A study led by the University of Birmingham has made a breakthrough in the understanding of how different genetic mutations cause acute myeloid leukaemia.
A new DNA vaccine when delivered to the skin prompts an immune response that produces antibodies to protect against toxic proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease – without triggering severe brain swelling that earlier antibody treatments caused in some patients.
ROCHESTER, Minn. ─ An injured body always seeks to heal. But that process is far from simple. A host of cells organize to restore what was damaged. Then, critically, the process tapers off. And when it doesn’t, the effects can be disastrous. Fibrosis is the thickening and scarring of tissue due to an overactive healing response.
Immune diseases like multiple sclerosis and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis unleash destructive waves of inflammation on the body, causing death or a lifetime of illness and physical impairment. With safe and effective treatments in short supply, scientists report in PNAS Early Edition (Proceeding of the National Academy of Science) discovery of an experimental treatment that targets an Achilles heel of activated immune cells – killing them off and stopping autoimmune damage.
Janelia Research Campus scientists have uncovered new clues about how fruit flies keep track of where they are in the world. Understanding the neural basis of navigation in flies may reveal how humans accomplish similar feats.
Two T cell biomarkers appear to predict the survival trajectory of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a lung disease that has a varied, but ultimately devastating, impact on patients, according to new research presented at the ATS 2017 International Conference.
A new clinical trial provides a new option for kidney cancer patients and adds to Rush’s wider research efforts towards identifying immune system biomarkers to better predict which immunotherapy will work best for individuals no matter which cancer they’re fighting.
A study from Indiana University published May 19 in the journal Science Advances finds that insects possess a naturally occurring resistance to the use of the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 to prevent diseases such as malaria.
An interdisciplinary study suggests that the strange creatures which lived in the Garden of the Ediacaran more than 540 million years ago before animals came on the scene may have been much more dynamic than experts have thought.
The Weizmann Institute of Science’s Dr. Valery Krizhanovsky finds that old cells might be useful after all. Understanding why some “retired” cells do not undergo apoptosis could lead to treatments for old-age-related diseases.
After analyzing the blood of a survivor of the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak, a team of scientists from academia, industry and the government has discovered the first natural human antibodies that can neutralize and protect animals against all three major disease-causing ebolaviruses. The findings, published online today in the journal Cell, could lead to the first broadly effective ebolavirus therapies and vaccines.
Younger colon cancer patients appear to have more than three times as many mutations in their tumors as older patients, which could lead to more effective treatment decisions, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
A Cedars-Sinai-led team of investigators has successfully repaired severe limb fractures in laboratory animals with an innovative technique that cues bone to regrow its own tissue. If found to be safe and effective in humans, the pioneering method of combining ultrasound, stem cell and gene therapies could eventually replace grafting as a way to mend severely broken bones.
Researchers have identified a new drug target for the two most common types of myeloid leukemia, including a way to turn back the most aggressive form of the disease.
At a glance: BioPlex network identifies protein interaction partners for more than 5,800 protein-coding genes, representing more than a quarter of the human genome. The network maps over 56,000 unique protein-to-protein interactions among nearly 11,000 proteins, significantly expanding coverage of the human interactome. 87 percent of identified interactions were previously undescribed. BioPlex serves as “social network,” providing functional insights into protein communities involving many areas of biology, from development to disease.
In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Magdeburg University (Germany) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong report that for rats and mice, repetitive transorbital alternating current stimulation (rtACS) may help preserve visual neurons from cell death after injury.
Research findings to be published about new blood test technology that will greatly reduce errors in labwork and improve care in public health and infectious disease. Press briefing scheduled for May 16, reserve press access to live virtual event now.
A study at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) found that a novel device can significantly reduce contamination of blood cultures, potentially reducing risky overtreatment and unnecessary use of antibiotics for many patients. This approach could also substantially reduce healthcare costs, according to the study. Thousands of U.S. patients get their blood drawn every day for blood cultures in order to diagnose serious infections such as sepsis, which can be a deadly condition. A small but significant percentage of the blood cultures are contaminated, due in part to skin fragments containing bacteria that are dislodged during a blood draw. This leads to false results that can mislead clinicians into thinking a patient has a potentially serious bloodstream infection. The consequences are costly and put patients at risk.
Newswise hosts a virtual live press briefing on upcoming journal study with research results concerning a new blood collection technique that reduces contamination of blood samples and improves treatment outcomes.
Stop-and-go traffic is typically a source of frustration, an unneccesary hold-up on the path from point A to point B. But when it comes to the molecular machinery that copies our DNA into RNA, a stop right at the beginning of the path may actually be helpful. Recent research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research shows that this stop prevents another machine from immediately following the first, presumably to better control the traffic and avoid later collisions.
In a small and preliminary clinical trial, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators have shown that an experimental gene therapy that uses viruses to introduce a therapeutic gene into the eye is safe and that it may be effective in preserving the vision of people with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Scientists for the first time have assembled a "disease in a dish" model that pinpoints how a defect in the blood-brain barrier can produce an incurable psychomotor disorder, Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome. The findings point to a path for treating this syndrome and hold promise for analyzing other neurological diseases.
By using induced pluripotent stem cells to create endothelial cells that line blood vessels in the brain for the first time for a neurodegenerative disease, University of California, Irvine neurobiologists and colleagues have learned why Huntington’s disease patients have defects in the blood-brain barrier that contribute to the symptoms of this fatal disorder.
A University of Delaware professor teamed with a local high school student on research that found injured plants will send out warning signals to neighboring plants. The signals are sent through airborne chemicals released mainly from leaves, and plants that received them boosted their defenses.
The team’s findings, published today in eLife, shed light on how immune cells might be harnessed to someday help stimulate tissue regeneration in humans.
A team of investigators led by Rohit Kohli, MBBS, MS, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, has identified key inflammatory cells involved in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles have used the cells of AHDS patients to recreate not only the disease, but a mimic of the patient’s blood-brain barrier in the laboratory dish using induced pluripotent stem cell technology.
UF/IFAS researchers have discovered that a mandarin hybrid developed by colleagues contains cellular activity – known as metabolites -- that makes it more able to fend off greening than most other types of citrus.
Lung cancer tumors were prevented in mice by a novel small molecule that directly activates a tumor suppressor protein.
The carnivorous humped bladderwort plant, Utricularia gibba, is a sophisticated predator. It uses vacuum pressure to suck prey into tiny traps at speeds less than a millisecond. A new genomic analysis shows that, over millions of years, it repeatedly retained and enhanced genetic material associated with its carnivorous nature. These include genes that facilitate the trapping of prey, the digestion of proteins, and the transport of small bits of protein from one cell to another.
New diagnoses for two types of skin cancer increased in recent years, according to a Mayo Clinic-led team of researchers.
Researchers examined the mechanisms of B cell immune reconstitution in pediatric patients who had undergone bone marrow transplantation and discovered a disruption in the maturation of B cells – critical to the immune system – preventing the production of antibodies that fight infection.
Patients with castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) usually have a poor prognosis. In part, this is due to the cancer’s ability to resist anti-androgen therapy. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today [May 3] in Oncotarget shows that combining a CPT1A inhibitors with anti-androgen therapy increases the cancer’s sensitivity to the anti-androgen drug enzalutamide.
A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a stem cell product injected directly into the brain to treat chronic motor deficits from ischemic stroke has begun at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
A leading pediatric oncologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD, will become Chief of the Section of Cellular Therapy and Transplant in the Hospital’s Division of Oncology. Grupp, who has researched and led groundbreaking clinical trials of an innovative T cell therapy for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), will assume this position on June 1.
Patients with double hit lymphoma (DHL) who undergo autologous stem-cell transplantation (autoSCT) after achieving remission are not more likely to remain in remission or live longer than patients who do not undergo autoSCT, according to a new analysis from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
New lung “organoids”—tiny 3-D structures that mimic features of a full-sized lung—have been created from human pluripotent stem cells by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). The team used the organoids to generate models of human lung diseases in a lab dish, which could be used to advance our understanding of a variety of respiratory diseases.
We humans like to think our DNA is well-protected in the nucleus of each cell. But it’s a hard life for the hard-working genetic code.
UCLA scientists team found that a worm commonly used in lab research possesses a pair of genes that encode both a poison and its antidote. The genes represent one of the clearest examples to date of a “selfish genetic element” at the molecular level.
In their quest to replicate themselves, viruses have gotten awfully good at tricking human cells into pumping out viral proteins. That’s why scientists have been working to use viruses as forces for good: to deliver useful genes to human cells and help patients who lack important proteins or enzymes. A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Vijay Reddy at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has now uncovered the structural details that make one virus a better tool for future therapies than its closely related “cousin.”
UCLA scientists have discovered a dendritic cell vaccine that amplifies the response of the immune system in people with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of lung cancer. The study, which is the first to test the vaccine in humans, has important clinical implications as the method could boost the cancer-killing power of anti-PD-1 immunotherapies that are currently being evaluated in NSCLC and other advanced cancers, which are very difficult to treat successfully.
The Wistar Institute, an international biomedical research leader in cancer, immunology and infectious diseases, announces the appointment of Daniel W. Kulp, Ph.D., as associate professor in the Vaccine Center and the Translational Tumor Immunology Program.
Using gene sequencing tools, scientists from Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of British Columbia have found a set of genetic mutations in samples from 24 women with benign endometriosis, a painful disorder marked by the growth of uterine tissue outside of the womb. The findings, described in the May 11 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, may eventually help scientists develop molecular tests to distinguish between aggressive and clinically “indolent,” or non-aggressive, types of endometriosis.
On May 4th, RPB-supported researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published a study identifying a biomarker that could help to predict glaucoma damage before vision loss.
Six biological pigments called rhodopsins play well-established roles in light-sensing in the fruit fly eye. Three of them also have light-independent roles in temperature sensation. New research shows that a seventh rhodopsin, Rh7, is expressed in the brain of fruit flies where it regulates the fly’s day-night activity cycles. The study appears in Nature and was funded by the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Scientists at IMBA (Institute of Molecular Biotechnology) describe novel organoid technology combining various brain regions for investigation of epilepsy, and other neurological diseases, as reported in the current issue of Nature Methods.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that a cancer stem cell vaccine, engineered to express a pro-inflammatory protein called interleukin-15 (IL-15) and its receptor (IL-15Ralpha), caused T cell production in animal models and enhanced immune responses against tumors.
Mayo Clinic has launched a first-of-its-kind clinical test that will be used to help patients who may be at a diagnostic “dead end” with other genetic testing.
Twenty years after undergoing a life-saving treatment at Loyola University Medical Center, cancer survivor Carolyn Gatenby returned to Loyola to donate 20 handmade quilts. “I wanted to give back,” Mrs. Gatenby said. “I’ve had 20 good years that I didn’t think I’d have.”
After phase 1 results of Seattle Children’s Pediatric Leukemia Adoptive Therapy (PLAT-02) trial have shown T-cell immunotherapy to be effective in getting 93 percent of patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) into complete initial remission, researchers have now opened a first-in-human clinical trial aimed at reducing the rate of relapse after the therapy, which is about 50 percent.
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