Category Biology/Biotechnology

About 1 million people in the United States have ulcerative colitis, a serious disease of the colon that has no cure and whose cause is obscure. Now, a study by Stanford University School of Medicine investigators has tied the condition to a missing microbe.

The microbe makes metabolites that help keep the gut healthy. “This study helps us to better understand the disease,” said Aida Habtezion, MD, associate professor of gastroenterology and hepatology. “We hope it also leads to our being able to treat it with a naturally produced metabolite that’s already present in high amounts in a healthy gut.”

When the researchers compared two groups of patients – one group with ulcerative colitis, the other group with a rare noninflammatory condition – who had un...

Different types of food are linked to risks of different types of stroke, according to the largest study to investigate this, published in the European Heart Journal today (Monday).

Until now, most studies have looked at the association between food and total stroke (all types of stroke combined), or focused on ischaemic stroke o...

Cell atlas of human thymus could help engineer improved therapeutic T cells. A first cell atlas of the human thymus gland could lead to new immune therapies to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Newcastle University and Ghent University, Belgium, mapped thymus tissue through the human lifespan to understand how it develops and makes vital immune cells called T cells. In the future, this information could help researchers to generate an artificial thymus and engineer improved therapeutic T cells.

Published today (20 February) in Science, this human thymus atlas has revealed new cell types and identified signals that tell immature immune cells how to develop into T cells...

MIT researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to identify a drug called halicin that kills many strains of bacteria. Halicin (top row) prevented the development of antibiotic resistance in E. coli, while ciprofloxacin (bottom row) did not.

Image: courtesy of the Collins Lab at MIT

A deep-learning model identifies a powerful new drug that can kill many species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world’s most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models.

The computer model, which can screen more than a hundr...