Being able to detect cancers early can substantially improve survival, but most early detection tests for cancer rely on expensive and sophisticated molecular techniques that might be difficult to implement in resource strapped environments. Two new studies published last week attempt to overcome this problem.

CRISPR, or clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats, is transforming biomedical research, and making rapid inroads into the clinic, with its ability to easily target specific DNA and RNA sequences. CRISPR itself is made of RNA. It recognizes target sequences and delivers CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins, nucleases that cut the target sequence. In two papers published online in Nature on Jan. 4, 2023, researchers have demonstrated that a recently discovered type of Cas protein, Cas12a2, can degrade double-stranded DNA when its associated CRISPR guide RNA recognizes its target sequence.

Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found a sexual dimorphism of depression based on the different expression of a molecule that could be developed as a therapeutic strategy. “There is a big sex difference in depression. Women are much more likely to have depression than men. They tend to have different subsets of symptoms. They tend to respond better to different antidepressants, and the depression tends to be more severe,” Orna Issler, the first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the Nash Family Department of Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told BioWorld. Their project, directed by Eric Nestler, a professor of neuroscience and director of the Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, had the aim to understand the biology of these sex differences of depression and to find therapeutic targets for it.

Nowadays, there are many tools for cancer diagnosis, from imaging techniques to biopsies. In traditional blood tests, liquid biopsy bursts onto the scene as an explosion of possibilities driven by molecular techniques for the detection and sequencing of proteins or genetic material. But specialists are cautious because they know that in liquid biopsies not everything is detected. At the ENA 2022 session “The role of ctDNA in clinical trials,” Marie Morfouace, a translational researcher at the EORTC, presented “ctDNA in clinical trial practice today,” where she described the balance of the possibilities of the liquid biopsy when confronting it with the results in patients offered by the studies published to date.

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan have developed a novel theranostic candidate, [67Cu]EB-TATE, as an alternative to [177Lu]DOTATATE, for the imaging of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NET). EB-TATE, which is a derivative of octreotate with evans blue (EB), was radiolabeled with electron linear accelerator-produced 67CuCl2.

Rational drug design based on EPI-X4, endogenous antagonist of C-X-C motif chemokine receptor (CXCR4), led to the identification of optimized analogues named JMF-01 to JMF-07, which demonstrated increased antagonistic activity.

The suboptimal metabolic stability of radiolabeled gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) antagonists has been a hindering factor of these promising theranostic candidates for prostate cancer. Uppsala University researchers have recently reported the development of [111In]DOTAGA-PEG-2-SAR11-RM-26, after replacement of Gly11 by Sar11 in the peptidic chain.

Researchers have detailed the development and preclinical characterization of a novel heterobivalent radiotracer targeting prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and the gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR).