Two early clinical trials that together included nine patients suggest that a treatment called CAR-T therapy could treat glioblastoma, but its long-term effects are unknown.
According to the CDC, more than 140,000 Americans are dying each year from alcohol-related causes, and the rate of deaths has been rising for years, especially during the pandemic.
The idea: For occasional drinkers, alcohol causes the brain to release more dopamine, a chemical that makes you feel good. Chronic alcohol use, however, causes the brain to produce, and process, less dopamine, and this persistent dopamine deficit has been linked to alcohol relapse.
There is currently no way to reverse the changes in the brain brought about by AUD, but a team of US researchers suspected that an in-development gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease might work as a dopamine-replenishing treatment for alcoholism, too.
Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University unveiled a genetic bullseye—a key gene that plays a pivotal role in initiating a genetic domino cascade, driving bone metastasis in prostate cancer.
A key gene that fuels the molecular cascade driving prostate cancer bone metastasis progression may open avenues for targeted therapies.
They treated three patients with recurrent glioblastoma using a variant of an existing CAR-T therapy, adding additional antibodies to the treatment — and the results were truly astounding.
According to the paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine, one patient saw their tumor decrease in size by 18.5% two days after the treatment, and by day 69, the tumor had decreased by 60.7%, while another saw their ‘tumor regress rapidly’, according to Mass General Brigham.
After the third patient was treated, an MRI showed that a single infusion had led to a ‘near-complete tumor regression’ in just five days.
Scientists have categorized different types of CRISPR systems into two classes based on how their Cas nucleases function. In class 1 (types I, III, and IV), different Cas proteins form a complex machinery to identify and cut foreign DNA; in class 2 CRISPR systems (types II, V, and VI), a single Cas protein effector recognizes and cleaves DNA.9
After characterizing CRISPR’s role as a defense mechanism in bacteria, researchers soon realized that they could harness this system for gene manipulation in any cell. All they needed to do was design a CRISPR gRNA sequence that bound to a specific DNA sequence and triggered the Cas nuclease, which would then cut precisely at that location. With CRISPR, researchers routinely knock out gene function by cutting out a DNA fragment, or they insert a desired genetic sequence into the genome by providing a reference DNA template along with the CRISPR components. While editing eukaryotic cells has been the focus for tackling diseases, many researchers now use CRISPR to edit bacterial communities.
“It’s almost like back to the beginning or back to the origins. There’s some irony in bringing CRISPR back to where it came from,” said Rodolphe Barrangou, a functional genomics researcher at North Carolina State University, who helped characterize the immune function of CRISPR and has been working with it for more than 20 years.
Scientists develop anticancer drugs that target PARP proteins involved in the DNA damage response.
Why are so many young people getting cancer?
Here’s what the data say:
Clues to a modern mystery could be lurking in information collected generations ago.
Nanomedicine to Cure All!
Aortic aneurysms are bulges in the aorta, the largest blood vessel that carries oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, or injury can all increase the risk of aneurysms, which tend to occur more often in Caucasian male smokers over the age of 65.
“The soft tissues that make up blood vessels act essentially like rubber bands, and it’s the elastic fibers within these tissues that allow them to stretch and snap back,” says Professor Anand Ramamurthi, chair of the Department of Bioengineering in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. “These fibers are produced primarily before and just after birth. After that, they don’t regenerate or undergo natural repair after injury. So when they become injured or diseased, the tissue weakens and causes an aneurysm, which can grow over time. After about seven to 10 years, it typically reaches the rupture stage.”
Continue reading “Nanomedicine research aims to transform treatment of aortic aneurysms” »
Cerebral cavernous malformations occur in 0.5% of the population; 85% are sporadic, and 15% are familial or radiation-induced. Several genetic variants, including variants in CCM, drive their development. Read the full review:
Review Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Cavernous Malformations of the Central Nervous System.
