Category Health/Medical

Design of a TAM-targeting supramolecular therapeutic.

Supramolecule provides a double whammy to knock out cancer’s ‘eat-me-not’ signaling, keep macrophages on the attack. Researchers have found that cancer cells evade destruction by macrophages in 2 ways – by converting cells to become docile, M2 macrophages, and by sending out an ‘eat me not’ signal that tricks M1 macrophages into letting them be. Investigators have developed a therapeutic that delivers a double whammy to knock out both mechanisms.

Macrophages play a paradoxical role, with M1 macrophages rousing the immune system to action and M2 macrophages quelling inflammation...

Leakage of the vascular tracer (red) from dermal blood vessels (green) in systemic inflammation.
Credit: Laura Hakanpaa / Saharinen Lab.

Increased capillary permeability and subsequent leakage from the capillaries is associated with numerous difficult-to-cure diseases, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), severe Dengue fever and malaria, and sepsis. Currently, there is no effective therapy to inhibit capillary leakage and to maintain vessel stability in these diseases. The latest research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that a monoclonal antibody targeted against β1-integrin inhibits vascular leakage in a mouse model of sepsis.

Integrins are heterodimeric cell surface receptors that mediate interactions between cells and the surro...

UCLA scientists developed artificial T cells that, like natural T cells, can deform to squeeze between tiny gaps in the body, as shown in this schematic.
Credit: Fatemeh Majedi

Discovery could be a step toward developing treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. UCLA researchers have developed synthetic T lymphocytes, or T cells, that are near-perfect facsimiles of human T cells. The ability to create the artificial cells could be a key step toward more effective drugs to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases and could lead to a better understanding of human immune cells’ behavior. Such cells also could eventually be used to boost the immune system of people with cancer or immune deficiencies.

The research team comprised scientists from the UCLA School of Dentistry, the UCLA Samueli Sch...

Elisabetta Barbi, Francesco Lagona, Marco Marsili, James W. Vaupel, Kenneth W. Wachter. The plateau of human mortality: Demography of longevity pioneers. Science, 2018; 360 (6396): 1459 DOI: 10.1126/science.aat3119

Want to be a supercentenarian? The chances of reaching the ripe old age of 110 are within reach – if you survive the perilous 90s and make it to 105 when death rates level out, according to a study of extremely old Italians led by the University of California, Berkeley, and Sapienza University of Rome.

Researchers tracked the death trajectories of nearly 4,000 residents of Italy who were aged 105 and older between 2009 and 2015. They found that the chances of survival for these longevity warriors plateaued once they made it past 105...