Researchers at ETH Zurich recently identified a previously unknown compartment in mammalian cells. They have named it the exclusome. It is made up of DNA rings known as plasmids. The researchers have published details of their discovery in the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell.

The new compartment is in the cell plasma; it is previously uncharacterized in the literature. It is exceptional because eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei) usually keep most of their DNA in the cell nucleus, where it is organized into chromosomes.

Some of the plasmids that end up in the exclusome originate from outside the cell, while others—known as telomeric rings—come from the capped ends of chromosomes, the telomeres. Particularly in certain cancer cells, the ones from the telomeres are regularly pinched off and joined together to form rings. However, these don’t contain the blueprints for proteins.

This is a ~50 minute talk by Michael Levin to a clinical audience about bioelectricity and why it represents a new approach to medicine.

Gene therapy company Genflow Biosciences has received positive feedback from Belgium’s Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products as it seeks to move into human clinical trials. Genflow is developing gene therapies that target the aging process, with a focus on reducing and delaying age-related diseases.

Genflow’s approach involves the use of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors to deliver copies of the Sirtuin-6 (SIRT6) gene variant found in centenarians into cells. Sirtuins are a group of proteins that play a vital role in regulating various cellular processes. In recent years, SIRT6 has gained attention for its potential role in promoting healthy aging.

Genflow says it has received written advice from the FAHMP to commence clinical trials of its lead compound (GF-1002) in patients suffering from NASH, an aggressive form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, rather than in healthy volunteers. While further discussions and agreement with the European Medicine Agency (EMA) are still required, Genflow says that it expects a NASH clinical trial to commence in approximately 18 months.

Stem cells from the human stomach can be converted into cells that secrete insulin in response to rising blood sugar levels, offering a promising approach to treating diabetes, according to a preclinical study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

In the study, which appeared April 27 in Nature Cell Biology, the researchers showed that they could take stem cells obtained from human stomach tissue and reprogram them directly—with strikingly high efficiency—into cells that closely resemble pancreatic insulin-secreting cells known as beta cells. Transplants of small groups of these cells reversed disease signs in a mouse model of diabetes.

“This is a proof-of-concept study that gives us a solid foundation for developing a treatment, based on patients’ own cells, for type 1 diabetes and severe type 2 diabetes,” said study senior author Dr. Joe Zhou, an associate professor of regenerative medicine and a member of the Hartman Institute for Therapeutic Organ Regeneration at Weill Cornell Medicine.