Category Biology/Biotechnology

It took a global pandemic, but the critical role of messenger RNA in all of life’s functions has taken center stage in the past year with the successful rollout of mRNA vaccines to combat the SARS-Cov-2 virus.

In two new papers published the week of Jan. 17, the lab of Yale’s Wendy Gilbert sheds light on how mRNAs are born and how they regulate production of proteins inside of our cells once they reach maturity. The findings have implications not only for achieving effective doses for new vaccines, but for helping determine the biological roots of many cancers and diseases.

“It’s been exciting to be able to study the beginning and end of this process,” said Gilbert, associate professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry.

In classic textbook...

The level of magnesium in the blood is an important factor in the immune system’s ability to tackle pathogens and cancer cells. Writing in the journal Cell, researchers from the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have reported that T cells need a sufficient quantity of magnesium in order to operate efficiently. Their findings may have important implications for cancer patients.

Magnesium deficiency is associated with a variety of diseases, such as infections and cancer...

Discovery offers hope to better understand how diseases like cancer, premature aging can be prevented. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University have identified a new mechanism by which a protein known for repairing damaged DNA also protects the integrity of DNA by preserving its structural shape.

The discovery, involving the protein 53BP1, offers insight into understanding how cells maintain the integrity of DNA in the nucleus, which is critical for preventing diseases like premature aging and cancer.

A research team led by Youwei Zhang, an associate professor of pharmacology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and a member of the Molecular Oncology Program at the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, conducted the study. The findings were published (Jan...

A single blood sample from a critically ill COVID-19 patient can be analyzed by a machine learning model which uses blood plasma proteins to predict survival, weeks before the outcome, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health by Florian Kurth and Markus Ralser of the Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, and colleagues.

Healthcare systems around the world are struggling to accommodate high numbers of severely ill COVID-19 patients who need special medical attention, especially if they are identified as being at high risk...