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Category: biotech/medical – Page 28

Israeli professor leads int’l team behind implantable device that could eliminate need for insulin shots

Assistant Professor Shady Farah from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Chemical Engineering – has led an international research team that pioneered the development of an implantable, self-regulating device that produces insulin for patients with diabetes. The research is considered groundbreaking and could potentially eliminate the need for daily insulin shots.

The multinational study was conducted in cooperation with scientists from leading U.S. institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Massachusetts.

The study, published last month in Science Translational Medicine, describes the implant as a self-regulating ‘artificial pancreas’ that monitors blood glucose levels and produces insulin internally, eliminating the need for external insulin shots. The researchers describe the technology as a ‘crystalline shield’ and report that it can operate in the body for years.

Technion researchers developed an implantable artificial pancreas that produces insulin, potentially eliminating daily shots for diabetes patients.

A single-cell time-series atlas of endothelial cell embryonic development

Now online! The STED-EC atlas enables inter-organ and multi-time-point comparisons of gene expression in endothelial cells, revealing substantial transcriptomic variations across endothelial cells from different embryonic organs and facilitating investigation of previously unknown molecular mechanisms that govern organ-specific vascular development.

Cross-disease analysis identifies the inflammatome as a transcriptional program of inflammation

Díaz-Pinés Cort et al. identify a 100-gene inflammation signature and a broader 2,000-gene inflammatome, consistently upregulated across inflammatory diseases and tissues. They show that these resources can detect inflammation in transcriptomic and proteomic datasets, distinguish disease-specific signals from general inflammation, and generate sample-wise inflammation scores correlated with disease activity.

The dynamics of myelin swellings

This led to the discovery that myelin swellings have a dynamic character: they can not only grow, but also shrink and even recover completely. It also turns out that the activity of the underlying nerve fibre plays an important role; more activity of the nerve fibre leads to more and bigger swellings, while less activity allows for possible recovery.

The authors show that in human multiple sclerosis tissue, myelin swelling is also dynamic and is prominent around active lesions. Science Mission sciencenewshighlights.

An international research team have gained new insights into the dynamics of myelin swellings in the brain. Myelin swellings are considered as the precursor of lesions in the brain of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The results have been recently published in the leading magazine Science.

MS is characterised by lesions in the brain and the spinal cord. Aside from these inflammations, damage can also be visible in the myelin; the protective layer surrounding nerve fibers. Myelin swellings are seen as a precursor for damaged myelin.

The research team used advanced microscopy techniques and different models – from zebrafish and mouse models to human brain tissue – to research the formation of this damage.

Neratinib, a Clinical Drug Treating Breast Cancer, Protects Against Vascular Inflammation and Atherosclerosis

Analysis of US mortality data from 1990 to 2023 indicates breast cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia deaths decreased in people younger than 50, while ColorectalCancer mortality increased, rising from fifth to first among cancer deaths in this age group.

The majority of cases present at an advanced stage, highlighting the need for increased symptom awareness and earlier screening.

National trends suggest ongoing prevention and early detection strategies are vital for addressing early-onset colorectal cancer.

This study examines changes in cancer mortality in the US for the 5 leading cancer-related deaths among people younger than 50 years over the past 3 decades.

Osteoradionecrosis After Radiotherapy for Oropharyngeal Carcinoma

Among patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell #carcinoma, proton therapy for head and neck cancer was associated with a higher 3-year incidence of osteoradionecrosis compared with intensity-modulated radiation therapy.

Severe osteoradionecrosis rates were low and did not differ by modality.

This cohort study characterizes the incidence, severity, and predictors of osteoradionecrosis in patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma treated with curative-intent radiotherapy and compares outcomes between those receiving proton therapy vs intensity-modulated radiation therapy.

Blocking both drug-resistant bacteria and influenza with a broad-spectrum infection prevention approach

Secondary infections caused by bacteria or viruses during hospital care remain a long-standing global challenge, despite advances in modern medicine. In particular, mixed bacterial-viral infections in critically ill or immunocompromised patients are extremely difficult to treat and are associated with significantly increased mortality.

At the same time, the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the frequent emergence of viral variants have exposed the limitations of existing antibiotics and vaccines. These challenges have driven growing interest in new strategies that prepare the body’s immune system in advance, enabling it to respond more rapidly and effectively when infection occurs.

Unlike conventional approaches that directly target specific pathogens, this emerging strategy focuses on priming the immune system so that immune cells can react faster and more strongly at the moment of infection.

Senescent astrocytes discovered in Alzheimer’s brains point to new treatment targets

Researchers from the NeuroAD group (Neuropathology of Alzheimer’s Disease) within the Department of Cell Biology, Genetics and Physiology at the University of Málaga, also affiliated with IBIMA–BIONAND Platform and CIBERNED, have made a pioneering breakthrough in the fight against this disease by identifying astrocytes as a promising cellular target for the development of future therapies.

The study demonstrates, for the first time, the presence of senescent astrocytes—cells that remain alive but have lost their functional capacity—in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, positioning this cellular aging process as a key mechanism in neurodegeneration.

The research, published in the journal Journal of Neuroinflammation, was led by Dr. Antonia Gutiérrez, Professor of Cell Biology and Principal Investigator of the NeuroAD group, together with Dr. Juan Antonio García León, Associate Professor of Cell Biology. Other contributors to the study include Laura Cáceres, Laura Trujillo, Elba López, Elisabeth Sánchez, and Inés Moreno.

Env-antibody coevolution identifies B cell priming as the principal bottleneck to HIV V2 apex broadly neutralizing antibody development

Two new animal studies show that B cell priming is key to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) against HIV and demonstrate that a single immunization that targets bNAb precursors can induce potent neutralization. Learn more in Science Immunology:

📃: https://scim.ag/4kHVwvV

B cell priming is a primary bottleneck to HIV-1 V2 apex bNAb elicitation.

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