Category Health/Medical

A scientist demonstrates application of the experimental therapy to the inner elbow. For demonstration purposes, the bacteria solution has been replaced with purple dye. Credit: NIAID

Topical treatment with live Roseomonas mucosa – a bacterium naturally present on the skin – was safe for adults and children with atopic dermatitis (eczema) and was associated with reduced disease severity, according to initial findings from an ongoing early-phase clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health. Preclinical work in a mouse model of atopic dermatitis had suggested that R. mucosa strains collected from healthy skin can relieve disease symptoms. The new findings, published May 3 in JCI Insight, support further evaluation of this potential new therapy.

Atopic dermatitis is an inflammatory ski...

Mice that mimic Alagille syndrome are born without the branches of the biliary tree (A), but show a near-normal appearing biliary system at adult age (B). To build the missing branches, liver cells switch identity and form tubes, shown in green, that connect to the trunk of the biliary tree, shown in blue (C). The images are part of a study about liver regeneration published in Nature by scientists at Cincinnati Children’s and the University of California San Francisco. Credit: Cincinnati Children’s

By studying a rare liver disease called Alagille syndrome, scientists from Cincinnati Children’s and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have discovered the mechanism behind an unusual form of tissue regeneration that may someday reduce the need for expensive and difficult-to-obta...

A model of a double-bridged peptide (the peptide in light blue, the two bridges in yellow). The background of the figures shows many examples of skeletons (also named ‘scaffolds’ or ‘backbones’) of double-bridged peptides. Credit: C. Heinis/EPFL

Scientists have developed a new type of ‘double-bridged peptide’ that can be tailored to bind tightly to disease targets of interest. The peptides’ highly efficient binding, combined with their small size and high stability make them ideal for drug therapies...

Drs. Esteban Celis and Hussein Sultan in the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University laboratory. Credit: Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University

New research published in Cancer Immunology Research by Drs. Esteban Celis and Hussein Sultan of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University could serve as the stepping-stone in constructing vaccines with a greater likelihood of finding and attacking tumors in the human body. According to Celis and Sultan, the key in this vaccine strategy is increasing the amount of time a cytokine called interleukin 2 (IL2) stays in the body. IL2 is a molecule in the immune system responsible for regulating the activity of some white blood cells known as killer T cells.

“After administering peptide-based vaccines in mouse models of cancer, we ...