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Category: biotech/medical – Page 687

A healthy immune system: the ultimate balancing act

The immune system is comprised of innate and adaptive immune responses, both of which are crucial in maintaining our health. The innate immune response is the first line of defense that immediately works to prevent the spread of pathogens and tumors.1 The adaptive immune response is a more sophisticated, secondary response that is specialized to clear specific pathogens and provide long-lasting immunity.2

The efficacy of these two systems depends on balanced inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses, referred to as immunomodulation. For example, upon injury or infection, macrophages secrete molecules that promote inflammation to dilate blood vessels and recruit other immune cells to the damaged site. Once the infection is cleared, the immune system mounts an anti-inflammatory, reparatory response.

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Specifically, the researchers examined how THC administered through edibles, a common consumption method, influenced epigenetic changes in crucial areas for fetal development, including the placenta, fetal lung, brain, and heart.

In recent years, the popularity and availability of cannabis has grown significantly, with various consumption methods like edibles gaining traction. However, alongside this trend, there has been a worrisome increase in cannabis use among pregnant women. Unfortunately, our understanding of the detailed effects of using cannabis during pregnancy on the developing child remains limited. Because normal fetal development relies on the crucial process of epigenetic regulation and gene expression modification, it has been suggested that studying the molecular changes linked to cannabis exposure during pregnancy could provide important insights.

To gain a better understanding of the effects of cannabis use during pregnancy, researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) conducted a unique preclinical study that focused on investigating the epigenetic impact of THC, the main active component in cannabis, on fetal development and future health outcomes. The study’s findings were published in the journal Clinical Epigenetics.

With the increasing prevalence of cannabis use, there is a common perception that it is safe. As a result, more pregnant women are turning to cannabis, particularly during the first trimester, to relieve symptoms like morning sickness. However, early pregnancy is a critical time when the developing fetus is most susceptible to environmental factors.

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Australian researchers have identified neutralizing nanobodies that block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells in preclinical models.

The discovery paves the way for further investigations into nanobody-based treatments for COVID-19.

Published in PNAS, the research is part of a consortium-led effort, bringing together the expertise of Australian academic leaders in and antibody therapeutics at WEHI, the Doherty Institute and the Kirby Institute.

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Using antibodies derived from alpacas, a University of Kentucky research team has developed a tool that could lead to new therapies to stop the growth of several types of cancer.

While researchers have known that a protein called PRL-3 is linked to the growth of colon, breast, lung, skin and , there is little understanding about how it works due to a lack of tools to study it effectively.

With unique alpaca antibodies known as , the team led by UK Markey Cancer Center researcher Jessica Blackburn, Ph.D., developed the first effective tool to specifically target PRL-3.

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An interdisciplinary team of mathematicians, engineers, physicists, and medical scientists have uncovered an unexpected link between pure mathematics and genetics, that reveals key insights into the structure of neutral mutations and the evolution of organisms.

Number theory, the study of the properties of positive integers, is perhaps the purest form of mathematics. At first sight, it may seem far too abstract to apply to the natural world. In fact, the influential American number theorist Leonard Dickson wrote ‘Thank God that number theory is unsullied by any application.’

And yet, again and again, number theory finds unexpected applications in science and engineering, from leaf angles that (almost) universally follow the Fibonacci sequence, to modern encryption techniques based on factoring prime numbers. Now, researchers have demonstrated an unexpected link between number theory and evolutionary genetics.

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The Struengmann brothers’ agreement Monday to lead the purchase of a hand-sanitizer maker owned by EQT AB alongside other investors marks at least the sixth major deal involving the billionaire twins and the Swedish private equity firm within the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The deal for EQT’s Schuelke & Mayr GmbH values the Norderstedt, Germany-based company at about €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion), people with knowledge of the matter have said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. Financial details weren’t disclosed. The sale is expected to close in the final quarter of 2023, according to a news release Monday.

A representative for the Struengmanns didn’t respond to a request for comment. The 73-year-old brothers are together worth about $24 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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Multiple complementary DNA strands can be thermally annealed into desired entities to engineer DNA nanostructures. In a new study now published in Nature Nanotechnology, Caroline Rossi-Gendron and a team of researchers in chemistry, materials science and biology in France and Japan used a magnesium-free buffer containing sodium chloride, complex cocktails of DNA strands and proteins to self-assemble isothermally at room temperature or physiological temperature into user-defined nanostructures including nanogrids, DNA origami and single-stranded tile assemblies.

This relied on thermodynamics, proceeding through multiple folding pathways to create highly configurable nanostructures. The method allowed the self-selection of the most stable shape in a large pool of competitive DNA strands. Interestingly, DNA can shift isothermally from an initially stable shape to a radically different one through an exchange of constitutive staple strands. This expanded the collection of shapes and functions obtained via isothermal self-assembly to create the foundation for adaptive nanomachines and facilitate evolutionary nanostructure discovery.

Self-assembly occurs when naturally occurring or rationally designed entities can embed necessary information to spontaneously interact and self-organize into functional superstructures of interest. Typically, synthetic self-assembled materials result from the organization of a repeating single component to create a stable supramolecular assembly containing micelles or colloidal crystals with a prescribed set of useful properties. Such constructs have limited reconfigurability, making it highly challenging to produce the desired structures.

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Genome editing is a powerful breeding technique that introduces mutations into specific gene sequences in genomes. For genome editing in higher plants, nucleotides for artificial nuclease (e.g. TALEN or CRISPR-Cas9) are transiently or stably introduced into the plant cells. After the introduction of mutations by artificial nucleases, it is necessary to select lines that do not contain the foreign nucleotides to overcome GMO regulation; however, there is still no widely legally authorized and approved method for detecting foreign genes in genome-edited crops. Recently, k-mer analysis based on next-generation sequencing (NGS) was proposed as a new method for detecting foreign DNA in genome-edited agricultural products. Compared to conventional methods, such as PCR and Southern hybridization, in principle, this method can detect short DNA fragments with high accuracy.

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Recent research published in Nature Communications has used machine learning algorithms to find new compounds that can eliminate senescent cells [1].

Senolytics are molecules that destroy senescent cells. Only a small number of such molecules have been identified, and only two have shown efficacy in clinical trials: dasatinib and quercetin in combination [2]. One of the biggest challenges is that senolytics often only work against specific types of cells. Additionally, some senolytics may work well for one cell type while being toxic to other, non-senescent cell types [3].

There is also a group of senolytics that are used in cancer therapies. However, most of them target pathways that are mutated in cancer. Therefore, they cannot be used as therapeutic agents in different contexts.

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