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Category: biotech/medical – Page 10

Cachexia-induced alterations of miR-27a-3p drive cell-type specific effects in FAPs and tumor cells that coincide with muscle wasting

Self-amplifying RNA is synthetic nucleic acid engineered to replicate within cells without generating viral particles. Derived from alphavirus genomes, saRNA retains the non-structural elements essential for replication while replacing the structural elements with an antigen of interest. By enabling efficient intracellular amplification, saRNA offers a promising alternative to conventional mRNA vaccines, enhancing antigen expression while requiring lower doses. However, this advantage comes with challenges. In this review, we highlight the key limitations of saRNA technology and explore potential strategies to overcome them. By identifying these challenges, we aim to provide insights that can guide the future design of saRNA-based therapeutics, extending their potential beyond vaccine applications.

Urine: A Pitfall for Molecular Detection of Toscana Virus? An Analytical Proof-of-Concept Study

Toscana virus (TOSV), a sandfly-borne virus, is an important etiological agent in human acute meningitis and meningoencephalitis in the Mediterranean area during the summer. However, the actual number of TOSV infections is underestimated. Laboratory confirmation is necessary because TOSV infection has overlapping clinical features with other neuro-invasive viral infections. Nowadays, the reference test for direct diagnosis in the acute phase of TOSV infection is the PCR based method for detecting TOSV in cerebrospinal fluid and/or plasma, serum, or blood. Although poorly employed, urine is another helpful biological matrix for TOSV detection. Urine is a matrix rich in PCR inhibitors that affect PCR efficiency; consequently, false negatives could be generated.

AI analyses of eye scans can detect diseases like diabetes, osteoporosis and thyroid disease in seconds

A new study presents an artificial intelligence system that scans images of the retina to detect signs of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gout, osteoporosis and thyroid disease in seconds. The program—called Reti-Pioneer—is a step toward being able to diagnose many different conditions from a scan of the eye, providing people a quicker diagnosis for common conditions and increasing access to crucial testing.

Associate Professor Lisa Zhuoting Zhu, head of ophthalmic epidemiology at CERA, is one of the leading authors on the paper published in Nature Medicine. She says this technology is making disease diagnosis more efficient, particularly in remote or regional communities.

“This technology will be a real benefit to public health,” says Zhu. “Patients would be able to get information about their health instantly and start interventions as soon as possible instead of waiting for more time-consuming test results.”

What one sleepless night does to brain connections and why sleep may reset them

A night without sleep produced increased markers of connections between brain cells, showing that sleep in humans may be important for restoring cellular balance in the brain, according to a study published in PLOS Biology by David Elmenhorst from the Forschungszentrum Jülich Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and colleagues.

Scientists have long wondered why humans and other animals need to sleep. One potential mechanism is that sleep is required to restore synaptic connections and homeostasis in the brain. Synapses—the connections between brain cells—become stronger during wakefulness.

This increases the amount of energy the brain needs and leads to a buildup of proteins in the brain. Sleep is thought to reset these levels, reducing synaptic connections and restoring homeostasis, but evidence has thus far been limited to animal models.

Vagus nerve stimulation may quiet pain through newly mapped brainstem pathway

Physical pain is essential for survival, as it allows animals to detect when they are injured or unwell, seek shelter and address their ailments. Yet when it becomes chronic, pain can also become highly distressing and debilitating.

While there are now several therapeutic strategies for managing chronic pain, an emerging one that has been found to be particularly promising is vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). VNS entails the delivery of mild electrical pulses to the nerve that connects the brain to organs throughout the body.

Past studies suggest that VNS-based therapy can reduce the pain associated with various medical conditions, including chronic headaches, fibromyalgia and joint inflammation. The neural processes by which it can ease pain, however, are still poorly understood.

Discovery of BIRC3 gene variants in Crohn’s disease yields a druggable pathway

Researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto have found a previously unknown genetic cause of Crohn’s disease and uncovered how those changes trigger inflammation through a key immune pathway. The findings, published in Gastroenterology and involving teams from eight countries, will guide more precise treatments and improve the ability to match patients to therapies based on their unique biology.

“We’ve brought together genetics, RNA sequencing, proteomics and more to try for the first time to map the complete disease pathway, and it’s turned into a remarkable precision medicine story,” says lead author Dr. Aleixo Muise, senior scientist in the Cell & Systems Biology program, staff gastroenterologist and co-director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Centre at SickKids.

“In our SickKids clinic, we want to find the right drug for each person based on their body’s unique signature. That’s why this paper is so exciting: We have pinpointed a druggable pathway.”

3 Age-Reversal Therapies Being Tested Right Now

Most people still think Longevity Escape Velocity is a distant future. But what if some of the technologies that could make it possible are already being tested right now?

In this video, we look at three emerging longevity therapies: partial epigenetic reprogramming, senescent-cell removal, and stem-cell based repair. Some are already in human trials, while others are still early and experimental, but together they show how medicine may begin shifting from treating age-related disease to repairing parts of aging itself.

1:16 — THERAPY #1 — Partial epigenetic reprogramming.
3:34 — THERAPY #2 — SenoVax immune cleanup.
5:24 — THERAPY #3 — Lomecel — B — stem-cell therapy.
7:07 — CONCLUSION — From theory to repair.

📚 SOURCES AND STUDIES MENTIONED

ER-100 / partial epigenetic reprogramming:

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Scientists Visualize the Complex, Dynamic World Inside a Human Cell

The interactive image was created for Cell Signaling Technology, Inc., and was inspired by the work of David Goodsell, a professor of computational biology at Scripps Research Institute, who is widely recognized for his vibrant watercolor paintings of cells and viruses. Alongside some artistic interpretation, portions of the image were digitally rendered using datasets gathered through scientific methods.

“This 3D rendering of a eukaryotic cell is modeled using X-ray, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and cryo-electron microscopy datasets for all of its molecular actors,” explains McGill. “It is an attempt to recapitulate the myriad pathways involved in signal transduction, protein synthesis, endocytosis, vesicular transport, cell-cell adhesion, apoptosis, and other processes.”

Although some online are calling it “the most detailed image of a human cell ever captured” Evan Ingersoll and Gael McGill emphasize that it’s really an educational tool. Elements of the cell have been simplified, and in some cases “squashed together,” to help viewers better understand what happens inside it.

Mathematical modeling helps advance use of magnetic particles in targeted drug-delivery systems

A Florida State University computational scientist is paving the way for future medical breakthroughs by developing mathematical models and simulations to predict the behavior of a unique drug-delivery method, which aims to deploy treatments directly to targeted sites in the body.

Florida State University Associate Professor of Scientific Computing Bryan Quaife is part of a multi-institutional team of engineers, mathematicians and computational scientists conducting foundational research essential to the design of a drug-delivery system that could reduce medication side effects while increasing treatment efficacy. Their research expands on work proposing the use of magnetic particles to guide cell-like drug carriers toward a specific target, like a tumor.

This work, which was published in Physical Review Letters, reveals how tiny particles moving inside microscopic drug carriers can gradually stress and eventually rupture the enclosing membrane. These findings could help engineers design smarter drug-delivery systems to protect therapeutic cargo during transport and release it on demand at the desired location.

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