News & Features

SARS-CoV-2 affects many parts of the body. Although the primary manifestations of COVID-19 involve the respiratory system, gastrointestinal effects may play a critical role in both disease severity and transmission.

The study from researchers Wellcome Sanger Institute, in collaboration with the Candiolo Cancer Institute in Italy and the Netherlands Cancer Institute, showed for the first time that cancer cells resistant to existing treatments, including chemotherapy, targeted therapies or immunotherapies, require WRN for survival.

The researchers identified 25 new rare pathogenic variants associated with lung cancer susceptibility and validated five of those variants. Of those five, two variants involved genes with known connections to lung cancer risk, ATM and MPZL2. Three variants involved novel lung cancer susceptibility genes, POMC, STAU2 and MLNR.

The researchers used mRNA technology to code for Cas13a, which destroys parts of the RNA genetic code that viruses use to replicate in cells in the lungs. Using a guide strand, researchers can provide a map that basically tells the Cas13a protein where to attach to the viruses’ RNA and begin to destroy it.

Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine report that they have found that microbes in the gut may contribute to certain symptoms associated with complex neurological disorders, which also suggests that microbe-inspired therapies may one day help to treat them.

A new approach developed at Emory University School of Medicine combines genome-wide association study data with human brain proteomic data and has identified 19 genes and 25 brain proteins that could cause depression.

A new sweat sensor can detect seven inflammatory proteins seen at high levels in patients experiencing the kind of extreme immune reaction seen in COVID-19 and in some flu patients, which researchers hope will speed up treatment.

Known as Explainable Multi-Omics Graph Integration (EMOGI), the machine learning method predicted 165 new cancer genes by combining multiomics pan-cancer data—such as mutations, copy number changes, DNA methylation and gene expression—together with protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks.

The researchers found that mutations in KMT2C and KMT2D make non-small cell lung cancer more sensitive to Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, which are already approved for treating prostate, pancreatic, ovarian, and breast cancer patients.

According to the new study, the tumor-penetrating peptide known as iRGD appears to enhance the effects of chemotherapy, reducing metastasis, and increasing survival, to a degree determined by levels of β5 integrin. Essentially, β5 integrin gives chemotherapeutic agents the opportunity to destroy the tumor from within.