Category Biology/Biotechnology

New research advances the possibility of regenerating cardiac tissue after a heart attack. Once the heart is fully formed, the cells that make up heart muscle, known as cardiomyocytes, have very limited ability to reproduce themselves. After a heart attack, cardiomyocytes die off; unable to make new ones, the heart instead forms scar tissue. Over time, this can set people up for heart failure.

New work published April 17th in Nature Communications advances the possibility of reviving the heart’s regenerative capacities using microRNAs – small molecules that regulate gene function and are abundant in developing hearts.

In 2013, Da-Zhi Wang, PhD, a cardiology researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital an...

Researchers have developed synthetic peptides that target and inhibit the small, toxic protein aggregates that are thought to trigger Alzheimer’s disease. Neurons in the human brain make a protein called amyloid beta. Such proteins on their own, called monomers of amyloid beta, perform important tasks for neurons. But in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid beta monomers have abandoned their jobs and joined together. First, they form oligomers – small clumps of up to a dozen proteins – then longer strands and finally large deposits called plaques...

In a proof-of-principle study in mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report the creation of a specialized gel that acts like a lymph node to successfully activate and multiply cancer-fighting immune system T-cells. The work puts scientists a step closer, they say, to injecting such artificial lymph nodes into people and sparking T-cells to fight disease.

In the past few years, a wave of discoveries has advanced new techniques to use T-cells – a type of white blood cell – in cancer treatment. To be successful, the cells must be primed, or taught, to spot and react to molecular flags that dot the surfaces of cancer cells...

A small clinical trial has shown that gene therapy can safely correct the immune systems of infants newly diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening inherited disorder in which infection-fighting immune cells do not develop or function normally. Eight infants with the disorder, called X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (X-SCID), received an experimental gene therapy co-developed by National Institutes of Health scientists. They experienced substantial improvements in immune system function and were growing normally up to two years after treatment...