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Phage therapy in oncology: opportunities for cancer prevention and treatment
Phage therapy in cancer prevention and treatment.
Beyond antibacterial functions, bacteriophages (or phages) can modulate tumor-associated microbiota, alter immune responses, and influence cancer progression.
Advances in synthetic biology enable programmable phages to target tumor cells, deliver therapeutic cargos, and enhance antitumor immunity with high specificity and minimal toxicity.
Phage-mediated modulation of the microbiome offers a novel strategy to disrupt cancer-promoting bacterial networks and improve responses to immunotherapy or chemotherapy.
Despite promising preclinical evidence, challenges including immune clearance, host specificity, pharmacokinetics, and regulatory frameworks must be addressed before clinical implementation.
Combining phage-based interventions with conventional and immune-based therapies could open a new frontier in precision cancer prevention and treatment. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Phage-therapy-in-oncology
How nanomedicine gets inside your cells and treats you from the inside out
Canadians swallow millions of pills every day to treat common health issues like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type II diabetes, but scientists are working at the molecular level to turn patients’ cells into pharmacies.
Nanotechnology, where atoms and molecules are manipulated on a tiny scale—a billion times smaller than a meter—is already incorporated into everyday products like sunscreen, waterproof clothing and smartphones.
In nanomedicine, it’s being used to prompt RNA to make protein-based drugs to treat diseases. Now we can fine-tune protein production by dialing it up or down, creating personalized medicine on an invisible scale.
Nanobody repairs misfolded CFTR inside cells, boosting function in cystic fibrosis
A tiny antibody component could fundamentally transform the treatment of cystic fibrosis: For the first time, researchers have succeeded in developing a so-called nanobody that penetrates directly into human cells and can repair the chloride channel most commonly affected in cystic fibrosis. The innovative therapeutic approach was developed in collaboration between teams from Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP). The results have now been published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
The clinical picture of cystic fibrosis—also known as CF—is caused by genetic defects in the so-called CFTR channel. This channel regulates water and salt transport in the lung mucosa and ensures the production of sufficiently fluid mucus. In about 90% of cystic fibrosis patients, a mutation known as F508del is present in the CFTR channel, meaning that a single amino acid is missing at position 508 in its protein chain. This change causes CFTR to fold incorrectly and break down prematurely inside the cell, rather than functioning as a channel in the cell membrane of the airways.
As a result, patients have thick mucus in their lungs, and pathogens can no longer be effectively cleared. The consequence is chronic infection and inflammation of the airways, leading to a progressive loss of lung function—in the worst-case scenario, this necessitates a lung transplant.
People who consume ultra-processed foods have worse muscle health, study suggests
Researchers found that a diet high in ultra-processed foods is associated with higher amounts of fat stored inside thigh muscles, regardless of calorie or fat intake, physical activity or sociodemographic factors in a population at risk for knee osteoarthritis. Results of the study were published in Radiology. Higher amounts of intramuscular fat in the thigh could potentially increase the risk for knee osteoarthritis.
Ultra-processed foods usually have longer shelf lives and can be highly appealing and convenient. They contain a combination of sugar, fat, salt and carbohydrates which affect the brain’s reward system, making it hard to stop eating.
These foods include breakfast cereals, margarines/spreads, packaged snacks, hot dogs, soft drinks and energy drinks, candies and desserts, frozen pizzas, ready-to-eat meals, mass-produced packaged breads and buns, which all include synthesized ingredients.
Long-Term Cognitive Ability and Academic Achievement After Childhood Severe Malaria
Among children with a history of CerebralMalaria or severe malarial anemia, long-term follow-up demonstrated lower overall cognitive ability and lower math achievement compared with unaffected children when assessed 4 to 15 years after the index episode of Malaria.
Attention and reading scores did not differ, and outcomes among children with other forms of severe malaria were similar to unaffected children.
These findings indicate that specific severe malaria phenotypes are associated with persistent cognitive and academic effects into later childhood and adolescence, with implications for long-term follow-up and supportive services.
ESCMIDGlobal2026.
This descriptive analysis uses a subset of data from the Malarial Impact on Neurobehavioral Development (MIND) cohort study to assess whether severe malaria in Ugandan children is associated with long-term cognitive impairment or decreased academic achievement.