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Cellular therapies like chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells could represent a promising new avenue by which to treat autoimmune diseases, according to a recent review article. The authors cautioned, however, that most of the research testing CAR-based therapies has been in very early-stage trials.

CAR T cells are human cells that have been genetically modified to express a synthetic receptor, The cells have been used successfully as a therapy in several types of cancer, such as large B-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

Manipulating T cells to target cancer cells has worked to treat some cancers. Researchers are investigating whether the same approach might be used to curb the dysregulated immune response that underlies autoimmune disease.

Continue reading “CAR T Cells Could Change the Face of Autoimmune Therapy” »

UK scientists have begun developing vaccines as an insurance against a new pandemic caused by an unknown “Disease X”.

The work is being carried out at the government’s high-security Porton Down laboratory complex in Wiltshire by a team of more than 200 scientists.

Year 2021 😗😁😘

The authors developed a vaccine against a membrane-bound seno-antigen called GPNMB and show that it can be used as a new senolytic approach. The vaccine led to improvements of several age-related phenotypes and prolonged the lifespan of a progeroid mouse model.

An important objective of medical research is to identify the underlying molecular mechanisms of human brain health and diseases.

This objective has been predominantly achieved through observational studies of gene expression in human brain tissues obtained from post-mortem brain donors for their analysis. Importantly, many of these studies are based on the assumption that gene expression in the post-mortem human brain is an exact representation of gene expression in the living human brain.

A recent study published on the medRxiv preprint server challenges this assumption by comparing human prefrontal cortex gene expression between living and post-mortem samples.

Malaria is a possibly fatal disease caused by a parasite transferred by mosquitos to humans. Common symptoms include fever, chills, and flu-like traits. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), around 2,000 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States per year. The diagnosis is common in individuals coming back from Africa or Asia. On a global scale, about 700,000 people die from malaria, and most are children. However, death from malaria can usually be prevented with early detection and proper medical care. Researchers are trying to proactively target malaria by developing a new vaccine using genetic material.

Researchers from the Victoria University of Wellington’s Ferrier Research Institute, the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity have all worked together to develop a vaccine that can effectively stimulate cells in the immune system against malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium. The vaccine, described in Nature Immunology, is designed to generate resident memory cells in the liver to combat Plasmodium. Resident memory cells are a type of immune cell that reside in tissues throughout the body to target invading pathogens that enter those tissues.

The vaccine is made with messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), as opposed to peptides or proteins. The difference between the two is the type of material delivered by the vaccine. Peptide-based vaccines use peptides from the virus to elicit an immune response. Alternatively, mRNA vaccines use mRNA extracted from the virus. In this study, the researchers originally used a peptide-based vaccine but recently found mRNA improves the activation of resident immune cells to kill malaria-based pathogens. The treatment result was significant between the two types of vaccines because the peptide-based vaccine had small fragments of protein and could not stimulate the immune system effectively, while the mRNA could encode for an entire malaria protein.

A recent study posted to the medRxiv preprint server investigates the association between the circulating proteome and brain health.

Study: The circulating proteome and brain health: Mendelian randomisation and cross-sectional analyses. Image Credit: Abduramanova Elena / Shutterstock.com.

*Important notice: medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

Narrator: Here on Earth, our atmosphere shields us from 77% of the sun’s radiation. But astronauts in space don’t have that natural shield, making them vulnerable to blistering temperatures, severe sunburn, and even cancer-causing cell damage. So to combat that, they wear white suits that reflect the sun’s harmful radiation. It’s just like how painting a wall white keeps the room cooler than a dark color because lighter paint absorbs 35% less heat.

Cathleen Lewis: It’s the ideal color to keep the astronauts safe. If you’re planning to go out in outer space, that reflective nature is an absolute.

Narrator: But those white EVA suits aren’t the only garment in an astronaut’s closet. When heading into space or coming home, NASA astronauts wear a bright orange suit similar in color to the safety vests Air Force pilots wear, and it’s for similar reasons because that loud orange stands out against the blue ocean and sky and is perfect for attracting attention, so if there’s a malfunction during landing and astronauts have to abandon ship, so to speak, they need to be easy to spot for rescue crews. That’s why orange was the color of choice for missions like Russia’s Vostok program as well as current ISS launch and reentry suits.

Seitz et al. use DNA origami as a scaffold for viral capsid proteins to create virus capsids in the shapes of rings, tubes, and more! They employ cryo-EM to obtain 3D structures of some of their nanomolecular constructs and they show that multi-layer capsids occur at high concentrations of capsid proteins. Exciting work! #nanotechnology #biotechnology #syntheticbiology #genetherapy

DNA and RNA origami nanostructures direct the size, shape and topology of different virus capsids in a user-defined manner while shielding encapsulated origamis from degradation.

It’s now easier for scientists to create gene-edited insects thanks to a new technique called “direct parental CRISPR.”