Mice lacking the PD-1 receptor, which shuts off T cells, affected behavior by altering amino acid levels. Researchers from the Japanese Riken Institute looked into the metabolic effects of unchecked T cells, and showed that T cells that lacked PD-1 accumulated amino acids due to their increased metabolism, including tryptophan and tyrosine, both of which are precursors for neurotransmitter synthesis.

Two separate papers reported advances in nucleic acid editing today that further expand the read of such editing, which has already been transformed since the onset of CRISPR in ways that are only beginning to be understood, and exploited.

The BRCA genes were first discovered for their roles in gynecological cancers, with the most deleterious mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 raising a woman’s lifetime risk of breast or ovarian cancer from 7 percent to somewhere between 45 and 65 percent.

Calcium flux into neurons is a key event in memory formation as well as neuronal signaling more generally, and calcium levels in neurons are tightly regulated by calcium binding proteins.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells crossed the finish line as a cancer therapy, when the FDA approved Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel, formerly CTL-019, Novartis AG), in August.

The hallucinogenic drug psilocybin has a long history of religious and medicinal use, and is currently being tested in combination with therapy to treat a number of psychiatric conditions including addictions, obsessive compulsive disorder and treatment-resistant major depression.

A Gordian knot-like approach may be feasible in gene therapy for Rett syndrome. Researchers at the British University of Edinburgh have demonstrated that treating mice with a "radically truncated" gene that encoded about a third of the full-length MeCP2 protein, which is mutated in Rett syndrome, allowed the animals to survive long term with minimal symptoms.