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Category: biotech/medical – Page 66

Advances in materials science are helping unlock secrets of nanomaterials

New instruments on the horizon promise the most precise tools yet to study and experiment on the smallest and most complex materials ever manufactured. In a paper published in the journal Nature Materials, University of Cincinnati assistant professor Hanxun Jin highlighted advances in ultrasensitive technology to measure and manipulate some of the tiniest nanomaterials used in manufacturing, aerospace, medicine and more.

And when Jin says tiny, he means really tiny. Semiconductor nanocrystals called quantum dots that are used in TV screens are so small they’re considered zero-dimensional. That makes the field of nanomaterials characterization a particularly exciting one, Jin said.

New oral heart failure drug appears to be safe and well tolerated in 58-patient early clinical trial

An early clinical study shows that a new oral drug is safe and well tolerated in patients with chronic heart failure. The study, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, has been published in The Lancet.

Heart failure with reduced pumping capacity means that the heart struggles to pump blood effectively around the body. Despite current treatments, many patients’ conditions worsen over time, and existing drugs that strengthen the heart’s contractions can cause serious side effects, such as heart rhythm disturbances and effects on blood pressure.

In the study, researchers investigated a new drug, AC01, which targets the body’s ghrelin receptor. Ghrelin is a hormone that influences metabolism and growth hormone release, and its receptor is also found in heart muscle. AC01 is intended to strengthen the heart’s pumping ability through a different biological mechanism from traditional heart-stimulating drugs, thereby reducing the risk of side effects.

Breastfeeding may protect against ADHD symptoms

A new study from the University of Bergen shows an association between breastfeeding up to 6 months of age and a reduced risk of ADHD symptoms from ages 3 to 8.

Breast milk is the primary source of nutrition for infants. It is uniquely tailored for the child and contains numerous components beneficial for growth and brain development, including long-chain fatty acids, amino acids, antibodies and beneficial bacteria.

“It is well established that psychiatric symptoms and disorders can be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors,” says Berit Skretting Solberg, psychiatrist and researcher at the Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen, and senior consultant at Betanien Hospital.

First use of precision editing to study human embryo development reveals role of master gene

Research led by the University of Cambridge Loke Center for Trophoblast Research has shown that a genome-editing technique can be used to alter a single gene in human embryonic cells, enabling the study of very early human development in unparalleled detail. The study is published in the journal Nature.

Faster aging in younger generations linked to rise in early-onset cancer

A new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provides evidence that younger generations are indeed aging faster biologically than their older counterparts. The causes remain under investigation around the world, including global efforts led by research members of Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, and Cancer Grand Challenges, a global initiative co-founded by the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research U.K.; but importantly, the new research links this accelerated aging to an increased risk of early-onset cancers in younger generations. In general, early-onset cancers are those diagnosed at age 55 or younger.

The larger the gap between biological age — that is, how old our bodies appear to be — and chronological age — which is how many years we have actually lived — the higher the cancer risk, according to the researchers. They found that people in more recent birth cohorts had larger age gaps than those in older birth cohorts, which may help explain the rise in early-onset cancer in recent generations.

Their study also identified links between faster aging in particular organ systems and increased risks for certain cancers. For instance, an immune system that appears older than its actual age was associated with early-onset lung cancer. Similarly, fat tissue that appears older than its chronological age was associated with early-onset colorectal cancer.

High-resolution mapping of CCR4-NOT recruitment elements reveals transcriptome-wide drivers of mRNA decay

Luo et al. present TRACER, a transcriptome-wide approach to identify RNA elements that recruit the CCR4-NOT complex. TRACER uncovers thousands of CCR4-NOT-associated elements, many mapping to known or predicted RBP and miRNA target sites. These elements drive mRNA repression and can be targeted using gene editing or ASO approaches.

Humans Were Injected: BREAKTHROUGH Age Reversal For Every Tissue

Life Biosciences just dosed the first human patient with ER-100 — an OSK gene therapy built from three Yamanaka factors, designed to reprogram old cells back toward a younger state. The first target is the eye. But the real implication is much bigger: this method appears to work on every tissue type it has been tried on.

If this first eye trial comes back safe, it could be the first domino in a much larger age-reversal wave: eye, liver, brain, skin, muscle, heart, kidney, blood vessels — potentially every tissue in the body.

This episode reveals the tidal wave of companies racing toward human trials using the same basic strategy: epigenetically reprogramming old cells so they behave young again. Billions of dollars are pouring into this from Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Brian Armstrong, Peter Thiel, and the biggest names in longevity biotech.

We walk through who they are, what they are trying to cure, why the eye came first, what worked in mice and monkeys, why NewLimit is going after liver rejuvenation, and whether the cheap pill version could be right behind the expensive gene therapy.

Bottom line: real age reversal is now in a human trial.

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Machine-intelligent multimodal algebot for intracavitary chemotherapy

A deep learning-guided image-feedback system enables non-invasive real-time navigation and spatiotemporally controlled intravesical drug release from magnetic biohybrid microrobots in a murine bladder tumour model, enhancing tissue penetration and therapeutic efficacy.

Antibiotic cocktail made by soil bacteria can kill superbugs

In a study published in Nature today1, researchers report a ‘megacluster’ of genes in Streptomyces bacteria that target a key metabolic process in bacteria. Streptomyces is one of the most studied bacterial genera and produces many antibiotic compounds, including those used to produce streptomycin, the first effective antibiotic against tuberculosis.

“They’ve discovered something new in a system so extensively studied — hidden in plain sight,” says Mark Blaskovich, who works on antibiotic development at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The gene cluster produces five compounds — four antibiotics and a protein — that target different stages of the production of biotin, or vitamin B7, which is essential for bacterial cell growth. “Since evolution has already optimized this combination, we may be able to leverage it to develop novel antibiotic combinations,” Blaskovich says.

It is much more difficult for bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics that attack multiple parts of an essential metabolic pathway, explains Brendan Wren, a microbiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The latest work could also lead to the discovery of gene clusters that produce antibiotic compounds involved in other metabolic processes.

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