Category Health/Medical

People who regularly consume yogurt or buttermilk have a greater diversity of gut bacteria. Credit: © BillionPhotos.com / Fotolia

A large-scale study into the effect of food and medicine on the bacterial diversity in the human gut was led by RUG/UMCG geneticist Cisca Wijmenga. Researchers collected stool samples from more than 1100 people taking part in the LifeLines programme, which is monitoring the health of 165,000 residents of the Northern Netherlands. The samples were used to analyze the DNA of the bacteria and other organisms that live in the gut. In addition to stools, the study collected information on the participants’ diet, medicine-use and health.

This study is unique in that it focused on a group of normal people whereas previous research was frequently focused on patients wi...

A human heart cell that was chemically reprogrammed from a human skin cell. Credit: Nan Cao, PhD, Gladstone Institutes

Breakthrough 1st purely chemical cellular reprogramming, changing a cell’s identity without adding external genes. The research lays the groundwork for one day being able to regenerate lost or damaged cells with pharmaceutical drugs.

This discovery offers a more efficient and reliable method to reprogram cells and avoids medical concerns surrounding genetic engineering. “This method brings us closer to being able to generate new cells at the site of injury in patients,” said Sheng Ding, PhD. “Our hope is to one day treat diseases like heart failure or Parkinson’s disease with drugs that help the heart and brain regenerate damaged areas from their own existing tissue cells...

Nicotinamide Riboside (NR)

Nicotinamide riboside rejuvenates stem cells, allowing better regeneration processes in aged mice. As mice, like all mammals, age, the regenerative capacity of certain organs (eg liver and kidneys) and muscles (including the heart) diminishes. Their ability to repair them following an injury is also affected. This leads to many of the disorders typical of aging.

Hongbo Zhang wanted to understand how the regeneration process deteriorated with age. To do so, he teamed up with colleagues from ETH Zurich, the Uni of Zurich and universities in Canada and Brazil. Through several markers, he was able to identify the molecular chain that regulates how mitochondria function and how they change with age...

In 27 of 29 participants whose responses were evaluated a few weeks after the infusion, a high-sensitivity test could detect no trace of their cancer in their bone marrow. The CAR T cells eliminated cancers anywhere in the body they appeared. Credit: © kukhunthod / Fotolia

‘Extraordinary’ but short-term results from early-stage trial of engineered immune cells.27 of29 patients with an advanced type of leukemia that had proved resistant to multiple other forms of therapy went into remission after their T cells were genetically engineered with a synthetic receptor molecule called a CAR (for chimeric antigen receptor) that empowers the T cells to recognize and kill cancer cells with marker CD19.

This trial was designed to evaluate the safety of administering the engineered cells and to lay t...