Uveal melanoma, sometimes called ocular melanoma, is a type of cancer that affects the uvea, the middle layer of the eye that contains blood vessels, pigment cells (melanocytes), and provides nutrients and oxygen to the retina. Most uveal melanomas are still only within the eye when they are first diagnosed. It is rare for the cancer to have already spread outside of the eye. But unfortunately, in about half of all patients, the melanoma will come back at some point after treatment. Now, new research from the University of Pittsburgh explains why metastatic uveal melanoma is resistant to conve ..read more

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and at Sun Yat-sen University have generated what they claim is the first comprehensive atlas of aging muscles in humans. The team applied single-cell technologies and advanced imaging to analyze human skeletal muscle samples from 17 individuals across the adult lifespan. Their resulting map provides new insights into the many complex processes underlying age-related muscle changes, and revealed new cell populations that may explain why some muscle fibers age faster than others. The study also identified compensatory mechanisms the muscles employ to ..read more

Asahi Kasei Bioprocess (AKB), which specializes in oligosynthesis equipment, and Axolabs formed a strategic partnership in the field of oligonucleotide therapeutics. The companies will collaborate to build an oligonucleotide cGMP manufacturing facility spanning an area of 59,000 ft2 (approximately 5,481m2) in Berlin. The partners aim to accelerate the development and commercialization of oligo-based therapies. Axolabs, a CRDMO providing drug substances for oligo-based therapeutics, is establishing a new GMP manufacturing hub in Berlin. The facility is designed to accommodate a range of product ..read more

Treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has come a long way in recent years, and a battery of antirheumatic medications can in many cases successfully stymy the inflammatory cells that cause swelling and pain when they infiltrate tissues around the joints. Yet for some reason, about 20% of patients with painful, visibly swollen joints consistently get no relief from multiple rounds of even the strongest of these anti-inflammatory drugs. Surgical interventions intended to remove inflamed tissue have revealed why: “In some cases, their joints aren’t actually inflamed,” noted co-senior author&nbs ..read more

Fujifilm invested $1.2 billion in its large-scale cell culture CDMO business to further expand the planned Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies end-to-end bio-manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, NC. The total investment in the facility now totals over $3.2 billion. The new investment will add 8 x 20,000 liters mammalian cell culture bioreactors by 2028, to the already planned 8 x 20,000 L for bulk drug substance as part of the initial investment. This new facility allows for flexibility to expand with additional bioreactors to accommodate new projects to meet the emerging needs of partn ..read more

Connectivity between laboratory instruments is crucial for capturing large quantities of multimodal data generated during the drug discovery and development process. With the launch of its newest product, Luma Lab Connect, scientific software provider Dotmatics aims to help drug developers extract data from all of their instruments in a centralized and standardized manner for downstream analysis and interpretation.   A primary benefit of Luma Lab Connect is its ability to automate data flow from lab instruments in real-time in a way that protects the integrity and reliability of expe ..read more

A Stanford Medicine-led study has found that there are two key systems malfunctioning in the brains of people with psychosis. One is a “filter” that directs attention toward important external events and internal thoughts, and the other a “predictor” composed of pathways that anticipate rewards. The team used a type of machine learning algorithm called a spatiotemporal deep neural network to analyze brain scan data from children, teens, and young adults with a rare genetic disease called 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) who experience psychosis, as well as from individuals with psychosis ..read more

Researchers at the Ohio State University report they have settled a matter of scientific debate. In a new study, the researchers discovered a chemical modification in the HIV-1 RNA genome that is now confirmed to be key to the virus’s ability to survive and thrive after infecting host cells. Their findings are published in Nature Microbiology in an article titled, “Single-molecule epitranscriptomic analysis of full-length HIV-1 RNAs reveals functional roles of site-specific m6As.” “Although the significance of chemical modifications on RNA is acknowledged, the evolutionary benefits and sp ..read more

For the past twenty years, researchers have debated the source of the toxic proteins at the source of Parkinson’s disease. In 2003, a German pathologist, Heiko Braak, MD, first proposed that the disease begins outside the brain. More recently, Per Borghammer, MD, PhD, with Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues argue that the disease is the result of processes that start in either the brain’s smell center (brain-first) or the body’s intestinal tract (body-first). Now, a team of scientists, including Borghammer, have proposed a new hypothesis paper “The Body, the Brain, the Envir ..read more

These days, lymphomas, leukemias, and other kinds of cancers can be effectively treated using chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies. Now, new research from scientists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Stanford University School of Medicine helps explain why these therapies work and why they get better the longer the cells are in the body. Full details of the findings were published in Nature in a paper titled, “FOXO1 is a master regulator of memory programming in CAR T cells.” Fewer than 50% of patients who are treated with CAR T therapies remain cured after one ye ..read more