General

Researchers have revealed how a rare DNA change rebalanced the immune system of patients with a life-threatening genetic immunodeficiency. Researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have discovered that three patients with a severe genetic immunodeficiency spontaneously repaired the harmful variants in their DNA and restored normal immune function […]

In the midst of a discussion regarding the limitations of life span studies, in that the use of death as an endpoint fails to capture all of the variances in health due to aging, the authors of this paper offer up the thought that aging is contagious within the body. […]

To catch cancer earlier, we need to predict who is going to get it in the future. The complex nature of forecasting risk has been bolstered by artificial intelligence (AI) tools, but the adoption of AI in medicine has been limited by poor performance on new patient populations and neglect to racial minorities. […]

Building on the promise of emerging therapies to deploy the body’s “natural killer” immune cells to fight cancer, researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and U-M College of Engineering have gone one step further. They’ve developed what is believed to be the first systematic way to catch natural killer cells and get […]

The ability to understand others’ hidden thoughts and beliefs is an essential component of human social behaviour. Now, neuroscientists have for the first time identified specific neurons critical for social reasoning, a cognitive process that requires individuals to acknowledge and predict others’ hidden beliefs and thoughts. The findings, published in Nature, […]

The answer to the age-old mystery of the evolutionary origins of vertebrate eyes may lie in hagfish, according to a new study by biologists at the University of Alberta. “Hagfish eyes can help us understand the origins of human vision by expanding our understanding of the early steps in vertebrate […]

In many ways, our brain and our digestive tract are deeply connected. Feeling nervous may lead to physical pain in the stomach, while hunger signals from the gut make us feel irritable. Recent studies have even suggested that the bacteria living in our gut can influence some neurological diseases. Modelling […]

Using a novel technique for expanding tissue, MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers have devised a way to label individual molecules of messenger RNA within a tissue sample and then sequence the RNA. This approach offers a unique snapshot of which genes are being expressed in different parts of a […]

Porphyrins are interesting drug delivery vehicles that can specifically accumulate in cancer cells. However, how the structure of the drug-conjugated porphyrin affects its ability to penetrate and accumulate within cancer cells is not well understood. Researchers from Tokyo University of Science now investigate the correlation between the structure and tumor […]

Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are a form of metabolic waste, sugary compounds that can interact harmfully with structures and cells in the body. A few forms of persistent AGE can form lasting cross-links in the extracellular matrix that change the structural properties of tissues, contributing to the loss of elasticity […]

It was an unexpected discovery that started with an analysis of more than 1,000 genes. The question: why game-changing cancer immunotherapy treatments work for only a fraction of patients. The analysis shone a light on one that popped up repeatedly in patients and mouse models that did not respond to […]

Working to develop new treatments for osteoarthritis, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have genetically engineered cartilage to deliver an anti-inflammatory drug in response to activity similar to the bending of a knee or other motions that put stress on joints. Among the early symptoms of […]

What makes one person drive above the speed limit while another navigates steadily in the right lane? What motivates someone to leave a job with a steady paycheck to launch their own business while the other sticks to one employer for an entire career? “People have different tendencies to engage […]

A new University of Alberta study shows that losing weight before knee replacement surgery doesn’t lead to better outcomes for patients. In a systematic review published in Joint Bone Spine, researchers in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine found that weight loss before surgery may not be beneficial for people with advanced knee osteoarthritis. Medical practitioners have long advised […]

Inside a tumor, chatter abounds. Multiple cell types are constantly communicating with each other, exchanging various types of information. Some are working together against the tumor, while others help the tumor grow. Researchers have a good handle on who the main players are, but it can be difficult to tell […]

Martin Monti, a Professor of Psychology and Neurosurgery at UCLA, and colleagues have recently published a paper in the journal Brain Stimulation, describing their success in jump-starting the brains of two patients in a long-term “minimally conscious state”. While Monti had already performed a similar procedure on a 25-year-old man […]

The problem of protein folding is one of the most important and hard tasks in computational biochemistry. Recently, deep learning models, such as AlphaFold, were shown to be more effective in this task than classical techniques. The likely advance of quantum computing could help to improve current algorithms further. A […]

McMaster researchers have established in lab settings that a novel combination of two forms of immunotherapy can be highly effective for treating lung cancer, which causes more deaths than any other form of cancer. The new treatment, yet to be tested on patients, uses one form of therapy to kill […]

A team of international researchers who study how gene mutations associated with autism interfere with social behaviour have found injections of the hormone oxytocin can normalize brain activity. The findings, which were presented recently at the 2021 Society for Neuroscience Global Connectome, point to the potential of oxytocin—known to influence behaviours […]

Special immune cells found in the brain, microglia, play a key role in the processes that make you feel uneasy and depressed in correlation with inflammation. The findings from a new study on mice suggest that microglial cells contribute to the negative mood experienced during several neurological diseases. David Engblom’s […]

Many forms of mild cellular stress produce benefits to health because they trigger the more efficient operation of cellular maintenance processes such as autophagy. That in turn causes better cell and tissue function, and thus improved health. This stress response and benefit is known as hormesis, and has been robustly […]

Scientists at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have developed a promising gene therapy strategy for a rare disease that causes severe vision loss in childhood. A form of Leber congenital amaurosis, the disease is caused by autosomal-dominant mutations in the CRX gene, which are challenging to treat with gene therapy.  The scientists […]

An innovative approach to treating bone tumors — starving cancer cells of the energy they need to grow — could one day provide an alternative to a commonly used chemotherapy drug without the risk of severe side effects, suggests a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. […]

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania have identified ionizable lipid nanoparticles that could be used to deliver mRNA as part of fetal therapy. The proof-of-concept study, published in Science Advances, engineered and screened a number of lipid nanoparticle […]

Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, autism, schizophrenia and many other neurological and psychiatric conditions have been linked to inflammation in the brain. There’s growing evidence that immune cells and molecules play a key role in normal brain development and function as well. But at the core of the burgeoning field of […]

Many genetic mutations have been found to be associated with a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. Yet for most of these variants, the mechanism through which they act remains unclear. Now a new study in Nature led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania has revealed how two different variations—one […]

What makes cancer cells different from ordinary cells in our bodies? Can these differences be used to strike at them and paralyze their activity? Cancer researchers have been debating this question since the mid-19th century. A new study from Tel Aviv University (TAU) shows, for the first time, how an abnormal […]

Cells don’t express all the genes they contain all the time. The portion of our genome that encodes eye colour, for example, doesn’t need to be turned on in liver cells. In plants, genes encoding the structure of a flower can be turned off in cells that will form a […]

A new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher has identified how specific communication among different brain regions, known as brain connectivity, can serve as a biomarker for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The research relied on a deep architecture using machine-learning classifiers to identify with 99% accuracy those […]

A daily alcoholic drink for women or two for men might be good for heart health, compared to drinking more or not drinking at all. But while there is some evidence that drinking in moderation might prevent heart attacks, now a randomized, double-blinded clinical study of 100 heart patients has […]