Category Health/Medical

Inhaled, prophylactic resveratrol treatments can slow the rate of lung function decline, alveolar enlargement and alveolar epithelial type 2 cell DNA damage

For the 1st time inhaled resveratrol was shown to slow aging-related degenerative changes in mouse lung. Lung aging, characterized by airspace enlargement and decreasing lung function, is a significant risk factor for chronic human lung diseases. The study is published online in the journal Thorax. Resveratrol (RSL), a chemical found in red wine, is an antimicrobial chemical substance produced by plants to protect against infection and stress-related changes. It has previously been shown to support muscle metabolism when given orally.

RSL prophylaxis by inhalation was a novel measure taken by the research team as a potential approach f...

Rosiglitazone

An anti-diabetic drug can inhibit the growth of melanoma in older patients by activating an anti-aging gene that in turn inhibits a protein involved in metastatic progression and resistance to targeted therapies for the disease. Even more than other types of cancer, melanoma is a disease of aging, with older patients more frequently diagnosed with the disease and having a worse prognosis. Targeted therapies have brought benefits in terms of overall survival compared to chemotherapy but they are limited by intrinsic or acquired resistance.

Wistar scientists have previously shown that age-related changes in the tumor microenvironment – or the surrounding area where tumor cells crosstalk with normal and immune cells – can drive melanoma progression and therapy resistance...

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs): (a) anatomy and evolution of CAR design, and (b) CAR T cells recognize specific antigens on cancer cell surface and trigger T-cell–mediated killing.

Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have harnessed the power of CRISPR/Cas9 to create more-potent chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that enhance tumor rejection in mice. The unexpected findings uncover facets of CAR immunobiology and underscore the potential of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to advance immunotherapies for cancer.

CRISPR is a genome-editing tool that enables scientists to cut and manipulate a cell’s DNA with high precision. In the Nature paper, MSK investigators show that CRISPR technology can deliver the CAR gene to a very specific location in the genome of the T cell...