Cancer treatment has been transformed, at its root, by a transformational change in how it is classified. These days, which organ a tumor arises in is often less important than its molecular drivers, which can be sensitive either to specific targeted treatments, or increase the chance that a tumor will respond to immunotherapy. Those successes have not escaped the notice of researchers in other areas of biomedicine, and diseases including heart failure, asthma and polycystic ovarian syndrome are being looked at with an eye to subdividing them in ways that brings diagnostics into the molecular era. Nowhere do those changes have greater potential than in disorders of the brain – in part because there is nowhere much to go but up as far as classifying neurological diseases goes.
Keeping you up to date on recent developments in oncology, including: Artificial intelligence plus dual-stain testing beats cytology for cervical cancer detection; Protein degradation system targeted to KRAS; Preventing T-cell rejection; Beating cytokine toxicity one layer at a time.
BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: X chromosome is finished;
Protein degradation system targeted to KRAS; Bacteriophages find, fight microbiome’s dark side; Preventing T-cell rejection; Mitochondria, interneurons, cognition link explored.
Keeping you up to date on recent developments in diagnostics, including: Predicting likelihood of rare disease; X chromosome is finished; Cotesting improves detection of cervical cancer; Single-cell studies give insights into pulmonary fibrosis.
Keeping you up to date on recent developments in cardiology, including: Noncoding mutations contribute to heart disease; Link between heart, kidney inflammation following heart attack; Study: Women on beta blockers face higher risk of heart failure with acute coronary syndrome.
The checkpoint molecule CD47 has high hopes riding on it in oncology as being the innate immune equivalent of PD-1. Multiple companies are developing blockers against CD47 and/or its ligand, SIRPa, for the treatment of various tumors.
BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Base editor targets mitochondrial DNA; Everyone’s an immune cell; Brief anemia helps out nanoparticle drugs; Crosstalk between sex, stress hormones affects immunity; Astrocytes, endocannabinoids, metabolism cooperate to affect behavior; CDK-like kinase plays role in sensing pain; RNA editing restores Rett protein; Single-cell studies give insights into pulmonary fibrosis.
Keeping you up to date on recent developments in diagnostics, including: Diagnosing fatty liver disease; Assessing COVID-19 with lung ultrasound; Noncoding mutations contribute to heart disease.
Exercise is a powerful way to keep the elderly brain working well, not just in individuals that are healthy, but also in those with neurodegenerative disease. Even individuals with familial Alzheimer’s, though they will develop dementia regardless of whether they exercise or not, will have relatively better cognitive function if they exercise than if they don’t.
Forty years after HIV became a global pandemic, there are now more than 30 drugs approved to treat it. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ director, Anthony Fauci, and clinical director, Clifford Lane, opined in the July 2, 2020, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine that “considering the spectacular scientific advances that have been made over nearly four decades, it is conceivable that with optimal implementation of available prevention strategies and treatments, the end of HIV/AIDS as a global pandemic will be attainable.”
