NEWS and OPINIONS
Research Spotlight: Preventing stalling to improve CAR-T cells’ efficacy against tumors
By Mass General Brigham - Marcela Maus, MD, PhD, director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program and the Paula J. O'Keeffe Endowed Chair of the Mass General Cancer Center, is senior author and Stefanie Bailey, PhD, Hana Takei, and Giulia Escobar, PhD of the Krantz...
Son’s diabetes diagnosis sent scientist on quest for cure
by Kermit Pattison - The Harvard Gazette - Decades later, Doug Melton and team are testing treatment that could make insulin shots obsolete. Doug Melton’s life irrevocably changed the day his child was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. But unlike most other...
Blocking a single enzyme rewires limb regrowth in axolotls
By Vijay Kumar Malesu - Medical life Sciences News - In a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers in the United States explored how cytochrome P450 family 26 subfamily B member 1 (CYP26B1)-mediated retinoic acid (RA) breakdown...
Dozens of states sue to block the sale of 23andMe personal genetic data
By The Associated Press - PORTLAND, Ore. — Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a lawsuit in bankruptcy court seeking to block the sale of personal genetic data by 23andMe without customer consent. The lawsuit comes as a biotechnology...
Stem cell therapies advance in Parkinson’s disease and beyond
By Natalie Healey - Nature Medicine - Landmark trials using stem cells to treat Parkinson’s disease in the USA and Japan mark a turning point for cell therapy in neurodegeneration. Similar approaches to Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are also...
No More Transplants? New Gene Therapy Targets Blood Stem Cells Directly
By Fondazione Telethon - SciTechDaily - Researchers have identified an early postnatal window that allows gene transfer to circulating blood stem cells, advancing the development of potential treatments for genetic disorders. A team of scientists from the San...
How our bones are repaired by skeletal stem cells: Scientist discover four major subtypes
by Sarah Williams, Stanford University - MedicalXpress - Whether you are a competitive athlete or an older adult, strong bones are essential—not only for movement, but also for overall health. Now, a new study has shed new light on how our bones are maintained and...
After groundbreaking CRISPR therapy, a homecoming
By Meghana Keshavan - Stat News - From my colleague Jason Mast: KJ Muldoon, the first infant treated with a personalized gene-editing drug, has been discharged from the hospital for the first time in his life, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia announced Tuesday....
Natural molecule reverses age- and dementia-related cognitive decline
By Paul McClure - News Atlas - In a new study, researchers identified a molecule produced by a particular type of brain cell that reversed the cognitive decline seen in both healthy aging and dementia. It provides a deeper understanding of the aging process and a...
CAR T-Cell Therapy: New Advances Move On Past Setbacks
By Tiffany Yesavag - Genetic Bioengineering & Biotechnology News - Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is an innovative cancer treatment that engineers a patient’s own T cells to target and destroy cancer cells. While the field has sparked significant...
Stem cell model replicates human amniotic sac development past two weeks
by The Francis Crick Institute - Phys.Org - Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have developed a new stem cell model of the mature human amniotic sac, which replicates development of the tissues supporting the embryo from two to four weeks after fertilization....
Infant becomes world’s first patient to undergo personalized gene-editing treatment
By Jon LaPook - CBS NEWS - Philadelphia — Soon after KJ Muldoon was born in the summer of 2024, he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder that is fatal for about half the infants who are born with it. Until now, the only effective long-term treatment for the rare...