Lifeboat Foundation

The Y chromosome is a never-ending source of fascination (particularly to men) because it bears genes that determine maleness and make sperm. It’s also small and seriously weird; it carries few genes and is full of junk DNA that makes it horrendous to sequence.

However, new “long-read” sequencing techniques have finally provided a reliable sequence from one end of the Y to the other. The paper describing this Herculean effort has been published in Nature.

The findings provide a solid base to explore how genes for sex and sperm work, how the Y chromosome evolved, and whether—as predicted—it will disappear in a few million years.

Scientists have successfully grown kidneys made of mostly human cells inside pig embryos — taking researchers yet another step down the long road toward generating viable human organs for transplant.

The results, reported September 7 in Cell Stem Cell, mark the first time a solid humanized organ, one with both human and animal cells, has been grown inside another species.

The work represents an important advance in the methods needed to grow humanized kidneys, hearts, and pancreases in animals.

Cells hidden in the skull may point to a way to detect, diagnose and treat inflamed brains.

A detailed look at the skull reveals that bone marrow cells there change and are recruited to the brain after injury, possibly traveling through tiny channels connecting the skull and the outer protective layer of the brain. Paired with the discovery that inflammation in the skull is disease-specific, these new findings collectively suggest the skull’s marrow could serve as a target to track and potentially treat neurological disorders involving brain inflammation, researchers report August 9 in Cell.

New observations of skull cell signals and skull tunnels suggest bone marrow there could be used to monitor neurological diseases.

Recent advancements in gene editing technologies may lead to a cure for hemoglobinopathies, including sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia.

A collaborative study between researchers from St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (TN, USA) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (MA, USA) has shown that adenosine base editing could be more effective than other gene editing approaches such as CRISPR/Cas9 for treating sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia. Comparing five different gene editing strategies utilizing either Cas9 nucleases or adenine base editors in hematopoietic and progenitor stem cells, the team found that base editing yielded more favorable results.

Sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia arise due to mutations in the β-globin subunit of hemoglobin, resulting in defective red blood cells. Previous studies have shown that restoring the function of γ-globin, a hemoglobin submit expressed during fetal development, could hold therapeutic advantages for patients with sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia. During fetal development, γ-globin combines with α-globin to form fetal hemoglobin. Following birth, expression of γ-globin ceases as it is replaced by β-globin to form adult hemoglobin. The researchers sought to see whether fetal hemoglobin expression could be restored in post-natal red blood cells to counter the effects of the disease, offering a potentially universal therapeutic approach for the disease.

Octopuses are like aliens living among us — they do a lot of things differently from land animals, or even other sea creatures. Their flexible tentacles taste what they touch and have minds of their own. Octopuses’ eyes are color-blind, but their skin can detect light on its own (SN: 6/27/15, p. 10). They are masters of disguise, changing color and skin textures to blend into their surroundings or scare off rivals. And to a greater extent than most creatures, octopuses squirt the molecular equivalent of red ink over their genetic instructions with astounding abandon, like a copy editor run amok.

These edits modify RNA, the molecule used to translate information from the genetic blueprint stored in DNA, while leaving the DNA unaltered.

Continue reading “Octopuses and squid are masters of RNA editing while leaving DNA intact” »

I really encourage everyone to try this thing out and find new ways to use it!

Examples of other people using ChatGPT I found cool:
Copy your lecture slides and ask it to make flash cards for you with the relevant information: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFpr4hjr/

Continue reading “Using AI as a Medical Student? ChatGPT Changes Everything” »

B cells of our immune system have the incredible capability to generate up to 10,000,000,000,000 different antibodies. How do they do it? | Genetics And Genomics.

Researchers at Karolinska Institute have developed a novel method using DNA nanoballs to detect pathogens, aiming to simplify nucleic acid testing and revolutionize pathogen detection. The study’s results, published in Science Advances, could pave the way for a straightforward electronic-based test capable of identifying various nucleic acids in diverse scenarios quickly and cheaply.

Principal investigator Vicent Pelechano, an associate professor at Karolinska Institute’s Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, is cautiously optimistic about the technology’s potential to detect an array of pathogenic agents in real world settings.

“The methodology involves combining Molecular Biology (DNA nanoball generation) and electronics (electric impedance-based quantification) to yield a pioneering detection tool,” says Vicent Pelechano.

An international research team headed by Johannes Karges, PhD, of the faculty of chemistry and biochemistry at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has developed nanoparticles that accumulate in cancer cells and eliminate them after being photoactivated. The research team also labeled them in such a way that immune cells learn to eliminate similar cells throughout the body which could even mean undetected metastases can be treated.

The researchers presented their findings in the journal Nature Communications in an article titled, “Theranostic imaging and multimodal photodynamic therapy and immunotherapy using the mTOR signaling pathway.”

“Tumor metastases are considered the leading cause of cancer-associated deaths,” the researchers wrote. “While clinically applied drugs have demonstrated to efficiently remove the primary tumor, metastases remain poorly accessible. To overcome this limitation, herein, the development of a theranostic nanomaterial by incorporating a chromophore for imaging and a photosensitizer for treatment of metastatic tumor sites is presented. The mechanism of action reveals that the nanoparticles are able to intervene by local generation of cellular damage through photodynamic therapy as well as by systemic induction of an immune response by immunotherapy upon inhibition of the mTOR signaling pathway which is of crucial importance for tumor onset, progression, and metastatic spreading.”