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New possibilities for treating cancer and other ills.

• By Elizabeth O’Day on July 1, 2019

Researchers report ultraprecise imaging of a postmortem human brain.

We need worms

You might think they are disgusting. But our war against intestinal worms has damaged our immune systems and mental health.

William Parker

A recently released study from Maria Blasco and her team of researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) shows that the rate of telomere shortening is strongly correlated with the maximum lifespan of animal species.

Telomeres

Telomeres, which are simply repeating segments of DNA on the ends of our chromosomes, serve two critical functions: They protect the ends of our chromosomes, preventing genetic damage, and they serve as a clock, limiting the number of times that our cells can divide. This limit, known as the Hayflick limit, serves as a basic defense against cancer. However, telomere attrition is a primary hallmark of aging and leads to cellular senescence and other age-related disorders.

A team of researchers led by scientists in Vienna, Dresden and Heidelberg has decoded the entire genetic information of the Mexican salamander axolotl. The axolotl genome, which is the largest genome ever to be sequenced, will be a powerful tool to study the molecular basis for regrowing limbs and other forms of regeneration.

Salamanders have long served as valuable biological models for developmental, regeneration and evolutionary studies. In particular, the Mexican axolotl Ambystoma mexicanum has received special attention due to its astounding ability to regenerate body-parts. If the cannibalistically inclined animal loses a limb, it will regrow a perfect substitute within weeks, complete with bones, muscles and nerves in the right places. Even more fascinating, the axolotl can repair severed spinal cord and retinal tissue. These qualities and the relative ease in breeding have made it a favourite biological model, cultivated in the lab for more than 150 years.

A process called nucleation plays a critical role in many physical and biological phenomena that range from crystallization, melting and evaporation to the formation of clouds and the initiation of neurodegenerative diseases. However, nucleation is a challenging process to study experimentally, especially in its early stages, when several atoms or molecules start to form a new phase from a parent phase. Now, a team of physicists led by the University of California, Los Angeles has used a method called atomic electron tomography to study early-stage nucleation in four dimensions (that is, in three dimensions of space and across time) at atomic resolution.

The technical challenges are not as daunting as the social and diplomatic ones, says bioengineer Kevin Esvelt at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab in Cambridge, who was among the first to build a CRISPR-based gene drive. “Technologies like this have real-world consequences for people’s lives that can be nearly immediate.”

Altering the genomes of entire animal populations could help to defeat disease and control pests, but researchers worry about the consequences of unleashing this new technology.