michael

Researchers are gaining new insights into neurological diseases by studying circular RNAs (circRNAs) in brain cells. A new study by investigators from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, identified over 11,000 distinct RNA circles that characterized brain cells implicated in Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Their results were published on September 18, 2023 in Nature Communications. The open-access article is titled “Circular RNAs in the Human Brain Are Tailored to Neuron Identity and Neuropsychiatric Disease.”

Read more

DNA mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd) is a genetic condition often associated with colon cancer. It can happen in otherwise normal cells before cancer forms or after a tumor has already formed. The condition makes it hard for cells to correct mistakes that occur in DNA copying. This can lead to many mutations within tumors, or a high tumor mutation burden (TMB). Some patients with high TMB respond well to immunotherapy, which uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer cells. But immunotherapy doesn’t work for more than half of patients with advanced MMRd tumors. Now, research from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Peter Westcott, PhD, and colleagues may help explain why. The results were published on September 14, 2023 in Nature Genetics. The open-access article is titled “Mismatch Repair Deficiency Is Not Sufficient to Elicit Tumor Immunogenicity.” MIT’s Tyler Jacks, PhD, is the senior author of the article.

Read more

Researchers have genetically engineered a marine microorganism to break down plastic in salt water. Specifically, the modified organism can break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a plastic used in everything from water bottles to clothing that is a significant contributor to microplastic pollution in oceans. “This is exciting because we need to address plastic pollution in marine environments,” says Nathan Crook, PhD, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. “One option is to pull the plastic out of the water and put it in a landfill, but that poses challenges of its own. It would be better if we could break these plastics down into products that can be re-used. For that to work, you need an inexpensive way to break the plastic down. Our work here is a big step in that direction.”

Read more

The European starling boasts a remarkable repertoire. Versatile songbirds that learn warbles, whistles, calls, and songs throughout their lives, starlings rank among the most advanced avian vocal learners. Now a new study, published in Science on September 15, 2023, finds that starlings, along with other complex vocal learners, are also superior problem solvers. The open-access article is titled “Songbird Species That Display More-Complex Vocal Learning Are Better Problem-Solvers and Have Larger Brains.”

Read more

While common, Staphylococcus aureus infections–known as “golden staph”–can be life-threatening if the bacteria enter the bloodstream, causing sepsis. Golden staph is notorious for its ability to become resistant to antibiotics, making it hard to treat, which can lead to adverse health outcomes for patients infected with a drug-resistant form of the bacteria. In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, published on September 12, 2023 in Cell Reports, researchers led by ones at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), analyzed the unique genetic profiles of more than 1,300 golden staph strains. By combining this data with patient and antibiotic information, the researchers found that, while patient factors are critical in determining mortality risks, specific genes are linked to antibiotic resistance, along with the bacteria’s ability to linger in the blood, evading antibiotics and the immune system. The open-access article is titled “A Statistical Genomics Framework to Trace Bacterial Genomic Predictors of Clinical Outcomes in Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia.”

Read more

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a pervasive endocrine disorder that affects millions of women globally, impacting their hormonal balance, fertility, and overall well-being. It is notoriously difficult to treat, with widely varying symptoms and mysterious, complex underlying causes. Researchers at the University of Chicago (UChicago) recently unveiled a potential new PCOS treatment that may improve multiple PCOS symptoms by regulating body systems and reducing inflammation. Recently published results demonstrate the promise of this novel therapeutic approach that uses mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs), also known as exosomes: tiny, free-floating packages of molecules released by stem cells, as well as by all cells that have been studied for such release. “Current PCOS treatments merely address the symptoms, and the most common treatments–oral contraceptives–do not address patients’ struggles with infertility,” said Hang-Soo Park, PhD, staff scientist at UChicago and the study’s first author. “Our approach represents a paradigm shift from symptom management to treating the underlying causes. We hope this will prove more effective in the long term and allow patients to have children if they wish to do so.”

Read more

In the summer of 2018, graduate student Hunter Dean from the Medical Scientist Training Program came to Yuhua Song, PhD, with a research idea. He wanted to pursue his doctoral research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in Alzheimer’s disease–under the joint mentorship of Dr. Song, who had never worked in Alzheimer’s, and Erik Roberson, MD, PhD, an Alzheimer’s expert in the UAB Department of Neurology and the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics, or CNET. That collaboration brought Dr. Song, a professor in the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering, into research on this leading cause of dementia worldwide. In addition, the collaboration has now garnered $5.68 million of grant support–proceeding from a $660,000 award from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation in 2019 with Dr. Roberson as principal investigator and Dr.  Song as co-investigator to two awards with Dr. Song as PI and Dr. Roberson as co-investigator–a five-year $2.13 million National Institutes of Health R01 grant in 2021 and a five-year $2.89 million NIH R01 grant this summer.

Read more

A groundbreaking discovery has been made by Professor Hyug Moo Kwon and his research team in the Department of Biological Sciences at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology(UNIST) in Korea, in collaboration with Professor Jaeseok Yang from Yonsei University (Korea). Their study sheds new light on the protein called “TonEBP,” revealing its significant role in the development of lupus and lupus nephritis. This breakthrough not only enhances our understanding of these conditions, but also opens up potential avenues for future treatment options.

Read more

When people hear the word “cancer,” they often picture a single mass, but glioblastoma cells are also highly invasive and spread quickly from the central mass, making it very difficult to fully eradicate. Even with current treatments such as temozolomide, the standard chemotherapy approved to treat glioblastoma, temozolomide-resistant tumors recur in more than 50 per cent of patients with less than one per cent surviving ten years after diagnosis. In a study published September 11, 2023 in Nature Cancer, a research team at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada showcased a new potential treatment approach for glioblastoma called a designer peptide, which targets a protein-protein interaction in the glioblastoma cells. “By uncovering the role of a previously unknown protein-protein interaction in glioblastoma, we were able to develop a designer peptide which possesses robust therapeutic efficacy in treating all major types of glioblastoma in preclinical models,” says Dr. Xi Huang, a Senior Scientist in the Developmental & Stem Cell Biology program. “This could form the basis of next-generation glioblastoma therapy.” The Nature Cancer article is titled “A Designer Peptide Against the EAG2–Kvβ2 Potassium Channel Targets the Interaction of Cancer Cells and Neurons to Treat Glioblastoma.”

Read more

An emerging system which combines rapid imaging with artificial intelligence could help scientists build a comprehensive picture of present and historic environmental change–by swiftly and accurately analyzing pollen. Pollen grains from different plant species are unique and identifiable based on their shape. Analyzing which pollen grains are captured in samples such as sediment cores from lakes helps scientists understand which plants were thriving at any given point in history, potentially dating back thousands to millions of years. Up to now, scientists have manually counted pollen types in sediments or from air samples using a light microscope – a specialized and time-consuming task. Now, scientists at the University of Exeter and Swansea University are combining cutting-edge technologies including imaging flow cytometry and artificial intelligence to build a system capable of identifying and categorizing pollen at much faster rates. Their progress was published September 7, 2023 in a research paper in New Phytologist. The open-access article is entitled “Deductive Automated Pollen Classification in Environmental samples via Exploratory Deep Learning and Imaging Flow Cytometry.” As well as building a fuller picture of past flora, the team hope the technology could one day be applied to more accurate pollen readings in today’s environment, which may help provide aid to hay fever sufferers to mitigate symptoms.  

Read more