Two new studies led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a possible way to block the progression of several forms of blood cancer using a drug already in clinical trials against breast cancer. The studies - both conducted in patient samples and animal models - found that inhibiting a protein called RSK1 reduces inflammation and stops the progression of blood cancers called myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) as well as an aggressive form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML ..read more

A new study in Nature by last year's Nobel Laureate in Chemistry reveals a possible game-changer in snakebite treatment. Researchers have created new proteins that neutralise lethal toxins found in snake venom, potentially offering a safer and more effective alternative to traditional antivenoms. According to the WHO, venomous snakebites affect between 1,8 and 2,7 million people each year ..read more

With antibiotic resistance a growing problem, University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have developed cutting-edge computer models that could give the disease-fighting drugs a laser-like precision to target only specific bacteria in specific parts of the body. As it stands, antibiotics kill bacteria indiscriminately ..read more

Scientists at the University of Stuttgart have succeeded in controlling the structure and function of biological membranes with the help of "DNA origami". The system they developed may facilitate the transportation of large therapeutic loads into cells. This opens up a new way for the targeted administration of medication and other therapeutic interventions. Thus, a very valuable instrument can be added to the toolbox of synthetic biology ..read more

Preclinical research findings from the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a cocktail of three different drugs that can be used to generate more robust immune system CAR-Ts (chimeric antigen receptor-T cells) to fight cancer. This finding may have a significant impact on improving the production of CAR-T cells for clinical use ..read more

Researchers from POSTECH and Kyungpook National University have developed a novel inhalable therapeutic delivery system for lung cancer, leveraging mucoadhesive protein nanoparticles inspired by the adhesive properties of marine mussels. This effort was spearheaded by Professor Hyung Joon Cha (Department of Chemical Engineering and Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology with a specialization in Medical Science) and Dr. Yeonsu Jeong (Department of Chemical Engineering) at POSTECH, in collaboration with ..read more

Researchers at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center in Berlin are developing a targeted treatment for muscular dystrophy with the help of gene-editing. Preclinical research led by the Spuler Lab published in Nature Communications now paves the way for first-in-human clinical trials. Researchers at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a joint institution of the Max Delbrück Center and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, have developed a promising gene-editing approach intended to restore the function of a protein that is essential to repair and regrow muscle in patie ..read more

A varied diet rich in vegetables is known to be healthy for one's well-being. Excessive consumption of meat, especially red meat, can lead to chronic and cardiovascular diseases. That is also because what we eat shapes the gut microbiome. At the same time, excluding certain foods, such as dairy or animal products, is not necessarily a general solution to achieve microbial balance. But can we find out which food products determine differences in the gut microbiome? Starting from this question, a group of researchers analyzed ..read more

A new study from researchers at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, which published in Nature Medicine on January 6, estimates that 2.2 million new cases of type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cases of cardiovascular disease occur each year globally due to consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages ..read more

Introducing Annotatability - a powerful new framework to address a major challenge in biological research by examining how artificial neural networks learn to label genomic data. Genomic datasets often contain vast amounts of annotated samples, but many of these samples are annotated either incorrectly or ambiguously. Borrowing from recent advances in the fields of natural language processing and computer vision, the team used artificial neural networks (ANNs) in a non-conventional way ..read more