The husband-and-wife team who co-founded BioNTech, the biotechnology company that partnered with Pfizer to develop an effective messenger-RNA (mRNA) shot against COVID-19, has predicted that a cancer vaccine could be widely available within the next decade.
“Yes, we feel that a cure for cancer, or to changing cancer patients’ lives, is in our grasp,” said Professor Ozlem Tureci during an interview on BBC’s ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’.
The cancer vaccine, which would build upon breakthroughs achieved by the scientists during the development of the COVID-19 shot, may be widely available within just eight years, said Professor Ugur Sahin.
Summary: Proteins associated with motor neuron disease, or ALS are present in the gut many years before disease pathologies can be found in the brain. A stool sample or gut biopsy could help identify the presence of MND-associated proteins years before symptoms appear.
Source: University of Aberdeen.
The same proteins thought to contribute to motor neuron disease can be found in the gut many years before any brain symptoms occur, a new study by the University of Aberdeen has found.
Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified a common diabetes medication, metformin, as a possible treatment for atrial fibrillation.
The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, built on ongoing collaborative Cleveland Clinic research to support further investigation into metformin as a drug repurposing candidate. Researchers used advanced computation and genetic sequencing to determine that metformin’s targets overlap significantly with genes dysregulated in atrial fibrillation.
Finding drugs or procedures to treat atrial fibrillation is difficult because of potential serious side effects. There is a significant need for new treatments for atrial fibrillation as there have been no new drugs approved in more than a decade.
The liver is known for its ability to regenerate. It can completely regrow itself even after two-thirds of its mass has been surgically removed. But damage from medications, alcohol abuse, or obesity can eventually cause the liver to fail.
Currently, the only effective treatment for end-stage liver disease is transplantation.
“This data set—and the opportunities it creates—are … arguably one of the most important things to have happened in neurobiology recently,” says Rachel Wilson, a neurobiologist at Harvard University who was not involved in the new work. “Anyone in the world who is interested can download the data set and determine whether any two neurons … talk to each other.”
The 100,000-neuron fruit fly brain is elementary compared with the roughly 100 billion neurons in our own skulls. But the fly is still “much more than this little speck that you swat away from your wine glass over dinner,” says Davi Bock, a neuroscientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia. Some systems in the fly brain—like those responsible for detecting and remembering smells—likely share “common principles” with those in humans, he says.
To make out features of individual synapses, where a signal from one neuron travels to another, Bock and colleagues used an electron microscope, which can resolve much finer detail than a traditional light microscope. They soaked a fly’s brain in a solution containing heavy metals, which bind to the membranes of neurons and to proteins at the synapses. That made the brain look like a wad of noodles, each dark on the outside but white on the inside, Bock explains. Then, a diamond knife cut the brain into about 7,000 slices, each of which was struck with a beam of electrons from the microscope to create an image.
Genomic medicine is undergoing rapid change after the Japanese public health insurance system began to cover genetic testing in 2019. Cancer patients who meet certain criteria are able to take these tests for a relatively affordable price, and their genetic information is collected in a massive database and analyzed with the help of around 170 hospitals across the country. But challenges remain, with suitable drugs available for only 10% of patients who undergo testing.
Quantum effects play a hitherto unexpected role in creating instabilities in DNA – the so-called “molecule of life” that provides instructions for cellular processes in all living organisms. This conclusion, based on work by researchers at the University of Surrey in the UK, goes against long-held beliefs that quantum behaviour is not relevant in the wet, warm environment of cells, and could have far-reaching consequences for models of genetic mutation.
Per a new study, administering the drug rapamycin to mice everyday for the first 45 days of their lives % extends life expectancy by an average 10 percent.
A recent review published in the Journal of Autoimmunity discussed the applications of single-cell ribonucleic acid sequencing (scRNA-seq) in understanding autoimmune disorders.
The review comprehensively covered the principles, procedures, and sequencing platforms used in scRNA-seq, and explored its use in understanding the mechanisms of nine systemic and 32 organ-specific autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases.
Autoimmune diseases (AID) are a complex phenomenon involving various types of cells. The diseases occur when the body’s immune system fails to recognize its cells and components and launches an immune response against them. Autoimmune diseases are broadly divided into organ-specific and non-organ-specific AID.
*Intelligence Beyond the Brain: morphogenesis as an example of the scaling of basal cognition*
*Description:* Each of us takes the remarkable journey from physics to mind: we start life as a quiescent oocyte (collection of chemical reactions) and slowly change and acquire an advanced, centralized mind. How does unified complex cognition emerge from the collective intelligence of cells? In this talk, I will use morphogenesis to illustrate how evolution scales cognition across problem spaces. Embryos and regenerating organs produce very complex, robust anatomical structures and stop growth and remodeling when those structures are complete. One of the most remarkable things about morphogenesis is that it is not simply a feed-forward emergent process, but one that has massive plasticity: even when disrupted by manipulations such as damage or changing the sizes of cells, the system often manages to achieve its morphogenetic goal. How do cell collectives know what to build and when to stop? Constructing and repairing anatomies in novel circumstances is a remarkable example of the collective intelligence of a biological swarm. I propose that a multi-scale competency architecture is how evolution exploits physics to achieve robust machines that solve novel problems. I will describe what is known about developmental bioelectricity — a precursor to neurobiology which is used for cognitive binding in biological collectives, that scales their intelligence and the size of the goals they can pursue. I will also discuss the cognitive light cone model, and conclude with examples of synthetic living machines — a new biorobotics platform that uses some of these ideas to build novel primitive intelligences. I will end by speculating about ethics, engineering, and life in a future that integrates deeply across biological and synthetic agents.
