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In a milestone for biomolecular design, a team of scientists has succeeded in creating new proteins that adopt one of the most complex folds known to molecular biology. These designer proteins were shown in the lab to spontaneously fold into their intended structures and embed into lipid membranes. As reported […]

Vanderbilt biochemist Yi Ren is part of a team that has identified a new behaviour of a SARS-CoV-2 protein and discovered that interfering with its function can block virus replication in host cells. This opens up the potential for new therapeutic targets for COVID-19. The article, “Nsp1 Protein of SARS-CoV-2 Disrupts […]

Research led by McGill University and Queen’s University Belfast has found that viruses can ‘hijack’ an existing molecular process in the cell in order to block the body’s antiviral immune response to a viral infection. The results of the study have been published in the journal Molecular Cell. As the current […]

The Physics for Medicine Paris laboratory (Inserm/ESPCI Paris-PSL/CNRS), in collaboration with Robert Debré Hospital (AP-HP/Inserm) is developing functional ultrasound imaging to monitor the brain activity of neonates in a way that existing neuroimaging modalities do not achieve. Their latest study, published in Nature Communications, marks another leap forward by demonstrating […]

Findings involving antibody effector functions could help improve design of next-generation COVID-19 antibody drugs. Of the nine treatments and preventives for COVID-19 authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, three are drugs made from so-called monoclonal antibodies. Such drugs provide patients with ready-made antibodies that neutralize the […]

With a San Francisco biotech company, an UdeM eye expert develops a treatment that could potentially treat patients who suffer from this degenerative disease of the retina. Potentially effective treatment for diabetic retinopathy, a disease that swells and scars the retina, has been developed by an Université de Montréal scientist […]

In the ongoing battle to find ways to treat cancer, a team at the University of Missouri is addressing the problem from multiple angles, but with a precision approach. Cancer patients are often given chemotherapy, cancer-fighting drugs that kill cancerous cells and can also have harsh effects on healthy cells. […]

We want to live as long as possible to enjoy the great adventures this Earth has to offer. However, we also want to be healthy and sharp. How can one decrease his risk of dementia? Well, a new research from the University of Queensland shows that you pretty much have […]

As COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out, governments around the world are thinking about the most effective vaccination strategies. Who should get the vaccine first in order for the society to enjoy the greatest improvements in COVID-19 stats? Scientists at UCL say that one group might be overlooked – middle-aged people […]

New computational tool decodes biological language of signaling molecules. An interdisciplinary team of biologists and mathematicians at the University of California, Irvine have developed a new tool to help decipher the language cells use to communicate with one another. In a paper published in Nature Communications, the researchers introduce CellChat, […]

Gliomas are common brain tumors that comprise about one third of all cancers of the nervous system. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers tested a novel combination treatment approach on mice with tumors with characteristics similar to human astrocytomas — a type of slow-growing glioma—and […]

Pressure injuries, also known as bedsores, are often understood as merely painful or uncomfortable side effects of immobility or limited mobility from a spinal cord injury or other causes. But they can also be deadly: At least 60,000 people die from pressure ulcers each year in the United States, according to […]

When a patient arrives in the emergency room with symptoms of a heart attack, doctors’ first priority is to restore blood flow to the heart muscle. Over the past few decades, therapeutic advances aimed at getting blood flowing and reducing strain on the heart have improved patients’ chances of surviving […]

People with cystic fibrosis, or CF, don’t appear to be especially susceptible to COVID-19, and when they do get infected, they don’t seem to get sicker, based on clinical data so far. But Ruobing (Ruby) Wang, an assistant professor of paediatrics at Harvard Medical School who cares for patients with CF […]

Women who have experienced high levels of trauma in childhood, such as abuse by a parent, are biologically older at the epigenetic cellular level in adulthood than women of the same age who have not experienced such adversity, according to a new study by UC San Francisco. Epigenetic “clocks” measure […]

UC San Francisco scientists have formed a research alliance with pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Company aimed at better understanding autoimmune diseases and fostering the development of new therapies. Based on the innovative Immunoprofiler model launched at UCSF in 2015, the new initiative, called AutoImmunoprofiler, inherits the most successful aspects of […]

The brain is involved in everything in our body. When so-called neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS and multiple sclerosis attack the brain, they gradually degrade the human ability to concentrate, speak, remember and move. Despite extensive research, there is much that we still do not know about the brain. […]

Mammals and cold-blooded alligators share a common four-chamber heart structure – unique among reptiles – but that’s where the similarities end. Unlike humans and other mammals, whose hearts can fibrillate under stress, alligators have built-in antiarrhythmic protection. The findings from new research were reported in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology. […]

The relationship between DNA repair pathways and cancer cells can give scientists clues for identifying potential treatments The ongoing fight of science against cancer has made great strides, but cancer cells have not made it easy. The complexity of cancer cells and their adaptive evolutionary nature complicate the search for […]

A radioactive bone cement that’s injected into bone to provide support and local irradiation is proving to be a safer alternative to conventional radiation therapy for bone tumors, according to a study led by University of California, Irvine researchers. The study shows that this brachytherapy cement can be placed into […]

Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues have demonstrated that nanoengineered biodegradable microcapsules can guide the development of hippocampal neurons in an in vitro experiment. The microcapsules deliver nerve growth factor, a peptide necessary for neuron growth. The paper describing this work was published in the journal Pharmaceutics. Many neurodegenerative conditions […]

Professor Martijn Nawijn, an immunologist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, tells Horizon Magazine about his quest to map every cell in a healthy human lung.  He says this work should help to understand more about the causes of lung disease – which is comparatively understudied – and should lead to new therapies in the next 15 to […]

Scientists reveal that high blood pressure increases lung damage risk in patients with cancer who receive bleomycin chemotherapy. Bleomycin is a drug used to treat certain cancers, such as Hodgkin lymphoma and germ cell tumors. But, bleomycin chemotherapy can cause near-fatal lung damage, a condition called bleomycin-induced lung injury. Now, […]

An international team of scientists has sequenced the genome of a capuchin monkey for the first time, uncovering new genetic clues about the evolution of their long lifespan and large brains. Published in PNAS, the work was led by the University of Calgary in Canada and involved researchers at the University […]

Statistical modeling developed by Oregon State University researchers has confirmed that changes to melanoma patients’ gut microbiome led them to respond to a type of treatment capable of providing long-term benefit. Findings were published in Science. The modeling technique invented by Andrey Morgun of the OSU College of Pharmacy and Natalia […]

A study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School found a way to detect the presence of ovarian cancer in patients using Pap test samples, normally used to detect cervical cancer. Currently, no early warning system exists for ovarian cancer, which in 2021, is estimated to kill […]

Bilingual people can effortlessly switch between languages during everyday interactions. But beyond its usefulness in communication, being bilingual could affect how the brain works and enhance certain abilities. Studies into this could inform techniques for learning languages and other skills. More than half of people in Europe speak more than […]

Astrocytes — star-shaped cells in the brain that are actively involved in brain function — may play an important role in stuttering, a study led by a University of California, Riverside, an expert on stuttering has found. “Our study suggests that treatment with the medication risperidone leads to increased activity […]

Advances in diagnosis and care have yielded significant improvements in childhood cancer survival rates in Europe, but the long-term side-effect burden in young people — driven by the unlicensed use of adult cancer medicines — often means the price of survival is high, scientists say. Prescribing unlicensed drugs or the ‘off-label’ use […]

Many cancer patients might respond better to treatments with the help of a new prognostic indicator based on a distinctive pattern of gene activity within tumor cells, according to a new study of human cancer data and experiments on human cancer cell lines grown in the lab. The new research, […]