Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Academia Sinica of Taiwan have harnessed a combination of lab-grown cells to regenerate damaged heart muscle.

The study is published in Circulation. It addresses major challenges of using heart muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes, grown from stem cells, and takes a crucial step toward future clinical applications.

Previous research has shown that transplanting cardiomyocytes made from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) can replace muscle in the hearts of mammals. Researchers have struggled to bring the treatment to the clinic, in part because the implanted cells haven’t developed enough life-sustaining blood vessels to survive very long.

A UK-led team of researchers restrained mice for 6 hours to induce a stress response and then analyzed the rodents’ brains on a molecular level.⁠

This led to the discovery of increased levels of five microRNAs (miRNAs) — small molecules that help determine which genes in a cell are expressed and which aren’t — in the amygdala, the brain region implicated in anxiety. When the researchers took a closer look at the miRNA that reached the highest levels, miR-483-5p, they saw that it suppressed the expression of the Pgap2 gene — and that this suppression appeared to provide stress relief and reduce anxiety-related behavior.⁠

The discovery of an “anxiety gene” — and a natural way to turn it off — in the brains of mice could lead to new treatments for anxiety disorders, which are the most common type of mental illness in the world.

The challenge: While anyone can experience worry or dread, people with anxiety disorders experience those feelings pervasively and often for no identifiable reason.

Medications can relieve the symptoms of anxiety, but because we don’t really know what is going on in the brains of people with anxiety, finding the right drug or combination of drugs can be a time-consuming process of trial and error.

Progress update: Our latest AlphaFold model shows significantly improved accuracy and expands coverage beyond proteins to other biological molecules, including ligands.

Since its release in 2020, AlphaFold has revolutionized how proteins and their interactions are understood. Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs have been working together to build the foundations of a more powerful AI model that expands coverage beyond just proteins to the full range of biologically-relevant molecules.

Today we’re sharing an update on progress towards the next generation of AlphaFold. Our latest model can now generate predictions for nearly all molecules in the Protein Data Bank (PDB), frequently reaching atomic accuracy.

While a federal judge advanced an infringement claim against Stability AI, he dismissed the rest of the lawsuit.