Monoclonal antibodies are a triumph of modern medicine. They are also too expensive to be a standard therapy in all but the wealthiest countries. “Having 10% or 15% of your population on antibodies is not sustainable even in wealthy countries,” Rachel Liberatore told BioWorld. Liberatore is director of research and development at Renbio Inc., which is testing the intramuscular delivery of antibody-encoding DNA to prevent and treat infections, including SARS-CoV-2 and HIV.

The impact that the microbiome has on drug metabolism is further elucidated in new research showing for the first time that bacteria in the gut accumulate and store drug compounds.

Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University have used mouse models to estimate the frequency at which gene therapies delivered by adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors integrated into host DNA, and come up with an estimate of up to roughly 3% – a number that is orders of magnitude higher than previous estimates and would translate into several hundred million cells with integrated viral vectors in an adult liver, assuming that 10% of cells took up the transgene.

The most comprehensive international collaborative analysis to date of the impact of variants on gene expression has revealed thousands of previously unknown regulatory genomic regions controlling disease-linked genes, representing a major advance in genomics-driven precision medicine.

In studies that give new insights into both developmental biology and the origins of melanoma, investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified the activity of chromatin remodeling protein ATAD2 as necessary for cells with the oncogenic mutation V600E to give rise to melanomas. Involvement of epigenetic factors in cancers, or their targeting, is not new in cancer – as HDAC inhibitors as well as newer drugs such as the EZH2 inhibitor Tazverik (tazemetostat, Epizyme Inc.) demonstrate. But to Richard White and his colleagues, the point of their work is not so much about individual targets.

In studies that give new insights into both developmental biology and the origins of melanoma, investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified the activity of chromatin remodeling protein ATAD2 as necessary for cells with the oncogenic mutation V600E to give rise to melanomas.

A new Drosophila melanogaster larval model recapitulates key aspects of tumor-induced cachexia, including muscle wasting, loss of tissue integrity and lipid mobilization, the authors of a multicenter Australian study reported in the September 1, 2021, online edition of Developmental Cell.

More than half of cancers have mutations in the transcription factor p53, making p53 one of the most frequently mutated genes in solid tumors.

Women with endometriosis may be closer to finding relief from chronic inflammation and acute pain during menstruation after a group of international researchers have uncovered a new nonhormonal treatment target, neuropeptide S receptor 1.

A study led by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing has elicited the mechanism whereby the protein leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 prevents alveolar type II epithelial cell dysfunction, limiting profibrotic responses during progression of pulmonary fibrosis.