous remedies

Extremely potent poisons are now used for rat control. But rats are cunning critters. If a poison encountered by a rat is not strong enough to kill it, the rodent will quickly find out how to avoid human traps. Furthermore, in Denmark among other places, many rats have developed resistance to milder poison variants.

The powerful poisons damage ecosystems and degrade very slowly, often taking a year before their effect is halved. During this time, birds and any scavengers that eat the rats can also receive lethal doses and carry the poison with them into the wild.

The authorities are aware of these “extremely toxic” current remedies, as the Danish Environmental Protection Agency refers to them, but allow them for a lack of alternatives and because the danger posed by rats is considered to be greater.

While nearly seven hundred years have passed since the Black Death here in Europe, as carriers of disease, rats are still considered a threat to public health. Elsewhere in the world, the problem is much greater. They are also responsible for significant economic damage. Their burrowing can damage sewer lines and even cause a home’s foundation to shift, making them a source of expensive to repair damages.

Environmental, ethical solution

The yeast developed by the researchers can be scaled to produce enough triptolide that even a problem as global and pervasive as rat control can realistically be solved with TriptoBIO as a supplier of this valuable substance.

“With our research and the yeast, we’ve now developed, we can ensure supply and get the price of triptolide down to a level where it is realistic for this environmentally friendly and ethical alternative to existing rat control to be widely used, Andersen-Ranberg says. “We are starting in the US, but are optimistic about getting the rest of the world on board.

“Initially, we will probably only make a few kilos of the substance. But when rat control using our substance grows as large as demand leaves us to believe that it will, we will be producing it by the ton. And we’ll be ready. On top of that, there are plenty of other perspectives for this substance. A number of other projects are also under development in which triptolide is a necessary ingredient. Fortunately, we can easily scale up.”

Source: Kristian Bjørn-Hansen for University of Copenhagen

Asking young people to take a short survey on a tablet before an appointment may help mental health providers identify those at risk of psychosis, according to new research.

The researchers found that when patients took a 21-question pre-visit survey, more than twice as many were identified at risk of psychosis compared to those who did not complete the survey.

But despite the improvement in detecting people at risk, the technology-based screening did not reduce the time between the participants’ first psychotic symptoms and when they received treatment.

Previous studies have shown that the longer the time between the first psychotic incident—such as hallucinations or delusions—and receiving treatment, the more severe the course of the disease.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, psychosis often begins when a person is in his or her late teens to mid-twenties. About 100,000 new cases of psychosis are diagnosed each year in the US.

“The addition of a brief screener at the initial evaluation can make a dramatic difference in clinical decision-making, helping you to realize that an individual needs specialized care,” says Tara A. Niendam, a professor and executive director of the Health Early Psychosis Programs at the University of California, Davis, and first author of the study in JAMA Psychiatry.

Delayed mental health access in US

The researchers used data from 10 community clinics and four school sites in California. Sites were divided by those that used tablets for screening (“active screening”) and those that screened using clinical judgment (“treatment as usual”).

For the sites with active screening, individuals between the ages of 12 and 30 completed a questionnaire on a tablet before their visit with a mental health care provider.

Known as the PQ-B (Prodromal Questionnaire, Brief Version), questions included “Do familiar surroundings sometimes seem strange, confusing, threatening, or unreal to you?” and “Have you seen things that other people can’t see or don’t seem to see?”

If the questionnaire score was 20 or above, the participant was offered a referral to an early psychosis clinic for further evaluation.

If you or a loved one think you may be experiencing psychosis symptoms, UC Davis Health offers a free online screening survey.

Sites not using active screening relied on clinical judgment for further evaluation and referrals to early psychosis clinics.

The researchers evaluated data from 2,432 individuals at the active-screening sites and 2,455 at the treatment-as-usual sites.

Active-screening sites reported a significantly higher detection rate of psychosis spectrum disorders, with 136 cases (5.6%), compared to 65 (2.6%) in the sites that did not use the tablet screening.

The active-screening sites also referred 13 individuals with first-episode psychosis compared to four in the sites that did not use active screening.

But despite the early detection, the data showed no statistically significant difference in the duration of untreated psychosis. The mean for the active screening group was 239 days. The mean was 262.3 for the treatment-as-usual group.

The researchers note this was likely due to multiple factors leading to delayed access to the mental health system in the US.

“On average, our participants experienced untreated psychosis for approximately six months before presenting at one of our participating clinic sites,” says coauthor Mark Savill, assistant professor in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department.

“A multifaceted approach that focuses on supporting individuals to seek help quicker and improving the pathway to appropriate services once they present for care may be necessary to achieve meaningful reductions in the duration of untreated psychosis.”

Benefits of psychosis screening

Twenty-four sites agreed to participate. However, only 10 community clinics and four school sites were able to fully implement the screening. Some study sites, such as primary care clinics, faced challenges implementing the screenings and reporting feedback; schools struggled with staffing issues and parent engagement.

The setbacks highlight some of the challenges that might be faced scaling up programs that offer the active screening. But the results highlight how many young people at risk of psychosis are not being identified with the current system.

“Population-based screening for psychosis has not been addressed systematically in the US prior to this study,” says senior author Cameron S. Carter, a professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of the UC Davis Health Imaging Research Center and the Behavioral Health Center for Excellence.

“Our increased identification of cases using the PQ-B questionnaire is an important finding. More people in this active group are getting into care,” Carter says. “That’s important because we know from previous research that individuals who are identified and receive treatment at the very early stages in their illness are likely to have the best outcomes.”

Additional coauthors are from the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; and UC Davis.

The National Institute of Mental Health funded the work.

Source: UC Davis