In a stage two clinical trial, researchers found that adding an mRNA cancer vaccine to standard treatment reduced the chances for melanoma recurrence or death by 44 percent. NBC News’ Kristen Dahlgren spoke to one of the study’s doctors and a patient for more details.
A multi-institution study that included researchers from Stanford University, the University of California at San Diego, the University of Cambridge, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and others has looked into the development of extrachromosomal DNA in patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma or Barrett’s esophagus.
In the paper, “Extrachromosomal DNA in the cancerous transformation of Barrett’s oesophagus,” published in Nature, researchers identify previously unknown aspects of extrachromosomal DNA presence and their potential role in Barrett’s esophagus. David H. Wang has published a News & Views piece in the same journal discussing the study.
Barrett’s esophagus is a pre-cancerous tissue abnormality that affects about 1.6% of the U.S. population. The condition is mostly harmless, defined by cells in the esophagus lining that become more intestinal-like and is frequently associated with heartburn and acid regurgitation.
Recently, a team of South Korean scientists led by Director C. Justin Lee of the Center for Cognition and Sociality within the Institute for Basic Science made a discovery that could revolutionize both the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. The group demonstrated a mechanism where the astrocytes in the brain uptake elevated levels of acetates, which turns them into hazardous reactive astrocytes. They then went on to further develop a new imaging technique that takes advantage of this mechanism to directly observe the astrocyte-neuron interactions.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), one of the major causes of dementia, is known to be associated with neuroinflammation in the brain. While traditional neuroscience has long believed that amyloid beta plaques are the cause, treatments that target these plaques have had little success in treating or slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
On the other hand, Director C. Justin Lee has been a proponent of a novel theory that reactive astrocytes are the real culprit behind Alzheimer’s disease. Reactive astrogliosis, a hallmark of neuroinflammation in AD, often precedes neuronal degeneration or death.
Researchers at UC Davis are the first to report how a specific type of brain cells, known as oligodendrocyte-lineage cells, transfer cell material to neurons in the mouse brain. Their work provides evidence of a coordinated nuclear interaction between these cells and neurons. The study was published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
“This novel concept of material transfer to neurons opens new possibilities for understanding brain maturation and finding treatments for neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease,” said corresponding author Olga Chechneva is an assistant project scientist at UC Davis Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine and independent principal investigator in the Institute for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine at Shriners Children’s Northern California.
Oligodendrocyte-lineage cells, also called oligodendroglia, are a type of glial cells found in the central nervous system. From birth onward, these glial cells arise to support neural circuit maturation. They are mostly known for their role in myelination—the formation of the insulating myelin sheath around nerve axons.
New research claims to have created an artificial pathologist.
There’s no denying that early detection of cancer improves the survival rate of a patient. Its diagnosis, which is carried out by detecting changes in the cell size, shape, or form, is pivotal to the pathology of the disease.
Now in most cases, doctors need to do a biopsy to be sure a patient has cancer. The analysis of solid tissue biopsies is commonly done in the middle of a medical operation by trained pathologists. This expert analysis requires pathologists to perform multi-step processes and inspect the tissues under a microscope, all while the patient lies on the operation table. This process, more often than not, takes a lot of time, resources, and labor.
A team of UCF College of Medicine researchers has created a digital topographical map of the cardiac sympathetic neural network, the region that controls the body’s heart rate and its “fight-or-flight” response. They hope this map will eventually serve as a guide to treat cardiovascular conditions using bioelectronic devices.
The study, led by Dr. Zixi Jack Cheng, a neuro-cardiovascular scientist, was published in the Scientific Reports journal and was the project of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from UCF along with several other institutions as well as industry partners MBF Bioscience and SPARC Data and Resource Center.
“This mapping goes beyond what you can find in a textbook,” Dr. Cheng said. “This is a digitized brain–heart atlas that will be interactive. We hope it will serve as a guide not only for scientists and physicians, but also for students as they learn the neuroanatomy of the heart.”
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Researchers from John Hopkins University together with Dr. Brett Kagan, chief scientist at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, have recently led the development of the DishBrain project, in which human cells in a petri dish learnt to play Pong.
Researchers say immune cells in people with schizophrenia may hamper the growth of blood cells in their brain.
The evolution of the human eye has long been considered one of biology’s more challenging mysteries, drawing debate over the sequence of steps required to turn rudimentary sensitivity to light into a complex photographic system.
New research suggests some components of vertebrate vision may not have been shaped incrementally as their genes passed down family lines, but were ‘stolen’ from entirely different branches of life.
“At least one innovation that led to the current structure of vertebrate eyes did not occur from stepwise “tinkering” with genes that exist in other animals, but came from introduction of novel DNA from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer,” explains molecular biologist Matt Daugherty from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) on Twitter.
Sources:
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-complement-system.
One of the key players of our immune system is the complement system. An army of millions and trillions of tiny bombs, which work together in a complex and elegant dance to stop intruders in your body.
Continue reading “Tiny Bombs in your Blood — The Complement System” »
