Kazia Therapeutics Ltd. has announced promising preclinical and translational data supporting the development of NDL-2, a protein degrader targeting a newly identified mechanism of immunotherapy resistance and metastatic progression.
Opioids are widely used to relieve the pain associated with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), but tolerance and undesired effects often limit their use. EGFR is commonly amplified in oral cancer and its involvement in OSCC-associated pain and opioid tolerance was investigated through the sensitization of trigeminal ganglion cells, which are the main sensory neurons that innervate the face and mouth. For this purpose, they used the EGFR inhibitor AG-1478, which was tested in vitro as well as in in vivo in human OSCC and an orthotopic murine models.
An Anglo-American team of researchers has devised a new computational method for quantifying Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) directly from human genome sequences and used this to identify 22 genes that link higher levels of the virus to a range of chronic diseases. The new method sets the scene for further exploration of biobank DNA sequence data to gain greater understanding of the nature and the role of the human virome, the 10(13) – largely unstudied – viral particles that coexist in humans.
University of Florida researchers have synthesized proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) comprising an E3 ubiquitin ligase-binding moiety coupled to Bcl-2-like protein 1 (Bcl-xl; Bcl-X; BCL2L1)- and apoptosis regulator Bcl-2-targeting moiety.
Terns Pharmaceuticals Inc. has reported triazole compounds acting as gastric inhibitory polypeptide receptor (GIPR) antagonists. They are intended for use in the treatment of diabetes, obesity, liver diseases and cardiometabolic syndrome.
Humanwell Pharmaceutical US Inc. has disclosed prodrugs of somatostatin SST4 receptor agonists described as potentially useful for the treatment of visceral and neuropathic pain.
To address the dual bottlenecks of immunosuppressive cell infiltration and impaired T-cell function in the tumor microenvironment (TME), researchers from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Sun Yat-sen University (China) aimed to develop an engineered bispecific peptide-nanozyme conjugate (BsPNEC) targeting PD-L1 and CXCR1/2.
In a recent paper, researchers from the University of Perugia and University of Naples Federico II have shown how the use of leukemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIFR) antagonists dismantles the pro-CAF programs in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) to avoid its progression.