Researchers have identified a critical biological difference in how glioblastoma develops in male and female laboratory models, pinpointing an immune pathway that fuels tumor growth only in females. The study shows that the neurotransmitter GABA boosts the cancer-protecting activity of immune cells in female models—but not male models—and that blocking that signal improved outcomes. The findings could one day lead to new drug targets and therapeutics specifically for women. The paper is published in the journal Nature Cancer.
Men and women experience many diseases very differently. Certain diseases present more commonly in one sex than in the other, some conditions may cause different symptoms in men and women, and some treatments work better—or not at all—for one sex over the other.
Cancer is no exception. There are major differences in male and female immune systems, and this system is critical both for cancer growth and for successfully becoming cancer-free. For example, some immunotherapies work better in men than in women, and vice versa.
The 23rd of June 2023 marks 30 years since Andrew Wiles delivered his first proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, right here at INI. In this article, podcast and video interview, we celebrate this tremendous milestone for one of mathematics’ most compelling stories.
Tecedor et al. used directed evolution to engineer AAVs with enhanced ependymal and brain delivery after injection into the cerebrospinal fluid. I think it would be interesting to try lumbar puncture delivery of these AAVs as well to see if they maintain decent biodistribution. (See my other post about Hinderer et al.’s paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omtm.2020.04.012).
AAV capsid variants enriched for transduction of ventricular lining cells and brain parenchyma reduce the dose required for gene therapy to the CNS.
Wow, this is an interesting turn of events: Janelia launching a 10-year $1B effort to study the Danionella fish as a model organism for understanding the nervous system. (Note: this is different from zebrafish). I’m intrigued by the direction, but I also feel for those researchers at Janelia who had the rug pulled out from under them. It’s a tricky situation.
The Janelia Research Campus is launching two new projects: whole-brain imaging of a transparent fish called Danionella and an “AI-in-the-loop” tool to help parse all the imaging data, the facility announced last week.
As part of the change, Janelia is also shuttering two programs and plans to phase out projects that use rodent models, The Transmitter has learned. Janelia is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a private nonprofit biomedical research institution.
Investigators who run rodent labs have roughly three years to wrap up their projects and find new positions, and Janelia plans to provide each researcher with an additional $1 million in transition funding, says Gerald Rubin, head of biology and senior group leader at Janelia. The move does not affect external research funded by the HHMI, including the HHMI Investigators and Hanna H. Gray Fellows programs, Rubin adds.
