A newly discovered family of enzymes can cut single-stranded DNA with exact precision—opening doors to next-gen medical and biotech tools.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 28
A Downside of Taurine: It Drives Leukemia Growth
Leukemia cells use taurine to produce energy and grow, a study in Nature by a Wilmot Cancer institute team shows.
Scientists visualize key protein structures linked to immune response and inflammation
Two key protein structures in the body are being visualized for the first time, thanks in part to the latest technology in the University of Cincinnati’s Center for Advanced Structural Biology—potentially opening the door for better designed therapeutics.
The research of a trio of UC structural biologists was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
It’s the first publication to come out of the Seegar Lab at UC. Tom Seegar, Ph.D., Ohio Eminent Scholar and assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences in the College of Medicine, serves as corresponding author of the study.
Preventing stalling to improve CAR-T cells’ efficacy against tumors
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells are a promising cancer therapy that are made from the patient’s own T cells, which are reprogrammed to fight their cancer. One of the limitations of CAR-T cell therapy is the ability of these cells to survive long enough to target the entire tumor.
Once injected back into the patient, the CAR-T cells tend to rapidly expand when they become activated by the tumor cells, but eventually die off due to a natural process called activation-induced cell death.
In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, a research team discovered a way to alter CAR-T cells so they can partially avoid activation-induced cell death, which allows them to live longer and better fight off the tumor.
Repurposed cancer drugs shown to promote stroke recovery and limit brain damage
Stroke remains one of the leading causes of death, disability, increased economic burden and decreased quality of life around the world. Current stroke therapies are time-limited and largely focused on restoring blood flow, and there are few which address the secondary wave of inflammation that causes further injury in the hours and days after stroke.
A study by researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), has shown that a class of drugs, HDACi (histone deacetylase inhibitors), protects neurons and limits brain damage following stroke by altering the gene expression of microglia, the immune cells of the brain.
HDACi are currently used or being tested as treatments for certain cancers and are also being researched for neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
