Roughly a year and a half after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many unknowns remain about the future of the virus. How it will mutate, how long protection from either illness or vaccination will last, when it will cease to be a pandemic and instead be endemic, even whether the worst is still ahead. And there is also an increasing acknowledgment that there remain unknowns about SARS-CoV-2’s past.

Investigators led by Russell Pieper at University of California, San Francisco have discovered that ALT-associated tumors are hypersensitive to a subgroup of poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase (PARP) inhibitors.

Researchers at Australia's Garvan Institute of Medical Research have for the first time mapped the genetic profile of the skeleton's master regulator cells, known as osteocytes.

A Japanese study has found that the Helicobacter pylori oncoprotein, CagA, elicited transient 'BRCAness', inducing genomic instability via DNA double-strand breaks and defective homologous recombination. The effects may underlie the gastric carcinogenesis associated with chronic H. pylori infection.

In the last decade, responsive neurostimulation (RNS) has become a mainstay of treatment for refractory focal epilepsy, but challenges with the technology remain. Researchers at Columbia University in New York appear to have overcome some of the major limitations through development of a compact, flexible, high performance implantable device that permits reading and manipulation of brain circuits.

Roughly a year and a half after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many unknowns remain about the future of the virus. How it will mutate, how long protection from either illness or vaccination will last, when it will cease to be a pandemic and instead be endemic, even whether the worst is still ahead. And there is also an increasing acknowledgment that there remain unknowns about SARS-CoV-2’s past.

Collectively, lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) are caused by malfunctions in metabolic enzymes in the lysosome system. Depending on which enzyme is missing, toxic metabolites accumulate. While the LSDs are highly heterogenous – even within one disease, presentation can vary widely – neurodegeneration is a common feature in these disorders.

Parasitic worms, or helminths, are a major global health issue. At the same time, "parasites have been a prolific area of biomedical research to emerge," De'Broski Herbert told his audience at the 2021 annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists.

The discovery of synthetic lethality between BRCA mutations and PARP inhibitors ranks has led to major advances in the treatment of BRCA-mutated cancers. Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 can leave cells with a deficiency in homologous repair (HR). And that deficiency can make them vulnerable to PARP inhibitors, which block alternate DNA repair pathways, as well as platinum-based treatment, which induces DNA mutations that BRCA-deficient cells are unable to cope with.

With Monday's announcement that the U.S. FDA has expanded emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNtech's COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty (tozinameran), to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age, and the EMA expected to follow suit in short order, the COVID vaccination campaign is expanding its age range.