A research team based at MIT and Harvard has engineered a bacterial injection system to precisely deliver proteins to human cells. This work, published online March 29, 2023, in Nature, is important as while more and more molecular therapies are being developed, off-target effects are always a concern and precise targeting of cells and tissues can still be a challenge. Read More
HIV infects immune cells, mainly CD4+ T cells. But they are not the only ones. It also settles in the genome of myeloid cells, monocytes or macrophages. According to a study from Johns Hopkins University, the viral DNA inserted into myeloid cells is functional. The virus also reactivated from the monocyte-derived macrophage reservoir. New cure strategies need to take these cells into account to eradicate the virus from the body. Read More
Arcus Biosciences Inc. has reported the discovery and SAR-driven optimization and characterization of potent novel tyrosine-protein kinase receptor UFO (AXL) inhibitors for the potential treatment of cancer. Read More
Research at Japan Tobacco Inc. has led to the development of 6-aminopyrazolopyrimidine compounds acting as NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors and reported to be useful for the treatment of arteriosclerosis, gout, inflammatory bowel disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Read More
Recent studies indicate that the hyperactivation of the PD-1/PD-L1 axis in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain has an influence on disease pathophysiology. With this in mind, researchers from Sungkyunkwan University evaluated INR-301, a novel superior blood-brain barrier (BBB)-penetrating anti-PD-L1 antibody, in an AD model. Read More
Ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase 1 (USP1) inhibitors have been reported in a Simcere Zaiming Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. patent as potentially useful for the treatment of cancer. Read More
Cholesgen (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. has prepared and tested tricyclic diterpene analogues acting as Hedgehog (Hh) signaling inhibitors and apoptosis inducers. As such, they are reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer. Read More
One of the well-established mechanisms of multidrug resistance (MDR) to chemotherapy in cancer patients is ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter overexpression in cancer cell membrane, and as the most extensively characterized ABC transporter, P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is considered a potential target to overcome MDR. In a recent publication, researchers from Xuzhou Medical University detailed the discovery of novel P-gp inhibitors as candidates to overcome MDR to chemotherapy. Read More
