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Category: biotech/medical – Page 119

Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

In a study published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology, researchers have discovered that a sugar called 2-deoxy-D-ribose (2dDR), which plays a fundamental role in various biological processes both in animals and humans, can stimulate hair to regrow in mice.

Over the past eight years, scientists from Sheffield and COMSATS University Pakistan have been studying how the sugar can help to heal wounds by promoting the formation of new blood vessels. During the research, the team also noticed that hair around the healing wounds appeared to grow more quickly compared to those that hadn’t been treated.

To explore this further, the scientists established a model of testosterone driven hair loss in mice — similar to the cause of pattern baldness in men. The team found that applying a small dose of the naturally occurring sugar helped to form new blood vessels, which led to hair regrowing.

Findings from the study show that the deoxy ribose sugar is as effective at regrowing hair as Minoxidil — an existing drug used to treat hair loss. However, the research offers a potential alternative approach to stimulating hair growth through a naturally occurring deoxy ribose sugar-from 2024.

The key to curing male pattern baldness — a condition that affects up to 50 per cent of men worldwide — could lie in a sugar that naturally occurs in the human body, according to scientists at the University of Sheffield.

Human skeletal development and regeneration are shaped by functional diversity of stem cells across skeletal sites

Ambrosi and colleagues profile human skeletal stem cells (hSSCs) across ten fetal skeletal sites and from patients throughout adulthood, identifying, mapping, and functionally testing four distinct hSSC subtypes. Skeletal aging and disease are characterized by a dominant fibrogenic hSSC variant, but targeting defined gene regulatory networks reinstates functional hSSC diversity.

Scientists May Have Found a Natural Alternative to Ozempic

Scientists may have identified a way to naturally regulate blood sugar levels and sugar cravings in a similar fashion to drugs like Ozempic.

In mice and humans, the key to unlocking this natural process was found to be a gut microbe and its metabolites – the compounds it produces during digestion.

By increasing the abundance of this one gut microbe in diabetic mice, researchers led by a team at Jiangnan University in China showed they can “orchestrate the secretion of glucagon-like peptide-1”

Efficient Production of Enterovirus 71 (EV71) Virus-like Particles by Controlling Promoter Strength in Insect Cells

This study was conducted to efficiently produce virus-like particles (VLPs) of enterovirus 71 (EV71), a causative virus of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). The expression level of the P1 precursor, a structural protein of EV71, was modified to increase VLP production, and the optimal expression level and duration of the 3CD protein for P1 cleavage were determined. The expression level and duration of 3CD were controlled by the p10 promoter, which was weakened by repeated burst sequence (BS) applications, as well as the OpIE2 promoter, which was weakened by the insertion of random untranslated region sequences of various lengths. The cleavage and production efficiency of the P1 precursor were compared based on the expression time and level of 3CD, revealing that the p10-BS5 promoter with four repeated BSs was the most effective. When P1 and 3CD were expressed using the hyperexpression vector and the p10-BS5 promoter, high levels of structural protein production and normal HFMD-VLP formation were observed, respectively. This study suggests that the production efficiency of HFMD-VLPs can be significantly enhanced by increasing the expression of the P1 precursor and controlling the amount and duration of 3CD expression.

Gene-editing therapy shows early success in fighting advanced gastrointestinal cancers

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have completed a first-in-human clinical trial testing a CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technique to help the immune system fight advanced gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. The results, recently published in The Lancet Oncology, show encouraging signs of the safety and potential effectiveness of the treatment.

“Despite many advances in understanding the genomic drivers and other factors causing cancer, with few exceptions, stage IV remains a largely incurable disease,” said Emil Lou, MD, Ph.D., a gastrointestinal oncologist with the University of Minnesota Medical School, Masonic Cancer Center and M Health Fairview, and clinical principal investigator for the trial. “This trial brings a new approach from our research labs into the clinic and shows potential for improving outcomes in patients with late-stage disease.”

In the study, researchers used CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing to modify a type of immune cell called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). By deactivating a gene called CISH, the researchers found that modified TILs were better able to recognize and attack .

AI identifies PHGDH as amyloid pathology driver in Alzheimer’s disease

Insomnia, depression, and anxiety are the most common mental disorders. Treatments are often only moderately effective, with many people experiencing returning symptoms. This is why it is crucial to find new leads for treatments. Notably, these disorders overlap a lot, often occurring together. Could there be a shared brain mechanism behind this phenomenon?

Siemon de Lange, Elleke Tissink, and Eus van Someren, together with their colleagues from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, investigated brain scans of more than 40,000 participants from the UK Biobank. The research is published in the journal Nature Mental Health.

Tissink says, “In our lab, we explore the similarities and differences between , anxiety, and depression. Everyone looks at this from a : some mainly look at genetics and in this study, we look at brain scans. What aspects are shared between the disorders, and what is unique to each one?”