Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have definitively linked the function of a specific domain of proteins important in plant-microbe biology to a cancer trigger in humans, knowledge that had eluded scientists for decades. The team’s findings, published in Nature Communications Biology, open up a new avenue for the development of selective drug therapies to fight a variety of cancers such as those that begin in the breast and stomach. ORNL scientists set out to prove…
Insight into the way the EGF receptor sends signals into cells could help researchers design new cancer drugs that target this protein. Receptors found on cell surfaces bind to hormones, proteins, and other molecules, helping cells respond to their environment. MIT chemists have now discovered how one of these receptors changes its shape when it binds to its target, and how those changes trigger cells to grow and proliferate. This receptor, known as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), is overexpressed…
Study identifies a new signaling molecule that increases the energy consumption of brown fat cells. Normally, fat cells store energy. In brown fat cells, however, energy is dissipated as heat – brown fat thus serves as a biological heater. Most mammals therefore have this mechanism. In humans it keeps newborns warm, in human adults, brown fat activation positively correlates with cardio-metabolic health. “Nowadays, however, we’re toasty warm even in winter,” explains Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer from the Institute of Pharmacology…
Researchers from Kiel and Düsseldorf use the example of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis to investigate the contribution of the microbiome to thermal adaptation of living organisms. All multicellular organisms are colonized by an unimaginably large number of microorganisms and have co-evolved with them from the very beginning of life’s evolutionary history. The natural microbiome, i.e. the totality of these bacteria, viruses and fungi living in and on a body, is of fundamental importance for the organism as a whole:…
… and show drug effectiveness. With no current treatments for hepatitis A, UNC School of Medicine scientists discovered how a protein and enzymes interact to allow hepatitis A virus to replicate, and they used a known drug to stop viral replication in an animal model. The viral replication cycle is crucial for a virus to spread inside the body and cause disease. Focusing on that cycle in the hepatitis A virus (HAV), UNC School of Medicine scientists discovered that replication…
Infections with the “old” omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 provide little protection against the SARS-CoV-2 subvariant BA.5 causing a “summer wave” of cases in Germany. The Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 of SARS-CoV-2 have dominated the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2022. In many countries, these viruses are now outcompeted by emerging subvariants, with BA.5 being responsible for the current uptick of cases in Germany. However, it is at present largely unclear whether the “new” Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5…
Fraunhofer accelerates the energy transition. Until now, the most common way to dispose of green waste and sewage sludge has been to compost or incinerate it. However, using these materials to produce the valuable energy source hydrogen would make far more sense. A team of researchers at the Fraunhofer IPA is working towards this very goal. CO2 capture is key to this development: The CO2 that is generated during the production of hydrogen from waste is separated and then used…
Basis for the development of a new class of antibiotics. Researchers from University Hospital Frankfurt and Goethe University Frankfurt have unravelled how bacteria adhere to host cells and thus taken the first step towards developing a new class of antibiotics. The adhesion of bacteria to host cells is always the first and one of the decisivesteps in the development of infectious diseases. The purpose of this adhesion by infectious pathogens is first to colonize the host organism (i.e., the human…
Scientists from McGill University have developed a gentler, more precise technique using low-power visible light. Laser cutting techniques are usually powered by high energy beams, so hot that they melt most materials. Now scientists from McGill University have developed a gentler, more precise technique using low-power visible light. The new process called ‘cold photo-carving’ uses a fraction of the energy required in traditional laser cutting techniques. “We engineered crystal building blocks that can be cut by low-power light with amazing…
Fraunhofer project FibroPaths®: More than 100 million individuals worldwide suffer from organ fibrosis, a pathological proliferation of connective tissue in an organ, such as the lung, heart and liver. Hardly any causal treatments are available to date. The unmet medical need is partly due to the fact that the existing disease models for fibrosis research are insufficient and little predictive. Coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM, four Fraunhofer institutes have joined forces in the FibroPaths®…
Rice, MD Anderson study highlights potential of mitochondria-targeted chemotherapies. Researchers from Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered potential new drugs that work in concert with other drugs to deliver a deadly one-two punch to leukemia. The potential drugs are still years away from being tested in cancer patients, but a recently published study in the journal Leukemia highlights their promise and the innovative methods that led to their discovery. In previous studies, the…
New tumor diagnostic method. If breast cancer is suspected, doctors carry out a biopsy. However, this is invasive, painful and costly. It also takes several days to get the results. In the future, diagnosis could be made via a liquid biopsy of a patient’s blood — a gentle, cost-effective method that would deliver the results within just a few hours. A team of researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP is working alongside partners on this innovative…
Chemoproteomics draw the target landscape of HDAC drugs. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are a class of drugs used in oncology. An international research team involving scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Cornell University in Ithaca (USA), the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg has now investigated the effects of some HDAC drugs in more detail. The scientists researched whether those epidrugs affect proteins other than the HDACs which they are designed…
… against pathogens and cancers. A new atlas of tissue-resident memory T cells offers hope for new therapies based on protective ‘first responders’. Scientists exploring how our immune system responds to pathogens and cancers have ramped up their attention to CD8+ T cells, which are deployed in response to infections and malignancies and equipped to remember the identities of malicious invaders. While some of these critical “memory” cells circulate throughout the body, others are known to remain lodged within bodily…
Team surrounding Alexander Haas launches “A Guide to the Tadpoles of Borneo”. Important, yet often neglected: Tadpoles play a critical role in the ecology of aquatic habitats. On 279 pages, a new book presents descriptions for 99 species from the southeast Asian island of Borneo, covering all species commonly found, as well as representatives of the more cryptic ones. LIB-scientist Alexander Haas and his team of international collaborators worked over 20 years on its completion and just released “A Guide…
A research team lead by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, has now made substantial progress in understanding how gut bacteria succeed in their human hosts on a molecular level. They investigated how bacteria produce inositol lipids, substances vital for many cellular processes in humans and other eukaryotes but hitherto rarely observed in bacteria. The results, now published in the journal Nature Microbiology, indicate that inositol lipids have implications for the symbiosis between the bacteria and their…
Feedback
