LONDON – Relaxing of control measures such as mask wearing and social distancing at a time when most of a population has been vaccinated against COVID-19 greatly increases the probability of the emergence of a vaccine-resistant strain, according to a new modeling study.

Brain-wide genome editing via a single systemic dose of modified adeno-associated virus variants that cross the blood-brain barrier may represent a promising new approach for the development of disease-modifying treatments for familial Alzheimer's disease.

A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and collaborating institutions hypothesized that the age-related increase in the ratio of C4S/C6S may make perineuronal nets more inhibitory, leading in turn to memory loss associated with diminished inhibitory synapse formation onto GABAergic parvalbumin+ interneurons.

It's a good news, bad news scenario for exhausted T cells in chronic infections. Multiple groups of investigators reported in the July 26, 2021, online issue of Nature Immunology that even after a chronic hepatitis C virus infection was cured, T cells that had become dysfunctional during the infection retained epigenetic "scars" that prevented them from becoming fully functional memory T cells.

Research into how gross chromosomal rearrangements occur may have major implications for the discovery and development of new cancer therapies, according to a Japanese study reported in the July 22, 2021, edition of PLoS Genetics

Researchers from Finland and Italy published a biomarker-based algorithm for the diagnosis of dementia in the journal Diagnostics. The algorithm enables clinicians to distinguish between various neurodegenerative diseases with shared clinical presentations and select appropriate treatment. The algorithm relies primarily on blood biomarker measurements to diagnose the type of dementia much earlier than is possible with the diagnostic tools in use today.

A high-density lipoprotein (HDL) subspecies produced by small intestine, which potently shields the endotoxicity of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), may protect against gut-derived liver injury, according to a study led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in St. Louis.

Researchers at Google AI company Deepmind and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory/European Bioinformatics Institute have developed and published an open-access database with predicted structures of 98.5% of proteins in the human proteome.

Macrophage and neutrophil apoptotic cell death have been demonstrated to confer resistance to severe tuberculosis (TB) infection in preclinical mouse models of the disease, according to an Australian study reported in the July 12, 2021, edition of Immunology.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has developed new side-hole polymer optical fiber sensors, which can be used in multiple medical treatments without the drawbacks of other optical fibers used in the past. The biocompatible plastic sensors are humidity insensitive, supple and shatter-resistant. This means they can be used in various medical settings, ranging from surgical instrumentation, diagnostics to imaging equipment and sensor-based medical devices.