The Cancer Grand Challenges Mutographs study, a combined genetic and epidemiological analysis of data from eight countries with widely different incidences of esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCC), has unexpectedly failed to identify mutational signatures indicating DNA damage that could account for global ESCC incidence variations.

A multidisciplinary team of scientists led by Britt Adamson at Princeton University along with collaborators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the genome editing company Editas Medicine, and University of California, San Francisco have developed a novel high-throughput screening tool, Repair-seq, to profile mutations at targeted DNA lesions.

In recent years enteric glial cells have moved on from being regarded as bit part players passively supporting intestinal epithelial cells, to being recognized as having a fundamental role in gastrointestinal physiology.

The proinflammatory cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor has been demonstrated to drive the induction and progression of spondyloarthritis in mice and to be associated with human disease, according to the findings of an international study led by researchers at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada.

The largest ever global study of tuberculosis has identified all the mutations conferring resistance to approved antimicrobials, setting the scene for more rational use of drugs, increasing mechanistic understanding of how Mycobacterium tuberculosis develops resistance to antibiotics and pointing to new drug targets.

A new engineered glycated vaccine induced production of neutralizing antibodies against severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and other coronaviruses in mice, scientists at The University of Osaka and the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Science in Yokohama have reported.

Pretreatment with an experimental focal adhesion kinase inhibitor has been shown to improve chemotherapeutic efficiency and reduce metastasis in preclinical mouse and patient-derived models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), with this priming regimen soon to enter phase II trials for PDAC using a novel, clinically relevant FAK inhibitor.

PARIS – Teams from the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, the Institute for Research in Development, Sorbonne University and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research are proposing a new technique that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the risk of developing a type of cardiac arrhythmia called Torsades de pointes (TdP) associated with taking certain drugs.

Genome sequencing initiated to investigate how chronic liver disease leads on to hepatocellular carcinoma has instead uncovered mutations that impact fat metabolism and reduce the sensitivity of hepatocytes to insulin.