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But the disgraced CRISPR scientist admits his mistakes: “I did it too quickly.”

Scientists have developed a molecular compound that’s so effective in killing off disease-causing fungi that it’s been named after Keanu Reeves. The people of Hollywood may as well pack up and finish awards season early this year, because nothing is going to beat this honour. From The Matrix to John Wick, Keanu Reeves has shown us time and time again how much of a badass he is, and now the science world is ready to recognise him for it.

Innovative treatment designed to treat mitochondrial disease shows promise in a few patients.

Injury to the spinal cord often leads life changing disability, with decreased or complete loss of sensation and movement below the site of injury. From drugs to transplantation, there are many scientific advances aiming to restore function following spinal cord injury.

One promising approach is the use of stem cell derived neurons to replace those damaged. New research from the Centre for Gene Therapy & Regenerative Medicine and Centre for Neurodevelopment at King’s College London hopes to improve on this approach by providing pure populations of neurons made from stem cells.

The spinal cord is a delicate structure, with neurons carry messages from your brain to the rest of your body to allow movement and sensation. Integral to this system are interneurons, or the cells that relay information between your brain and other neurons. Research has previously shown that transplanting a class of interneurons, ventral spinal interneurons, to treat spinal cord injury in animal models provides promising recovery of sensory and motor function.

The immune system can mount crucial defenses when our bodies are threatened by pathogens. But those defenses have to be carefully contained. When processes in the human system go awry, serious diseases can result. Now scientists have learn more about how connective tissue works to control inflammatory molecules so they can act locally but don’t spread throughout the body. The findings have been reported in Nature Immunology.

Cytokines are immune signaling molecules, and they help T cells communicate. Interferon-gamma is one cytokine that plays a critical role in the elimination of bacterial and viral invaders. Scientists have discoverd that this molecule uses a sequence of four amino acids to bind to the extracellular matrix that connects cells and mediates interactions between them. Interferon-gamma gets caught in that connective tissue, and cannot spread to other areas.

With a big assist from artificial intelligence and a heavy dose of human touch, Tim Cernak’s lab at the University of Michigan has made a discovery that dramatically speeds up the time-consuming chemical process of building molecules that will be tomorrow’s medicines, agrichemicals or materials.

The discovery, published in the Feb. 3 issue of Science, is the culmination of years of chemical synthesis and data science research by the Cernak Lab in the College of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry.

The goal of the research was to identify key reactions in the synthesis of a molecule, ultimately reducing the process to as few steps as possible. In the end, Cernak and his team achieved the synthesis of a complex alkaloid found in nature in just three steps. Previous syntheses had taken between seven and 26 steps.

Seminar summary: https://foresight.org/summary/bioelectric-networks-taming-th…-medicine/
Program & apply to join: https://foresight.org/biotech-health-extension-program/

Foresight Biotech & Health Extension Meeting sponsored by 100 Plus Capital.

Continue reading “Bioelectric Networks: Taming the Collective Intelligence of Cells for Regenerative Medicine” »

Age catches up with us all eventually, but in some people the right genes can make that chase into our twilight years a relatively leisurely one.

A few years ago Italian researchers discovered something special about people who live well into their 90s and beyond: they commonly have a version of a gene called BPIFB4 that protects against cardiovascular damage and keeps the heart in good shape for a longer period of time.

By introducing the mutated gene into older mice, the scientists have now seen how the variant rewinds markers of biological heart aging by the equivalent of more than 10 human years.

There should be some vaccine against common cold because globally millions of people suffer s due to this disease.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common pathogen responsible for lower respiratory diseases in children. So far, there is no effective treatment or preventative vaccine available for RSV infection, although ribavirin and dexamethasone are commonly prescribed. Resveratrol has been shown to inhibit the replication of several other viruses, thus the effect of resveratrol on RSV-induced inflammatory mediators in 9HTEo cell cultures was evaluated, and possible mechanisms of action were explored and compared with dexamethasone and ribavirin. Incubation with resveratrol resulted in decreased IL-6 production and partial inhibition of RSV replication. Resveratrol treatment also inhibited virus-induced TIR-domain-containing adapter-inducing interferon-β (TRIF) and TANK binding kinase 1 (TBK1) protein expression. These data demonstrate the ability of resveratrol to inhibit cytokine production by RSV in airway epithelial cells, indicating that it might be a therapeutic agent with both anti-inflammatory and antiviral potential for the treatment of RSV infection.