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Category: biotech/medical

Sugar-coated CAR-T cells survive longer and shrink lymphoma tumors in mice

Scientists at Florida International University may have found a way to make a powerful cancer treatment work even better. The treatment, called CAR-T therapy, uses a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer. Doctors remove special immune cells called T-cells from the body, genetically change them in a lab so they can recognize cancer, and then put them back into the patient to attack tumors. The therapy has already helped many people with serious blood cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia.

But there is still a problem: Cancer fights back. Tumors create a protective environment around themselves that can weaken or shut down immune cells before they finish destroying the cancer. In many cases, CAR-T cells do not survive long enough to completely wipe out the disease.

Now, FIU researchers say they may have found a way to help.

Scientists found the strength training sweet spot for a longer life

Just 90–120 minutes of strength training a week may deliver some of the biggest long-term health rewards, according to a study tracking more than 147,000 people for 30 years. That amount was linked to lower risks of death overall, particularly from cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Combining strength workouts with aerobic exercise produced even stronger benefits.

Collagen exists as liquid droplets inside living cells, study reveals

Collagen, the protein that builds skin, bones, tendons and organs, exists inside cells as a liquid-like droplet rather than the long, rigid rod seen in textbooks over the last half century, according to a new study from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona.

The World in 100 Years FULL EPISODE | Science Fiction Documentary

What will the world really look like in 100 years?

Forget flying cars, impossible megacities, and science-fiction fantasies. This documentary explores a realistic vision of life in the year 2,126 based on current trends in artificial intelligence, climate adaptation, biotechnology, energy, space exploration, economics, and human evolution.

How will cities change as the planet warms? What happens when AI becomes part of everyday life? Will humans live to 120 years? Will neural implants blur the line between biology and technology? Could Mars become a permanent home for thousands of people? And what happens to society when work, truth, privacy, and even human identity are redefined?

Travel one century into the future and discover a world that is both familiar and radically different from our own. A world shaped by the choices humanity is making right now.

From climate-engineered cities and fusion-powered civilizations to Martian settlements, artificial intelligence, genetic medicine, digital consciousness, and the search for life beyond Earth, this is a deep exploration of the most plausible future awaiting our species.

The future isn’t written.

Continue reading “The World in 100 Years FULL EPISODE | Science Fiction Documentary” | >

Harnessing the stem cell potential in the human hippocampus to limit cognitive aging

The field of human adult neurogenesis has been controversial despite mounting evidence. This Perspective proposes moving beyond debating the existence of adult neurogenesis, and towards discovering strategies to harness endogenous stem cell potential for resilience against cognitive aging.

Antibody-guided nanoparticles target blood cancer cells in bone marrow

New research co-led by Indiana University School of Medicine scientists presents a significant step toward more precise and effective cancer treatments by using a breakthrough method to deliver therapies directly to cancer cells. The study was recently published in ACS Nano.

“One of the biggest challenges in cancer treatment is that many drugs not only attack cancer cells but also harm healthy cells throughout the body,” said Ngoc Tung Tran, Ph.D., the study’s co-lead author and an assistant professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology at the IU School of Medicine. “This can lead to serious side effects and limit how well the treatment works. Our goal is to develop a smarter way to deliver cancer therapy directly to cancer cells while avoiding normal tissues.”

In the study, researchers focused on multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that mainly grows in plasma cells found in the bone marrow. Using mouse models, they carried therapeutic molecules into cells by using a delivery system of tiny, fat-based particles called lipid nanoparticles, or LNPs.

UIC scientists source anti-cancer treatment in bacteria

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have developed an anti-cancer therapy inspired by bacteria found in cancer tumors.

When tested in combination with radiation in animal models of prostate cancer, it was highly effective — the approach effectively shut down tumor growth. The therapy is made from a fragment of a bacterial protein, a peptide called aurB. In cancer tumors in the animal models, aurB prevented energy production in the tumor cells’ mitochondria, essentially cutting off the tumor’s fuel, the researchers report in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

“The mitochondria are very important for a cell to survive; they are the energy factories,” said Tohru Yamada, senior author on the study, associate professor in the departments of surgery and biomedical engineering at UIC and a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center. “Many cancer cells exhibit altered mitochondrial number and activity, because a cancer cell has to grow aggressively and rapidly. Therefore, the mitochondria would be an ideal target for cancer therapy.”

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for Infectious Disease Surveillance, Diagnosis, and Prognosis

Advances in high-throughput technologies, digital phenotyping, and increased accessibility of publicly available datasets offer opportunities for big data to be applied in infectious disease surveillance, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome prediction. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have emerged as promising tools to analyze complex clinical and molecular data. However, it remains unclear which AI or ML models are most suitable for infectious disease management, as most existing studies use non-scoping literature reviews to recommend AI and ML models for data analysis. This scoping literature review thus examines the ML models and applications that are most relevant for infectious disease management, with a proposed actionable workflow for implementing ML models in clinical practice.

Scientists discover a two-stage aging process that may cause cancer and arthritis

Inherited genetic mutations may also stay silent for decades before increasing the risk of diseases such as cancer or fibrosis later in life.

Evolutionary Biology and Aging Research

The researchers say their model builds on long-standing evolutionary theories of aging. One influential idea is that natural selection becomes weaker later in life, allowing harmful biological processes to emerge with age because they have less impact on reproduction and survival earlier in life.

New antibody may boost KRAS-targeted lung cancer treatment after resistance emerges

An experimental antibody treatment that binds to a protein known as PCDH7 shrank tumors in preclinical models of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including those resistant to a targeted therapy, a study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers showed. The findings, published in Science Advances, could eventually lead to a new class of drugs to treat NSCLC and potentially other cancers.

“Overcoming resistance to molecularly targeted therapies is a critical unmet need for lung cancer patients. We are excited that these antibodies may open another therapeutic avenue for lung cancer, especially for patients whose cancers have become resistant to KRAS inhibitors,” said Kathryn O’Donnell, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern. O’Donnell co-led the study with first author Nicole Novaresi, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the O’Donnell Lab, and collaborators at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

NSCLC accounts for about 85% of lung cancer cases in the U.S. and is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The O’Donnell Lab focuses on identifying and characterizing proteins on the surface of NSCLC and other cancer cells because of their potential as therapeutic targets. In 2017, O’Donnell and her colleagues identified PCDH7 as a driver of NSCLC, especially in tumors with mutations in a gene called KRAS. Found in about 25% of NSCLC cases, these mutations cause uncontrolled cell proliferation that propels tumor growth.

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