Pancreas development in pigs resembles humans much more closely than does the established mouse model. An international team headed by Helmholtz Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) has now produced a comprehensive evolutionary comparison of single-cell atlases of pancreas development. The results open up new prospects for regenerative therapies.

For decades, the pancreas and its development have been a major focus of diabetes and cancer research. Until now, the science was almost exclusively based on mouse models. However, mice differ from humans in many respects—from developmental duration to metabolism and gene regulation.

“Particularly for complex diseases such as diabetes mellitus, we need models that truly resemble humans,” therefore emphasizes Prof. Heiko Lickert. The DZD researcher is the director of the Institute of Diabetes and Regeneration Research at Helmholtz Munich and professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

The ability of immune cells—particularly CD8⁺ T cells—to launch a rapid burst of proliferation inside tumors is key to the success of modern day cancer immunotherapies. However, the factors and mechanisms that drive this burst in proliferation remain poorly understood, making it difficult to predict which patients will benefit from treatment. A deeper understanding of this T cell burst could also guide the development of new therapies that enhance T cell proliferation and improve treatment outcomes.

To tackle this challenge, an international team of researchers developed a novel approach to monitor CD8 ⁺ T cell activity over time. Their findings, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, sheds new light on how T cells expand in the tumor—and how their expansion can be predicted, and ultimately, therapeutically reactivated.

“The development of immunotherapies has been hindered by our inability to comprehensively monitor their effects on immune cells—particularly cancer-fighting T cells—over time,” explainsthe author. “Building on our previous work, we developed a method to track these cells longitudinally in the tumor, allowing us to gain deeper insights into the burst of proliferation that drives effective anti-tumor responses.”

Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn have discovered how a small, naturally occurring RNA molecule in the kidney activates a mutated immune receptor, triggering a chain reaction.

In cooperation with Nanyang Technological University Singapore and the University Hospital Würzburg, among others, the study provides an explanation of how a point mutation in the immune receptor RIG-I transforms the body’s defense system into a self-destructive force and causes severe organ-specific autoimmune diseases.

The results have been published in the journal Science Immunology.

This cohort study using data from 3 large US prospective cohorts assesses whether adherence to the recommended physical activity level measured in metabolic equivalent task over time is associated with lower digestive system cancer risk.

Cell-based drug factories could produce therapies on demand inside patients