Mediar Therapeutics Inc. has announced the nomination of two first-in-class monoclonal antibody clinical candidates for fibrosis. The first, MTX-463, is designed to neutralize WISP-1 signaling. The second candidate, MTX-474, is designed to neutralize EphrinB2 signaling.

Immetas Therapeutics Inc. and GC Biopharma Corp. have entered into a research collaboration to discover and develop novel mRNA therapeutics for the treatment of a broad range of autoimmune diseases. The collaboration combines Immetas’ proprietary platform for modulating innate immune pathways with GC Biopharma’s mRNA therapeutic and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery platforms.

Imidomics Inc. has entered into a strategic license and collaboration agreement with the University of Barcelona under which Imidomics has licensed technology and expertise to advance research aimed at understanding and treating immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.

Researchers working at with Seoul National University together with GPCR Therapeutics Inc. have focused on targeting pairs of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) starting with the CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4), which is well known to serve hematopoietic and early developmental functions, while also being required for cancer metastasis.

For individuals who develop an unexpected psychosis, there is something to be said for testing them for autoimmune antibodies. And something against. At the 36th Congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) this week, the topic was worth a controversy session, where speakers presented the pros and cons of the approach. Currently used tests have a specificity of 99%. But as Ester Coutinho, consultant neurologist at the University of Coimbra, pointed out, the validity of diagnostic tests depends on the prevalence of the disorder one is looking for as well. Coutinho estimated that autoimmune psychoses account for 1% of psychoses overall.

Recently, researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, in collaboration with colleagues in Japan, have developed a human vascular organoid model that accurately mimics the vascular damage caused by SARS-CoV-2.

The broadest view of post-mortem brains in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has unveiled the genome, transcriptome and epigenome alterations of this neurodegenerative condition. The coordinated research, directed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), also described new cellular pathways that could help the scientific community design new therapies. Four simultaneous studies published on Sept. 28, 2023, in Cell, presented a brain single-cell atlas of AD, exposed the damage that affects DNA, and described the processes that alter the microglia and dysregulate the epigenome.