November 2, 2021

Largest ever global study of tuberculosis identifies genetic causes of drug resistance

Using cutting-edge genomic sequencing techniques, researchers at the University of Oxford have identified almost all the genomic variation that gives people resistance to 13 of the most common tuberculosis (TB) drug treatments. The Comprehensive Resistance Prediction for Tuberculosis International Consortium (CRyPTIC) research project has collected the largest ever global dataset of […]
November 2, 2021

Mito warriors: how T cell assassins reload their weapons to kill and kill again

Cambridge researchers have discovered how T cells – an important component of our immune system – are able to keep on killing as they hunt down and kill cancer cells, repeatedly reloading their toxic weapons. Cytotoxic T cells are specialist white blood cells that are trained by our immune system […]
November 2, 2021

Lab-grown ‘mini brains’ hint at treatments for neurodegenerative diseases

Cambridge researchers have developed ‘mini brains’ that allow them to study a fatal and untreatable neurological disorder causing paralysis and dementia – and for the first time have been able to grow these for almost a year. A common form of motor neurone disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often overlaps with […]
November 2, 2021

Scientists identify the cause of Alzheimer’s progression in the brain

For the first time, researchers have used human data to quantify the speed of different processes that lead to Alzheimer’s disease and found that it develops in a very different way than previously thought. Their results could have important implications for the development of potential treatments. The international team, led […]
November 2, 2021

COVID may trigger hyperglycemia by harming fat cells

COVID-19 may bring high risks of severe disease and death in many patients by disrupting key metabolic signals and thereby triggering hyperglycemia, according to a new study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. In the study, reported in Cell Metabolism, the researchers found that hyperglycemia – high blood […]
November 2, 2021

Scientists uncover key vulnerability of aggressive lymphomas

Lymphomas can turbo-charge their ability to proliferate by crowding growth-supporting enzymes into highly concentrated compartments within tumor cells, according to a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. The preclinical study, published in Cancer Research, demonstrated that certain aggressive B-cell lymphomas use a protein-shepherding molecule called HSP90 to form and […]
November 2, 2021

Sperm switch swimming patterns to locate egg

A new study reveals how sperm change their swimming patterns to navigate to the egg, shifting from a symmetrical motion that moves the sperm in a straight path to an asymmetrical one that promotes more circular swimming. This change in behavior, called hyperactivation, enables the sperm to sweep the area […]
November 2, 2021

Bacteria underlie success of fecal microbiota transplants

The effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in treating ulcerative colitis depends on a small set of beneficial bacterial strains, suggests a new study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. In the study, reported in Gastroenterology, the researchers sampled gut bacteria from healthy FMT donors and from FMT recipients […]
November 1, 2021

An Example of Senomorphic Drug Discovery

Senescent cell accumulation is a feature of aging, a growing imbalance between the rate of creation and rate of destruction. Senescent cells perform a number of useful tasks in the short-term, but when present for the long-term, their inflammatory secretions disrupt tissue function and contribute meaningfully to the onset and […]
October 31, 2021

A Trial of the Senolytic Fisetin as a Treatment for Older SARS-CoV-2 Patients

Senolytic treatments are those that selectively destroy senescent cells, a form of intervention that has produced rejuvenation in older animals. A high dose of the flavonol fisetin is not yet proven to be usefully senolytic in humans, but has shown a surprising degree of efficacy in mice. The only senolytic […]