Plymouth, England – Scientists have developed a potentially transformative new technique that could aid in the discovery and development of new therapeutics for a number of globally prevalent autoimmune diseases. Conditions such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) – as well as failures within transplanted cells –...
Latest News
Your immune system plays an important function in your health — it protects you against viruses, bacteria, and other toxins that can cause disease. In autoinflammatory diseases, however, the immune system goes awry, causing unprovoked and dangerous inflammation. Now, researchers from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin...
São Paulo, Brazil – A protein that has been widely studied owing to its association with neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is also linked to medulloblastoma, a type of central nervous system cancer. Medulloblastoma is one of the most common and aggressive brain tumors in children, arising...
Sacramento, CA – Researchers at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center have shown that inhibiting a specific protein using gene therapy can shrink hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in mice. Silencing the galectin 1 (Gal1) protein, which is often over-expressed in HCC, also improved the anti-cancer immune response and increased the number of killer T cells inside tumors....
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and colleagues have demonstrated that variants in the SPTBN1 gene can alter neuronal architecture, dramatically affecting their function and leading to a rare, newly defined neurodevelopmental syndrome in children. Damaris Lorenzo, PhD, assistant...
Bats spread the Ebola virus to humans and play a pivotal role in disease outbreaks, evidence suggests. Ebola, a filovirus, causes fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and sometimes bleeding. There is no treatment or vaccine and 25–90 per cent of infected people die. The virus is transmitted by direct contact with infected...
Memphis, TN – A collaboration between scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute uncovered four proteins that govern the identity of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), an aggressive form of cancer. These proteins comprise a core regulatory circuit (CRC) that surprisingly incorporates a dysregulated signaling protein....
Daejeon South Korea – Numerous anti-cancer drugs function by targeting the DNA within cancerous cells, halting their proliferation. Yet, cancer cells occasionally develop mechanisms to repair the damage inflicted by these drugs, diminishing their effectiveness. Consequently, physicians are increasingly embracing a novel approach to cancer treatment known as precision medicine....
Chicago, Ill. – Neuroblastoma is a common pediatric cancer that originates in developing nerve cells outside the brain. While increasingly intensive treatments have improved the survival of patients with high-risk neuroblastoma, currently more than 40% of patients do not survive. New research from the University of Chicago shows the potential...
HOUSTON – A rare, deadly developmental disorder of the lungs called alveolar capillary dysplasia with misalignment of pulmonary veins (ACD/MPV) that usually kills the infants born with it within the first month of life results from deletions or mutations in the FOXF1 transcription factor gene, said a consortium of researchers...