Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine’s Laboratory of Gene Regulation, led by Professor Doug Higgs and Dr. Mira Kassouf, have published a study in the journal Cell, in which they reveal another piece of the puzzle of how the code in our DNA is read.

In this study, the authors introduce the concept of “facilitators,” a newly identified type of non-coding DNA that can help to drive gene expression.

All of the cells in your body contain the same DNA. However, these cells are able to develop into over 200 different types and make up a variety of different specialized tissues such as the skin, the blood, and the brain.

Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, China, have discovered that shutting down part of the innate immune system increases anti-tumor activity.

In a paper, “Noncanonical MAVS signaling restrains dendritic cell–driven antitumor immunity by inhibiting IL-12,” published in Science Immunology, the team details how exploring the role of mitochondrial antiviral signaling in tumor immunity uncovered unexpected insights into the relationship with immune responses and potential therapeutic implications.

Mitochondrial antiviral-signaling (MAVS) proteins are part of the innate immune system encoded by the nuclear genome found mainly on the mitochondrial outer membrane. Considered a first line of defense against viral infections, they are rapidly produced upon viral recognition and quickly reduced when a virus is cleared from the system.

For the first time ever, wireless millirobots navigated a narrow blood vessel both along and against arterial flow. Researchers from the University of Twente and Radboudumc inserted the screw-shaped robots in a detached aorta with kidneys where they controlled them using a robotically controlled rotating magnet. The researchers plan to further develop the technology to be able to remove blood clots.

Each year worldwide, one in four people die from conditions caused by blood clots. A blood clot blocks a blood vessel preventing the blood from delivering oxygen to certain areas of the body. Surgeons can use flexible instruments to remove the blood clot therefore allowing the blood to flow again, but some regions in the body are difficult to reach. Millirobots can overcome these limitations and remove blood clots from difficult-to-reach blood vessels.

The researchers showed that these millirobots were able to travel through blood vessels. But to do so, the millirobots need power, to travel up-and downstream and to accurately be controlled and localized. Last but not least, they need to be biocompatible and leave no further damage to the inside of blood vessels.

The software could cut delays in diagnosis and offer the “ultimate second opinion”, researchers have said.

Elucidating human contact networks could help predict and prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and future pandemic threats. A new study from Scripps Research scientists and collaborators points to which public health protocols worked to mitigate the spread of COVID-19—and which ones didn’t.

In the study, published online in Cell on December 14, 2023, the Scripps Research-led team of scientists investigated the efficacy of different mandates—including stay-at-home measures, social distancing and travel restrictions —at preventing local and regional transmission during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They found that local transmission was driven by the amount of travel between locations, not by how geographically nearby they were. The study also revealed that the partial closure of the U.S.-Mexico border was ineffective at preventing cross-border transmission of the virus. These findings, in combination with ongoing genomic surveillance, could help guide public health policy to prevent future pandemics and mitigate the new “endemic” phase of COVID-19.

Johns Hopkins researchers have identified minuscule particles that supercharge therapeutic cancer vaccines, which train the immune system to attack tumors. These new lipid nanoparticles—tiny structures made of fat—not only stimulate a two-pronged immune system response that enhances the body’s ability to fight cancer but also make vaccines more effective in targeting tumors.

“This research marks a pivotal turning point in our understanding of how lipid nanoparticles can be harnessed to optimize anticancer immunity,” said Hai-Quan Mao, director of Johns Hopkins’ Institute for NanoBioTechnology and professor in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “Our findings unlock new avenues for enhancing the efficacy of RNA-based treatments for cancer and infectious diseases.”

The team’s results appear in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

In a novel study, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have introduced LoGoFunc, an advanced computational tool that predicts pathogenic gain and loss-of-function variants across the genome.

Unlike current methods that predominantly focus on loss of function, LoGoFunc distinguishes among different types of harmful mutations, offering potentially valuable insights into diverse disease outcomes. The findings are described in Genome Medicine.

Genetic variations can alter protein function, with some mutations boosting activity or introducing new functions (gain of function), while others diminish or eliminate function (loss of function). These changes can have significant implications for human health and the treatment of disease.

This Perspective reviews large-scale genomics and longitudinal phenomics efforts and the insights they can provide into wellness. The authors describe their vision for the transformation of the current health care from disease-oriented to data-driven, wellness-oriented and personalized population health.

The targeted integration of large DNA payloads into primary human T cells can be efficiently achieved non-virally by leveraging Cas9-based editing and the DNA-repair pathway homology-mediated end joining.