General

Hidden autoimmunity may explain how the coronavirus wreaks such widespread and unpredictable harm. One of the enduring mysteries of COVID-19 is why it makes some people deathly sick but gives others only mild symptoms or none at all. We know that age matters, as do race; gender; and pre-existing medical […]

Children with a devastating genetic disorder characterized by severe motor disability and developmental delay have experienced sometimes dramatic improvements in a gene therapy trial launched at UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospitals. The trial includes seven children aged 4 to 9 born with a deficiency of AADC, an enzyme involved […]

Fruit flies have evolved an elaborate courtship ritual. Upon recognizing a suitable mate in his vicinity, a male fruit fly transforms into a dogged suitor, sometimes chasing the female for more than 26 yards, or 9 miles in human terms, singing to her all the while by vibrating his wings. […]

Anti-androgen therapy is commonly used to treat patients with advanced prostate cancer at stages where the disease has spread to the bones. However, new research reveals that anti-androgen treatment can actually facilitate prostate cancer cells to adapt and grow in the bone tumour microenvironment model, which has been developed by […]

Molecules from the same family as the anti-coagulant drug heparin may interfere with the ability of the COVID-19 virus’s spikes to bind to human cells. This could be used to treat people with severe effects of the virus and any emerging variants. New targetable site on the COVID-19 spike protein […]

Scientists have produced the first fine-detail molecular blueprints of a bacterial enzyme known as Lit, which is suspected to play a “stealthy” role in the progression of infection by reducing the immune response. Blueprints such as these allow drug designers to uncover potential weaknesses in bacterial arsenals as they seek to develop […]

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified rare genetic variants – carried by one in 3,000 people – that have a larger impact on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes than any previously identified genetic effect. Type 2 diabetes is thought to be driven in part by inherited […]

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and their collaborators describe a strain of giant kelp that is genetically male, but presents phenotypic features of females. Their findings shed light on the molecular basis of how sexual development is initiated in this species. Giant kelp can […]

In the United States, nearly every pediatric doctor’s visit begins with three measurements: weight, height and head circumference. Compared to average growth charts of children across the country, established in the 1970s, a child’s numbers can confirm typical development or provide a diagnostic baseline to assess deviations from the curve. Yet, […]

A 'perfect storm' of genetic mutations, toxic proteins and a defect in natural cell recycling has been uncovered in University of Queensland research that could lead to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Researchers have found brain cells are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the triple threat, […]

Researchers at The University of Queensland, working to gain a better understanding of how brain cells work, have discovered the underlying mechanism of a rare genetic mutation that can cause epilepsy. Dr Victor Anggono from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute said his team made the ground-breaking findings while researching nerve cell communications, which are […]

Taken together, the bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes that live in our intestines from the gut microbiome, which plays a key role in the health of people and animals. In new research from the University of Minnesota, the University of Notre Dame and Duke University, scientists found that genetics […]

A diet rich in fermented foods enhances the diversity of gut microbes and decreases molecular signs of inflammation, according to researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine. In a clinical trial, 36 healthy adults were randomly assigned to a 10-week diet that included either fermented or high-fibre foods. The two diets […]

How much can a simple blood sample tell us about a person’s health? Can it give clues about whether a person will develop cardiovascular disease or leukemia? Can it predict how severe a person’s heart disease will be? John Dick, senior scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network […]

A bioengineering professor at The University of Texas at Arlington is developing a technique to diagnose tiny breast tumors that could reduce the anxiety, uncertainty and high costs often faced by patients. Biopsy results show that about 80% of very small tumors are benign; 15% are low-grade, non-life-threatening cancers; and […]

In a recently published review article in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, two researchers at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at KI, concludes where the field of research isepige regarding causes behind and development of, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and how epigenetic processes can contribute to the development of the syndrome. […]

NineSigma, on behalf of Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd., seeks novel drug targets or seeds, which are related to the cancer-neuron axis, an interaction between the nervous system and tumour. Recent studies suggest that the nervous system including nerve cells and neural factors exaggerates cancer cell growth in the tumour microenvironment (Trends […]

In 2020, PLOS ONE announced a Call for Papers on Modeling Cell Proliferation and the Cell Microenvironment. This week, we celebrate the launch of this collection, which includes a number of papers offering new insights into this vital topic. Understanding the cellular microenvironment and how cells proliferate has a number of useful applications, and […]

Vaccines, like many other things in the world, sometimes have a negative side attached to their main positive effect of protecting us against different – and potentially lethal – diseases. Luckily, this 'negative side' has a very, very low chance of manifesting in practice. Many different tests and clinical trials […]

UCSF Proof-of-Concept Study Shows Possibilities of More Cost-Effective Cell Therapy Using ‘Universal’ Stem Cells. Scientists at UC San Francisco have shown that gene-edited cellular therapeutics can be used to successfully treat cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, potentially paving the way for developing less expensive cellular therapies to treat diseases for which […]

As you read this text, the millions of cells that make up your body are hard at work. Within every cell is a flurry of activity keeping you alive, mostly driven by machinery that is made up of proteins. Some of this protein machinery is so important to living things […]

X-ray technology at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source allows researchers to measure from synapse to whole brain level. Researchers at the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have imaged an entire mouse brain across five orders of magnitude of resolution, a step which researchers […]

Case Western Reserve University researchers studying human prions—misfolded proteins that cause lethal and incurable diseases—have, for the first time, identified surface features responsible for the replication of prions in the brain. The ultimate goal of their research is to design a strategy to stop prion disease in humans—and, ultimately, to […]

The risk of severe illness and death from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is extremely low in children and teenagers, according to the most comprehensive analyses of public health data, led by researchers at UCL, University of Bristol, University of York and the University of Liverpool. However, catching Covid-19 […]

Researchers at McGill University have shown that a brain cell structure previously thought to be pathological in fact enhances cells’ ability to transmit information and correlates with a better learning on certain tasks. In a study published in Nature Communications, the team investigated swellings that occur in the axons of Purkinje […]

Part of Dennis Plenker’s daily job, as a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) research investigator, is growing cancer. And a variety of different ones, too. Depending on the day and the project, different tumours may flourish. They might be aggressive breast cancers. They might be glioblastomas, one of the deadliest […]

Most countries have not introduced nationwide prostate cancer screening, as current methods result in overdiagnoses and excessive and unnecessary biopsies. A new study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine, indicates that screening by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and targeted […]

Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in the United States, but identifying type 1 or type 2 diabetes patients at high risk for progressive kidney disease has never had a sure science behind it. Historically, assessing kidney function meant looking at estimated glomerular filtration rate, a calculation that determines […]

A research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified potential new treatment targets for Alzheimer’s disease, as well as existing drugs that have therapeutic potential against these targets. The potential targets are defective proteins that lead to the buildup of amyloid in the brain, contributing […]

Acute kidney injury, or acute renal failure, can occur suddenly from a variety of causes, including the systemic blood infection sepsis, which causes changes in oxygen flow to and metabolism in the kidneys. Researchers in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of […]