Researchers have identified a protein that can reverse cardiac hypertrophy, the thickening of the heart muscle that is one of the key features of diastolic heart failure.

The immune system is able to kick out many viral invaders after a few days to weeks. But others, from herpes to hepatitis C, can come to be in a permanent standoff with the immune system, controlled but not eliminated altogether.

By taking a detailed look at toxicities of a bispecific antibody that targets the transferrin receptor to cross the blood-brain-barrier, researchers at Genentech Inc. have gained new insights into both "important safety concerns and potential mitigation strategies" for the therapeutic development of such antibodies.

Researchers have discovered that the TLR5 agonist Entolimod (CBLB502, Cleveland BioLabs Inc.), which is in development as a radioprotective agent, work primarily on receptors in the liver, and that it may be useful to fight liver metastases and, more broadly, as a liver-protective agent.

Scientists have found that a protein complex present in breast milk can act as an adjuvant for a range of antibiotics, sensitizing Staphylococcus aureus bacteria to antibiotics to which they have become resistant.

Much aging research has approached its subject by looking at the molecular processes that drive or slow down aging in individual cells. Sirtuin research is one example, as are investigations into telomeres or the aging marker p16ink4a.

One of the most basic ways to classify neurons is by the transmitter they use to communicate. And that transmitter was long thought to be "immutable," Davide Dulcis told BioWorld Today. One dogma of neuroscience has long been that "no matter what you do to a neuron, once it's GABAergic, dopaminergic or what have you, it's not going to change for the rest of its life."

Listeria monocytogenes' main medical claim to fame is that it causes food poisoning. But by combining a weakened strain of the bacterium with a radioactive payload, scientists have used Listeria to kill metastases from pancreatic cancer.

With more than 15,000 patients in the U.S. waiting for a liver, and nearly 100,000 for a kidney, the most dramatic need for artificial organs is for transplant.

Clinical trials marking progress toward a broad-acting, all-oral regimen for treating hepatitis C were reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and at the International Liver Congress of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, this week.