Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have identified a signaling pathway that simultaneously increased energy expenditure and decreased food intake. In both human and primate studies, agonists of the tachykinin NK2 receptor (NK2R) led to both decreased food intake and increased energy expenditure. And in behavioral tests, they were not aversive, suggesting they do not cause the nausea that is a major side effect of GLP-1 agonists.
Fat cells from patients who had lost weight after bariatric surgery, as well as from animals who had gained and then lost weight, were transcriptionally distinct from cells that had not experienced such weight changes at the organism level. In the animal studies, those transcriptional changes were due to epigenetic changes. The findings, which were published online in Nature on Nov. 18, 2024, are a possible molecular-level explanation for the short-term nature of most weight loss.
At the BioFuture 2024 conference held in New York in November, Seema Kumar, the CEO of Cure, described women’s health as something that has been directed at the “bikini area.” That “bikini” bias extended to both diseases and their causes – women’s health covered the breasts and reproductive system, and its causes were hormonal. Both concepts are far too narrow.
According to World Health Organization data, endometriosis affects about 10% of reproductive-age females globally. That already makes endometriosis a wildly underresearched and underfunded disease in relation to its prevalence. Plus, Rama Kommagani thinks even 10% is an underestimation.
According to World Health Organization data, endometriosis affects about 10% of reproductive-age females globally. That already makes endometriosis a wildly underresearched and underfunded disease in relation to its prevalence. Plus, Rama Kommagani thinks even 10% is an underestimation. “Diagnosis is very underreported, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” Kommagani, who is an associate professor of pathology at Baylor College of Medicine, told BioWorld.
According to World Health Organization data, endometriosis affects about 10% of reproductive-age females globally. That already makes endometriosis a wildly underresearched and underfunded disease in relation to its prevalence. Plus, Rama Kommagani thinks even 10% is an underestimation. “Diagnosis is very underreported, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” Kommagani, who is an associate professor of pathology at Baylor College of Medicine, told BioWorld.
It’s hard to know where to start in describing the biopharma applications of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. It was awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”
It’s hard to know where to start in describing the biopharma applications of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. It was awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”
The E4 variant of the APO gene, the R47H variant of the TREM2 gene, and female sex are three of the strongest risk factors for the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). By combining all three of them in a mouse model of tauopathy, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical School have identified microglial inflammation and senescence as processes that occurred more strongly in female mice as tauopathy developed.
Breakthrough – or even better, revolutionary breakthrough – is perhaps the most overused term in drug development. But the discovery and development of GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), which was honored with the 2024 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award just last week, is one of the rare innovations that is deserving of the title.
