One of the difficulties for preventing the evolution of a tumor is that cancer progression can be promoted by undifferentiated or migrating cells whose states could follow different directions. At the 40th edition of Barcelona Biomed conferences at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), which took place from Nov. 27 to 29, 2023, and is entitled “Cancer in Context: Cellular, Tissue, and Organismal Determinants of Malignant Fates,” Angela Nieto presented her latest data on epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT).

Some autoimmune diseases are different in women and men. A group of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has found a strong female bias in the response of a neurotransmitter receptor that is involved in many neurological processes.

Why cancer? The mechanisms that drive and maintain tumorigenesis are still a mystery. This is a play with different actors who have different roles in several contexts. One of these scenarios is represented by genetic and epigenetic conditions that determine the early trajectories of cancer cells. In addition, different mechanisms will control phenotypes and states that can take one or another direction toward cancer.

A laboratory technique used to generate pluripotent stem cells from any tissue, cellular reprogramming, has led a group of researchers to the discovery of a process that could have an impact on natural tissue repair.

Some autoimmune diseases are different in women and men. A group of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has found a strong female bias in the response of a neurotransmitter receptor that is involved in many neurological processes. Their study identified the hyperactivity of the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) in the intestine and associated it with the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS) in female mice.

The bacterium Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) forms organelles that help them defend against iron in the colon. According to a group of scientists from Vanderbilt University, this pathogen, which causes serious gastrointestinal infections, expresses fez genes to build structures called ferrosomes that store excess iron that is toxic to it. Its ferrosomes are surrounded by membrane and could be a target against this microorganism.

The generation of in vitro small blood vessels mimicking the alterations of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) allowed a British research group to identify a way to seal leaks to treat conditions such as stroke or vascular dementia. The inhibition of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), enzymes that participate in the formation of new vessels, restored the normal union of the cells, preventing the permeability of the system.

A new derivative of coumarin, a natural plant product abundant in cinnamon, could hold the key to healthy aging. Researchers at the Buck Institute have shown that it extended life span and prevented neurodegenerative disease in worms and mice. The drug, a TFEB gene inducer called MIC, promoted mitochondria recycling (mitophagy) but also interacted with lysosomes, which could have multiple applications. The scientists published the results of this aging and mitophagy study on Nov. 13, 2023, in Nature Aging.

Some strategies seek to alter molecular mechanisms that can redirect the programmed death of tumor cells. If you can’t selectively eliminate them or stop their proliferation, ask them to die, but don’t tell any other cells. That is the idea proposed by a group of researchers participating in a Chinese-American collaboration for the design of the new drug N6F11. In a mouse model, the compound caused death by ferroptosis only of cancer cells without altering immune cells.

Scientists at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have designed a group of synthetic molecules that could prevent the rejection of allogeneic cell transplants. Their strategy consisted of activating the immune checkpoints of different populations of immune cells from the cell surface, but avoiding the cytotoxicity of natural killer (NK) cells and macrophages that would destroy the transplanted cells.