Category Biology/Biotechnology

Washington University to lead national clinical trial investigating therapy. A new study – in mice – suggests that blocking a major inflammatory pathway that is activated in pancreatic cancer makes the tumors sensitive to chemotherapy and a type of immunotherapy that prompts the immune system’s T cells to attack the cancer cells. The therapy more than doubled survival in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most...

Even light-to-moderate drinking is associated with harm to the brain, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed data from more than 36,000 adults that found a link between drinking and reduced brain volume that begins at an average consumption level of less than one alcohol unit a day — the equivalent of about half a beer — and rises with each additional drink.

The research, using a dataset of more than 36,000 adults, revealed that going from one to two drinks a day was linked with changes in the brain equivalent to aging two years. Heavier drinking was associated with an even greater toll. The science on heavy drinking and the brain is clear: The two don’t have a healthy relationship...

Researchers have made tiny ‘skyscrapers’ for communities of bacteria, helping them to generate electricity from just sunlight and water.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used 3D printing to create grids of high-rise ‘nano-housing’ where sun-loving bacteria can grow quickly. The researchers were then able to extract the bacteria’s waste electrons, left over from photosynthesis, which could be used to power small electronics.

Other research teams have extracted energy from photosynthetic bacteria, but the Cambridge researchers have found that providing them with the right kind of home increases the amount of energy they can extract by over an order of magnitude...

Validating genetic diagnosis of neurological and neuromuscular diseases using faster, smaller, cheaper sequencing technologies. A new DNA test, developed by researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney and collaborators from Australia, UK and Israel, has been shown to identify a range of hard-to-diagnose neurological and neuromuscular genetic diseases quicker and more-accurately than existing tests.

‘We correctly diagnosed all patients with conditions that were already known, including Huntington’s disease, fragile X syndrome, hereditary cerebellar ataxias, myotonic dystrophies, myoclonic epilepsies, motor neuron disease and more,’ says Dr Ira Deveson, Head of Genomics Technologies at the Garvan Institute and senior author of the study.

The diseases covered ...