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Category: biotech/medical – Page 321

Inflammation identified as a potential cause of multiple sclerosis progression

For the first time, researchers have identified that inflammation—long associated with multiple sclerosis (MS)—appears to cause increased mutations linked to MS progression.

MS is a progressive neurological disease that affects 33,000 Australians and three million people worldwide. About one-third of people living with MS have progressive disease, which current treatments do not address effectively.

The researchers studied MS brain lesions, visible as spots on MRI scans, which are areas of past or ongoing brain inflammation. They found located in MS brain lesions have a that is two-and-a-half times faster than in normal neurons.

Seeing the Invisible World

Two-photon vision is an emerging technique with significant potential for the future of ophthalmic diagnostics. While it offers many advantages, certain aspects still require refinement. Scientists at ICTER have advanced this technology, enhancing its capabilities and expanding its potential applications in ocular medicine.

Imagine looking through a kaleidoscope that reveals a spectrum of colors beyond human vision, where invisible light is brought into focus. In conventional sight, photons—the fleeting messengers of light—typically appear alone. However, in the phenomenon of two-photon vision, they work in pairs, allowing the human eye to perceive infrared laser pulses instead of visible light, unlocking access to an otherwise invisible world.

A crucial aspect of understanding two-photon vision is measuring the brightness of these stimuli. Until now, this was only possible for visible light. Scientists at the International Centre for Eye Research (ICTER) have achieved a groundbreaking milestone by determining the luminance value of infrared light using photometric units (cd/m²). This discovery has enabled them to connect the brightness of two-photon stimuli to a newly defined physical quantity: two-photon retinal illumination, a key factor in understanding perceived brightness.

World’s first “Synthetic Biological Intelligence” runs on living human cells

The world’s first “biological computer” that fuses human brain cells with silicon hardware to form fluid neural networks has been commercially launched, ushering in a new age of AI technology. The CL1, from Australian company Cortical Labs, offers a whole new kind of computing intelligence – one that’s more dynamic, sustainable and energy efficient than any AI that currently exists – and we will start to see its potential when it’s in users’ hands in the coming months.

Known as a Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI), Cortical’s CL1 system was officially launched in Barcelona on March 2, 2025, and is expected to be a game-changer for science and medical research. The human-cell neural networks that form on the silicon “chip” are essentially an ever-evolving organic computer, and the engineers behind it say it learns so quickly and flexibly that it completely outpaces the silicon-based AI chips used to train existing large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.

“Today is the culmination of a vision that has powered Cortical Labs for almost six years,” said Cortical founder and CEO Dr Hon Weng Chong. “We’ve enjoyed a series of critical breakthroughs in recent years, most notably our research in the journal Neuron, through which cultures were embedded in a simulated game-world, and were provided with electrophysiological stimulation and recording to mimic the arcade game Pong. However, our long-term mission has been to democratize this technology, making it accessible to researchers without specialized hardware and software. The CL1 is the realization of that mission.”

Mushroom compound linked to better health and longer life

“This indicates that ergothioneine influences the metabolism in a similar way to performance-enhancing agents,” Filipović said. He plans to carry out a study involving healthy human volunteers to evaluate whether the compound can similarly enhance performance in people.

By offering a clearer perspective on how ergothioneine improves muscle health, stress resilience, and cellular defenses, this research sets the stage for new strategies aimed at maintaining good health into advanced age.

As further investigations confirm these findings in humans, the mushroom compound ergothioneine may emerge as a valuable resource for countering age-related diseases and promoting a more robust, active life.

Woolly mouse could have Colossal impact on human longevity

“Our woolly mouse project drove innovations in areas combining the end to end process from our computational biology analysis tools to our multiplex precision genome engineering technologies,” Lamm told us. “These technologies enable precise and efficient genetic modifications at multiple sites within the genome at the same time, which could help with research focused on addressing the complex multi-genetic age-related diseases in the future.”

By further refining the genetic engineering techniques developed by Colossal, researchers may eventually develop therapies tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup, mitigating the effects of aging at a cellular level.

“Many diseases are multigenic in nature and require deep analysis computationally and being able to edit the genome at multiple sites with high degrees of efficiency to not cause off-target effects,” Lamm told us. “Our end to end process and the further development of our multiplex editing and DNA synthesis capabilities will lead to others being able to use our tools and system to treat these more complicated diseases. Together, these innovations are part of the science focused on developing personalized, targeted therapies to mitigate the effects of aging, accelerate the development of regenerative medicine, and extend both lifespan and healthspan.”

AAV Gene Therapy for Maple Syrup Urine Disease Shows Promise

Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is a rare genetic inborn error of metabolism characterized by recurrent life-threatening neurologic crises and progressive brain injury. The disease is typically caused by biallelic mutations in genes (branched-chain α-ketoacid dehydrogenase E1α (BCKDHA), E1β (BCKDHB), or dihydrolipoamide branched-chain transacylase (DBT)) subunits which interact to form the mitochondrial BCKDH complex that decarboxylates ketoacid derivatives of leucine, isoleucine, and valine. MSUD can be treated by a strictly controlled diet or allogeneic liver transplantation.

Now, new work demonstrates that a gene therapy prevented newborn death, normalized growth, restored coordinated expression of the affected genes, and stabilized biomarkers in a calf as well as in mice.

This work is published in Science Translational Medicine in the paper, “BCKDHA-BCKDHB digenic gene therapy restores metabolic homeostasis in two mouse models and a calf with classic maple syrup urine disease.”

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