At the 2024 European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress, researchers have presented work that could lead to ways to boost brain development and prevent neurodegeneration in individuals with Down syndrome.
By treating mice with antifibrotic drugs, researchers were able to stave off functional decline of the ovaries. Six weeks of systemic treatment with the antifibrotic pirfenidone, which is approved for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in early middle age improved both the morphology and the endocrine function of the animals’ ovaries at 1 year of age.
By treating mice with antifibrotic drugs, researchers were able to stave off functional decline of the ovaries. Six weeks of systemic treatment with the antifibrotic pirfenidone, which is approved for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in early middle age improved both the morphology and the endocrine function of the animals’ ovaries at 1 year of age.
One of the current challenges of immunotherapy is the hunt for good targets, and the Claudins – a family of roughly two dozen transmembrane proteins – would appear to have a lot going for them. “Some Claudins distribute in a tissue-specific manner, and malignant transformation causes their exposition,” Cinta Hierro told the audience at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2024 Congress. “Others are rarely expressed in healthy tissue.”
Metastatic solid tumors may be curable now. Among the most profound results presented over the weekend at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2024 Congress were the 10-year data from the Checkmate-067 and Keynote-006 trials, the phase III trials that tested Opdivo (nivolumab, Bristol Myers Squibb Co.) and Keytruda (pembrolizumab, Merck & Co. Inc.) as first-line agents in advanced or metastatic melanoma.
By looking at the electrical activity of tumor cells, rather than the neurons that innervate them, investigators at Baylor College of Medicine have added both basic and translational insights to the emerging field of cancer neuroscience. In their studies, which were published in Cancer Cell on Sept. 5, 2024, the researchers identified the cell of origin for IDH-mutated gliomas.
By looking at the electrical activity of tumor cells, rather than the neurons that innervate them, investigators at Baylor College of Medicine have added both basic and translational insights to the emerging field of cancer neuroscience. In their studies, which were published in Cancer Cell on Sept. 5, 2024, the researchers identified the cell of origin for IDH-mutated gliomas.
The risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) is nearly four times as high for women as it is for men. And that relative risk has increased sharply over time. In 1955, women were only slightly more likely than men to develop MS. A research team at the University of Toronto and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) has gained new insights into possible causes for this increasing disparity.
“There are hundreds of strains of bird flu, and most of them don’t infect humans, or even mammals,” Stephen Cusack told BioWorld. “There are two main reasons for that.” To be able to cause an infection, a virus “has to be able to get into the cell, and for that it needs a receptor,” Cusack said. For influenza viruses, those receptors are hemagglutinin receptors, and they differ in subtle but important ways between birds and mammals.
Researchers at Rockefeller University have identified a signaling loop between breast cancer cells and sensory neurons that promoted tumor metastasis, and showed that in animal models, treatment with the approved anti-nausea medication aprepitant could disrupt that loop.
