To learn more, please visit the YouTube Help Center: / help.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 58
The promise of magnetically controlled medicine
To learn more, please visit the YouTube Help Center: https://www.youtube.com/help
Inside Alzheimer’s neurons, tau may set off a genetic chain reaction that ends in cell death
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive decline in mental functions and memory loss. Along with frontotemporal dementia and some other neurodegenerative disorders, Alzheimer’s disease has been associated with an accumulation inside neurons of abnormal clumps of a protein called “tau.”
The tau protein is important for brain health, stabilizing structures called microtubules inside neurons. In Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies (i.e., diseases linked with the abnormal accumulation of tau), tau proteins aggregate into toxic and insoluble clumps that are harmful to brain cells, gradually leading to their death.
Researchers at Zhejiang University, Xiamen University and other institutes in China recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding the processes via which tau aggregation contributes to the death of neurons in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that these tau clumps prompt the reactivation of transposable DNA elements in neurons, which can in turn lead to their death.
Legend scientific founder returns to ASCO with new ambition for high-yield, non-gene-editing CAR-T platform
Nine years after wowing the audience at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting with a CAR-T candidate that would become Carvykti—now the world’s most successful cell therapy—Legend Biotech’s scientific founder, Frank Fan, M.D., Ph.D., is returning to the spotlight with an entirely new playbook.
This time, Fan isn’t showcasing an autologous product engineered with each individual patient’s cells. Instead, with his new venture, Wondercel Therapeutics, Fan hopes an off-the-shelf universal CAR-T platform can tackle two bottlenecks of the cell therapy industry: massive production scalability and the pitfalls associated with gene editing.
“If this approach proves successful, the critical thing is that we can achieve linear scalability in CAR-T production capacity that can match traditional biologics,” Fan said in an interview with Fierce.
Lab-grown brain-spinal cord model shows ‘irreversible’ nerve damage may be reversed
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have provided the first-ever proof that human nerve regeneration after an injury can be reversed and reactivated. Using stem cell-derived brain and spinal cord organoids, scientists discovered a specific genetic network that acts like a “switch,” shutting down axon growth as neurons mature. Remarkably, by blocking key regulators within this network using an already available human drug called lynestrenol, they successfully retriggered the growth of nerve fibers. While lynestrenol itself is not an immediate cure for spinal cord injuries, this monumental discovery proves that the physiological barrier preventing nerve regeneration can be overcome — opening up incredible new possibilities for reversing paralysis and treating severe neurodegenerative diseases in the future!
Cambridge scientists have grown miniature circuits in the lab that mimic how the brain and spinal cord connect up, which underlies our movements. They used this model to show how damage to these connections previously considered ‘irreversible’ could, in fact, be reversible.
Our sophisticated organoid models help bridge the knowledge gap from animal models to what we see in patients.
Teclistamab extends remission in relapsed myeloma, with 70% progression-free at 18 months
Patients with relapsed multiple myeloma treated with the immunotherapy teclistamab lived significantly longer and remained in remission far longer than those receiving standard therapies, according to results from a major international Phase III clinical trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.
The study, led by senior author C. Ola Landgren, M.D., Ph.D., found nearly 70% of patients receiving teclistamab had no disease progression after 18 months—compared with about 27% of patients receiving standard treatments—while nearly two-thirds achieved complete remission, including many with no detectable cancer on highly sensitive testing.
Landgren is chief of the Sylvester Myeloma Institute at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Lab-grown brain organoids power biocomputers
A feature story authored by Simon Spichak, MSc investigates how biotech companies like Cortical Labs and FinalSpark harness human brain cells to electrodes, performing computational functions and testing the cells’ responses to electrical and chemical stimuli. To create biocomputers, scientists grow organoids—small spheres of, in this case, neural tissue—on top of multi-electrode arrays in a hardware shell, which can then be used for everything from testing medications to playing video games. The work is published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Freeze-dried reagents and hand-powered hardware bring biomanufacturing to remote labs
Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, working with collaborators around the world, have demonstrated the effectiveness of a suite of low-cost, portable biotechnology tools designed to improve access to laboratory research and diagnostics in resource-limited settings.
Published in Science Advances, the study highlights how decentralized biomanufacturing tools and freeze-dried reagents can help researchers produce high-value biological materials locally—reducing reliance on fragile international supply chains and expanding access to life sciences innovation globally.
The research was led by Keith Pardee, associate professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, alongside collaborators including Camila González in Bogotá, Colombia, Fernán Federici in Santiago, Chile, and Lindomar Pena in Recife, Brazil.