The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and astrophysics.
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The Cancer Stem Cell Niche: How Essential is the Niche in Regulating Stemness of Tumor Cells?
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are tumor cells that have the principal properties of self-renewal, clonal tumor initiation capacity and clonal long-term repopulation potential. CSCs reside in niches, which are anatomically distinct regions within the tumor microenvironment. These niches maintain the principle properties of CSCs, preserve their phenotypic plasticity, protect them from the immune system and facilitate their metastatic potential. In this perspective, we focus on the CSC niche and discuss its contribution to tumor initiation and progression. Since CSCs survive many commonly employed cancer therapies, we examine the prospects of targeting the niche components as preferable therapeutic targets.
Cancer BREAKTHROUGH: Personalized Vaccine Passes Phase 3 Trial
A cancer vaccine built from a patient’s own tumor just passed a Phase 3 trial, the first time that has ever happened. Moderna and Merck’s intismeran autogene (mRNA-4157 / V940) reads the DNA of a patient’s melanoma, picks up to 34 tumor-specific mutations, and writes them into a single strand of mRNA that trains the immune system to hunt the cancer. Combined with Keytruda, it kept melanoma from coming back or spreading in a 1,137 patient trial. Moderna’s stock jumped over 200 percent in a day.
In this episode: what was actually announced (and the numbers that weren’t), how the 130-year-old idea behind it finally worked, why the mRNA backlash aimed at the wrong suspect, a beat-by-beat check on the viral claims (\.
Development of adenoviral vectors that transduce Purkinje cells and other cerebellar celltypes in the cerebellum of a humanized mouse model
An interesting paper: Kul et al. engineered adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) to bear alternate fiber knobs which enabled cerebellum transduction, primarily via the hCD46 receptor in a humanized mouse model. Adenoviruses were injected directly into the mice’s brains at surgically defined locations.
Young and colleagues developed a novel adenovirus vector that transduces Purkinje cells in a humanized mouse model. Since commonly used adenovirus vectors do not transduce Purkinje cells, these vectors offer immense promise toward developing gene therapy approaches for cerebellar disorders and potentially other neurological disorders requiring expression of large transgenes.
Longevity Day — International Longevity Summit promo • 4K
I made “Longevity Day” to pay tribute to the activists, scientists, investors, founders and organizations working towards a world in which aging is no longer…
Airborne tuberculosis bacteria may mutate as they dry, revealing a target to curb drug resistance
Tuberculosis bacteria released into the air from infected individuals dry out to form infectious particles that are second only to measles in contagiousness. Weill Cornell Medicine investigators have discovered specific mechanisms that enable the bacteria not only to survive drying but also to generate mutations linked to antibiotic resistance. This suggests that transmission involves more than the passive movement of bacteria between people and may be a period during which the pathogen evolves.
Tuberculosis, a lung infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTb), affects nearly 11 million people and causes roughly 1.2 million deaths globally each year.
The study, published in Nature Microbiology, demonstrated that desiccation specifically elicited a DNA repair response that both promoted Mtb’s survival and increased the appearance of mutations that made the bacteria resistant to the antibiotic rifampin.
The New Urgency of Protecting Critical Infrastructure
Dear Readers, The latest of the Security & Tech Insights newsletter covers the domain of protecting critical infrastructure and its urgency.
Protecting critical infrastructure is not optional—it is a strategic imperative for national security, economic stability, and public safety. The grid, water, transportation, space, and other sectors are deeply interconnected and interdependent, with their failure or disruption having cascading effects across multiple domains. And the threat landscape is evolving rapidly. Legacy operational technologies and industrial control systems, once isolated, are now connected to IT networks, the internet, and the Internet of Things, creating exponentially more entry points for attackers.