A new animal model of systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) could be useful for understanding the disparity of the disorder, which is vastly more common in women than men.

A research team led by neuroscientists and neurosurgeons from Paris-Saclay University have recently managed to demonstrate that electrical stimulation of the thalamus can restore consciousness when this has been impaired.

By altering the balance between neuronal excitation and inhibition, researchers have reduced cell death and improved outcomes in animal models of stroke.

Solid tumors have been a tougher nut to crack for CAR T cells than B-cell cancers, for two main reasons. Solid tumors have an inhibitors microenvironment that has made it difficult to get durable responses. And identifying antigens as specific as the B-cell markers CD19 and CD22 has been challenging, leading to problems with on-target, off-tumor toxicity.

Perkinelmer Inc. said the Vega is a first-of-its-kind preclinical ultrasound system that will accelerate preclinical research and drug development studies of cancer, cardiovascular, liver, kidney and other diseases. The imaging platform combines hands-free automation with high-throughput capability, which the company said is a major advance over manual ultrasound scanning across the bodies of individual lab mice.

Microbiota are recognized as key regulators of the gut-brain axis, but whether brain neurons can directly sense bacterial components, and conversely, if bacteria are involved in modulating physiological processes via the brain, has not been demonstrated. Researchers at the Institute Pasteur in Paris have now shown that muropeptides directly inhibit the activity of neurons in the hypothalamus to regulate appetite, nesting behavior and body temperature in mice.

An interdisciplinary research team from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed a portable testing device that can detect the COVID-19 virus within 40 minutes.

The tumor microenvironment is critical for the ability of cancers to survive and grow, and some aspects of the microenvironment are studied, and targeted, accordingly. Tumor immunology is one of the most active areas of cancer research and has become a pillar of treatment. Others, not so much. “The nervous system is the last component of the microenvironment that people have left completely unrecognized,” Humsa Venkatesh told BioWorld. Even in brain tumors and metastases, where the presence of neurons is glaringly obvious, there has been little attention to how the two interact until recently.

“We’re still a far cry from reproducible, durable benefits” with CAR T cells targeting solid tumors, Crystal Mackall told the audience at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). But “we’re beginning to see some signals.” Mackall is the founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy.