In the Marvel Comic Universe, Venom is a superhero who started life as a supervillain and Spiderman foe. In the biopharma universe, scorpion venom is undergoing the same fate transformation, as separate papers this week reported new ways to use scorpion venom in two major therapeutic targeting challenges.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Serine improves memory in Alzheimer’s mouse model; From junk to noncoding to coding; Keeping stem cells quiescent enables greater ultimate potency; Female, male fat tissue flight inflammation differently; BioPROTACs cut out middleman, and small molecule; ‘Gut bug’ has intratumoral effects; Decoy exosomes fight bacterial toxin; Unexpected mechanism, combination possibilities for CDK 4/6 inhibitors; In SIV infection, gut integrity is retained, not repaired.

An experimental gene editing therapy for an inherited form of blindness has become the first in vivo CRISPR medicine to be administered to patients, according to Editas Medicine Inc. and its partner, Allergan plc, which licensed the candidate in 2018.

Sadly, a major part of the answer to why drugs are so expensive appears to be “because they can be.” But the high cost of drugs has also spurred a number of attempts to find medicines that are innovative but remain affordable. Drug repurposing, or using a drug that has been developed for one ailment to treat a different one, is one such strategy.

Lowering levels of tau protein improved multiple symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in two different mouse models of the disease, both of which are driven by hyperactivity of the mTOR PI3 kinase pathway.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Finding the next pandemic threat early on; Microglial fresh start helps heal brain trauma; Finding the silent majority; Anatomy study reveals schizophrenia subtypes; Increasing immune activity improves autoimmunity; How cancer cells hibernate…; …And who makes their bed; Blocking trash trashes MSI-hi tumors; New splicing factor implicated in muscular dystrophy.

Everything’s good for something. Including, it turns out, 5’ untranslated trinucleotide repeats. In the Feb. 17, 2020, issue of Nature Neuroscience, researchers have demonstrated a role for such repeats in controlling protein levels of fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP).

LONDON – Six weeks on from the initial alert, “the window of opportunity” to control the COVID-19 epidemic is “narrowing,” according to the latest assessment from World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Noncoding RNA protects blood vessel walls; PD-1 blockade interferes with opioid analgesia; T-cell population is biomarker for beta cell function; Glutaminase 1 is NASH target; Oligodendrocyte-neural connections not just about myelin; Sharper look yields new potential kinase target in ovarian cancer; Structural insights could enable specific activation of GPCRs; Autophagy activation may prevent metastasis; AI finds structurally unique antibiotics.

Beyond every binary is a more complex reality. And so it is with driver and passenger mutations. The separation of tumor mutations into drivers and passengers underpins much progress in the development of targeted therapies. By looking at passenger mutations more carefully, though, researchers at Yale University have shown that passenger mutations, too, played a role in how tumors progressed.