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Category: biotech/medical – Page 96

New toothpaste stops periodontal pathogens

Periodontitis is widespread and can have serious consequences for overall health. Researchers at Fraunhofer have identified a substance that selectively inhibits only those bacteria that cause periodontitis, thereby preserving the natural balance of the oral microbiome. This technology has been further developed and commercialized as a range of oral care products by the spin-off company PerioTrap.

The oral microbiome is home to more than 700 different bacterial species, of which only a few can cause periodontitis. These adhere to dental plaque, particularly along the gum line, where they trigger inflammation (gingivitis). This can potentially lead to chronic periodontitis, which does more than just cause receding gums and loose teeth. If these bacteria enter the bloodstream, they can also contribute to the development of diabetes, rheumatic disease, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammatory bowel disease and even Alzheimer’s disease.

Pathogenic bacteria are killed by conventional oral care products such as alcohol-based mouthwashes and products containing the antiseptic chlorhexidine, but these also eliminate beneficial microorganisms. When the oral microbiome re-establishes itself after treatment, pathogenic bacteria such as Porphyromonas gingivalis gain an early advantage because they proliferate particularly well in inflamed gum tissue. Beneficial bacteria grow more slowly, and the oral microbiome quickly shifts back from its natural balance into dysbiosis, allowing the disease to recur.

Stem cell engineering breakthrough paves way for next-generation living drugs

For the first time, researchers at UBC have demonstrated how to reliably produce an important type of human immune cell — known as helper T cells — from stem cells in a controlled laboratory setting. The findings, published today in Cell Stem Cell, overcome a major hurdle that has limited the development, affordability and large-scale manufacturing of cell therapies. The discovery could pave the way for more accessible and effective off-the-shelf treatments for a wide range of conditions like cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and more.

“This is a major step forward in our ability to develop scalable and affordable immune cell therapies.”

Dr. Peter Zandstra

Ranked among the world’s top medical schools with the fifth-largest MD enrollment in North America, the UBC Faculty of Medicine is a leader in both the science and the practice of medicine. Across British Columbia, more than 12,000 faculty and staff are training the next generation of doctors and health care professionals, making remarkable discoveries, and helping to create the pathways to better health for our communities at home and around the world.

Radiotracers could improve choice of bladder cancer therapies

A research team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has developed a radiopharmaceutical molecule marker that can visualize tumors that carry the cell surface protein Nectin-4. This primarily occurs in the body in cases of urothelial carcinoma, a common form of bladder cancer.

In pre-clinical trials, the drug candidate, NECT-224, proved stable and was successfully used in humans for the first time. As the team has now reported in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, in the future, it could be used to better identify patients who would benefit from Nectin-4-targeted therapies.

Many modern cancer drugs only work when the target structure to which they are supposed to bind is also present on the tumor cells. In the case of urothelial carcinoma, the cell surface protein Nectin-4 lends itself to this purpose. It serves as a “door sign” for antibody-coupled agents that are able to eliminate tumor cells in a targeted fashion. But not every tumor produces the same amount of Nectin-4.

How does glass ‘shake’ and why does it start flowing when pushed hard enough?

Glassy materials are everywhere, with applications far exceeding windowpanes and drinking glasses. They range from bioactive glasses for bone repair and amorphous pharmaceuticals that boost drug solubility to ultra-pure silica optics used in gravitational-wave detectors. In principle, any substance can become glass if its hot liquid is cooled fast enough to avoid forming an ordered crystal.

A distinguishing feature of glass is that its atoms freeze into an irregular, disordered arrangement. This stands in contrast to crystals, where atoms sit in a regular pattern. This disorder gives glass many of its unique and useful properties, but scientists still struggle to understand how atomic-scale disorder produces the properties observed in everyday glasses.

‘Motivation brake’ may explain why it’s so hard to get started on an unpleasant task

Most of us know the feeling: maybe it is making a difficult phone call, starting a report you fear will be criticized, or preparing a presentation that’s stressful just to think about. You understand what needs to be done, yet taking that very first step feels surprisingly hard.

When this difficulty becomes severe, it is known medically as avolition. People with avolition are not lazy or unaware: they know what they need to do, but their brain seems unable to push the “go” button.

Avolition is commonly seen in conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease, and it seriously disrupts a person’s ability to manage daily life and maintain social functions.

Your genes determine how fast your DNA mutates with age, study shows

An analysis of genetic data from over 900,000 people shows that certain stretches of DNA, made up of short sequences repeated over and over, become longer and more unstable as we age. The study found that common genetic variants can speed up or slow down this process by up to four-fold, and that certain expanded sequences are linked to serious diseases including kidney failure and liver disease.

More than 60 inherited disorders are caused by expanded DNA repeats: repetitive genetic sequences that grow longer over time. These include devastating conditions like Huntington’s disease, myotonic dystrophy, and certain forms of ALS.

Most people carry DNA repeats that gradually expand throughout their lives, but this instability and what genetic factors control it hadn’t been fully analyzed within large biobanks.

Cochlear Implant User Affect and Reported Quality of Life

In adults receiving cochlear implants, gains in positive affect and reductions in negative affect corresponded with improvements in quality-of-life scores across listening, communication, and participation domains. Strongest statistical associations were observed in social and emotional CIQOL areas, but effect sizes were small.

Importance The use of patient-reported outcome measures to assess outcomes in adults who use cochlear implants has increased, as highlighted by the inclusion of the Cochlear Implant Quality of Life (CIQOL) instruments in the Minimal Speech Testing Battery, version 3. However, the self-reported nature of these instruments raises questions regarding how psychosocial characteristics impact responses.

Objective To assess whether affect and CIQOL domain scores change over time and whether affect is associated with CIQOL domain scores.

Design, Setting, and Participants Prospective longitudinal cohort study in adult cochlear implant candidates (aged 18–89 years) meeting indications for cochlear implantation based on bilateral moderate to profound hearing loss with aided sentence recognition scores 60% or less between September 19, 2019, and October 8, 2021, in a single tertiary otolaryngology referral center. Patients receiving a second cochlear implant and those without Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores were excluded. Follow-up duration was 1 year. Data analysis was performed between October 15, 2023, and August 5, 2025.

Discrimination of normal from slow-aging mice by plasma metabolomic and proteomic features

Tests that can predict whether a drug is likely to extend mouse lifespan could speed up the search for anti-aging drugs. We have applied a machine learning algorithm, XGBoost regression, to seek sets of plasma metabolites (n = 12,000) and peptides (n = 17,000) that can discriminate control mice from mice treated with one of five anti-aging interventions (n = 278 mice). When the model is trained on any four of these five interventions, it predicts significantly higher lifespan extension in mice exposed to the intervention which was not included in the training set. Plasma peptide data sets also succeed at this task. Models trained on drug-treated normal mice also discriminate long-lived mutant mice from their respective controls, and models trained on males can discriminate drug-treated from control females.

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