Lifeboat Foundation

Seneca Valley virus sounds like the last bug you’d want to catch, but it could be the next breakthrough cancer therapy. Now, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and the University of Otago have described exactly how the virus interacts with tumors—and why it leaves healthy tissues alone.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 29, 2018, provides the first detailed images of how the complex Seneca Valley virus forms with its preferred receptor. The researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to capture images of over 7000 particles and rendered the structure in high resolution. They predict their results will help scientists develop the virus, and other viral drug candidates, for clinical use.

“If you have a virus that targets cancer cells and nothing else, that’s the ultimate cancer fighting tool,” said Prof. Matthias Wolf, principal investigator of the Molecular Cryo-Electron Microscopy Unit at OIST and co-senior author of the study. “I expect this study will lead to efforts to design viruses for cancer therapy.”

Continue reading “Anti-cancer virus fits tumor receptor like a ‘key in a lock’” »

Viruses use bacteria’s chemical language to time their destruction; this might lead to new ways to fight infections.

• By Angus Chen on December 14, 2018

“It’s brilliant and insidious!”

These assassins could help in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

Marie—a five-foot-one, fifteen-pound 3D printed body—could be used to help create better radiation treatments for cancer.

Researchers from the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School are attempting to defy and reverse the biological aging process by developing a therapeutic vaccine that would bolster the essential repair and regeneration processes of cells.

This is potentially important research since the current life expectancy at birth is around 78.8 years in the USA.

In the United States, about 46 million people are above the age of 65. This number is expected to double by 2060, therefore increasing age-related health issues, reports Census.org.

Continue reading “An Anti-Aging Vaccine?” »

A team of researchers have just figured out how to play god, mastering the editing of DNA

Science.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a β-herpesvirus that infects the majority of people in the world. It lies dormant in the body, waiting for an opportunity to strike when the immune system is weakened. This persistent virus infects people for their entire lives, and now researchers have discovered how the virus spreads, opening the door to ways to destroy it.

What is cytomegalovirus?

CMV is part of the β-subfamily of herpesviruses, which are believed to have been co-evolving with their hosts for around 180 million years [1]. CMV infection is asymptomatic; this means it causes no symptoms and is a latent infection; in other words, it lies dormant in the cell, awaiting activation under certain conditions [2].

There’s a positive correlation of assisted reproductive technologies with arterial hypertension. Epigenetics and hormone treatments with IVF are probable causes.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have been shown to induce premature vascular aging in apparently healthy children. In mice, ART-induced premature vascular aging evolves into arterial hypertension. Given the young age of the human ART group, long-term sequelae of ART-induced alterations of the cardiovascular phenotype are unknown.

This study hypothesized that vascular alterations persist in adolescents and young adults conceived by ART and that arterial hypertension possibly represents the first detectable clinically relevant endpoint in this group.

Continue reading “Association of Assisted Reproductive Technologies With Arterial Hypertension During Adolescence” »

A tiny piece of 3D-printed tech could foreshadow the future of medicine.

A team from MIT, Draper, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has created a 3D-printed smart pill that can release medications in the stomach and monitor temperature for up to a month at a time — and they believe they’ve only scratched the surface of its capabilities.