Category Biology/Biotechnology

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of North Carolina in the USA have mapped out the cell types behind various brain disorders. The findings are published in Nature Genetics and offer a roadmap for the development of new therapies to target neurological and psychiatric disorders. One interesting finding was that cells from the gut’s nervous system are involved in Parkinson’s disease, indicating that the disease may start there.

The nervous system is composed of hundreds of different cell types with very different functions...

Immunotherapy combo that encourages immune cells to consume tumors could lead to long-term remission for glioblastoma. A combination of immunotherapy agents that encourages some immune cells to eat cancer cells and alert others to attack tumors put mice with a deadly type of brain cancer called glioblastoma into long-term remission, a new study led by UT Southwestern scientists suggests. The finding, published online March 20, 2020, in Nature Communications, could lead to new therapies that may significantly extend survival for human glioblastoma patients, which stands at an average of 15 months after diagnosis even with current state-of-the-art therapies.

The immune system has two branches: innate immunity, an evolutionarily older system that continually scans the b...

Phase 1 trial shows promise for completion of stalled eradication effort; offers lessons for COVID-19 vaccine development. Virologists report promising Phase 1 clinical results for the first new oral polio vaccine in 50 years, which they have designed to be incapable of evolving the ability to cause disease in humans.

Before being halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a relentless vaccination campaign had nearly succeeded in eradicating polio from the world...

Researchers report that a combination of cotton with natural silk or chiffon can effectively filter out aerosol particles – if the fit is good.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear masks in public. Because N95 and surgical masks are scarce and should be reserved for health care workers, many people are making their own coverings. Now, researchers report in ACS Nano that a combination of cotton with natural silk or chiffon can effectively filter out aerosol particles – if the fit is good.

SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is thought to spread mainly through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks or breathes...