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Limits of large language models in precision medicine. Treating cancer is becoming increasingly complex, but also offers more and more possibilities. After all, the better a tumor’s biology and genetic features are understood, the more treatment approaches there are. To be able to offer patients personalized therapies tailored to their disease, laborious and time-consuming analysis and interpretation of various data is required. Researchers at Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have now studied whether generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT can help with this step. This is one of many projects at Charité analyzing the opportunities unlocked by AI in patient care.

If the body can no longer repair certain genetic mutations itself, cells begin to grow unchecked, producing a tumor.

The crucial factor in this phenomenon is an imbalance of growth-inducing and growth-inhibiting factors, which can result from changes in oncogenes — genes with the potential to cause cancer — for example.

Summary: Researchers developed ‘Anthrobots,’ microscopic biological robots made from human tracheal cells, demonstrating potential in healing and regenerative medicine.

These self-assembling multicellular robots, ranging from hair-width to pencil-point size, show remarkable healing effects, particularly in neuron growth across damaged areas in lab conditions.

Building on earlier Xenobot research, this study reveals that Anthrobots can be created from adult human cells without genetic modification, offering a new approach to patient-specific therapeutic tools.

Summary: New research reveals the cerebellum’s significant role in the evolution of human cognitive functions. The study mapped the genetic development of cerebellar cells in humans, mice, and opossums, uncovering both ancestral and unique cellular characteristics.

Key findings include the increased proportion of specific Purkinje cells in humans, potentially linked to higher cognitive functions, and the identification of over 1,000 genes with varying activity profiles across species, some related to neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Indicine cattle make up half of all cattle populations worldwide. Using a large genomic dataset, this study finds historic migrations and extensive introgression with domestic and wild bovine species has facilitated this species physiological adaptation to extreme environments.

Target validation is a crucial step in pre-clinical drug discovery workflows that builds confidence on the identification of a genetic target as relevant to a disease. With recent advancements, CRISPR serves as a particularly powerful tool for this process, as it enables researchers to accurately modify genes and determine their function in a variety of experimental systems.

One scientist leveraging CRISPR gene editing in this way is Dr. Panos Zalmas, Head of the Open Targets Validation Lab based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, whose work focuses on discovering and validating new putative disease targets for the development of safe and effective medicines.

In this SelectScience^® interview, we speak with Zalmas to learn how he is working to improve the rate of target adoption into drug discovery pipelines across therapy areas such as oncology, neurodegeneration, and immunology and inflammation. Here, Zalmas explains the importance of gene editing in his target validation workflows and highlights how CRISPR technologies in particular are key to the success of drug discovery.

Design Cells / iStock.

The tool can correct genetic errors, control gene activity, and potentially treat diseases like cancer. However, its use raises ethical concerns regarding altering human genes and embryos.

New research suggests that biological age, as indicated by DNA methylation, more significantly impacts cognitive abilities like memory and processing speed than chronological age. This finding could reshape our understanding of aging and cognitive health.

Researchers have been able to reduce dramatically the level of bad cholesterol in human subjects after injecting them with an experimental gene editing treatment, according to the science journal Nature, which is the first time this technique, called base editing, has been done on humans.

But at least one person died after receiving an infusion, prompting a round of safety concerns.

In the clinical trial, 10 subjects with congenitally high levels of bad cholesterol, aka low-density lipoprotein (LDL), were given an injection of VERVE-101, a gene-editing treatment that uses the base editing technique. This treatment then turned off the gene for the protein PCSK9, which is found in the liver and regulates LDL. High levels of LDL can lead to coronary heart disease.