Category Biology/Biotechnology

Ultrastructural details exhibited by a single, spherical-shaped, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) virion. Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

Researchers have long known that RNA viruses called coronaviruses cause the common cold and pneumonia. In the last two decades or so, though, researchers have found that these viruses can jump between animal and human hosts. In recent years, coronaviruses have caused lethal outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) that span multiple continents. To date, no retroviral drug has been approved to treat these infections. “These viruses are poised to cause outbreaks,” says molecular virologist Ralph C...

Compared with a normal mouse cochlea (top), cisplatin exposure reduces the number of outer hair cells (middle). But the loss of these cells is prevented by treatment with the CDK2 inhibitor kenpaullone (bottom). Credit: Teitz et al., 2018

Researchers from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered that inhibiting an enzyme called cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) protects mice and rats from noise- or drug-induced hearing loss. The study, which will be published March 7 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, suggests that CDK2 inhibitors prevent the death of inner ear cells, which has the potential to save the hearing of millions of people around the world.

According to the World Health Organization, 360 million people worldwide, including 32 million children, suffer from hearin...

Top left: PGC1 deficiency leads to severe muscle damage, evidenced by numerous centralized nuclei (highlighted with arrows), which is likely due to impaired mitochondrial energy metabolism (bottom left: blue staining shows impaired mitochondrial activity). Such muscle damage and mitochondrial impairment is largely rescued by ERR? overexpression (top and bottom right). Credit: Salk Institute

If you’ve ever wondered how strenuous exercise translates into better endurance, researchers at the Salk Institute may have your answer. In a study published in the journal Cell Reports on March 6, 2018, scientists in Ronald Evans’ lab have shown that the protein ERRγ (ERR gamma) helps deliver many of the benefits associated with endurance exercise...

Gene therapy successfully treated a canine version of Best disease, a blinding disorder, the effects lasting more than five years. In these images of the retina of untreated (left) and treated (right) dogs, one can see that BEST1 gene expression (in red) was restored following treatment. In addition, the threrapy restored the structure of the RPE (green layer), a layer of cells that supports the light-sensing photoreceptor cells.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a gene therapy that successfully treats a form of macular degeneration in a canine model. The work sets the stage for translating the findings into a human therapy for an inherited disease that results in a progressive loss of central vision and which is currently untreatable...