Category Health/Medical

On the left is the schematic design of the TRAIL/Dox loaded platelet membrane-coated nanogel delivery system. The TRAIL is attached on the surface of membrane and Dox is loaded in the core of nanogel. On the right is a transmission electron microscope image of the drug delivery system. Black is the synthetic core nanogel, the outside shell is the platelet membrane. Credit: Quanyin Hu

It allows the drugs to last longer in the body and attack both primary cancer tumors and circulating tumor cells that can cause a cancer to metastasize. The work was tested successfully in an animal model. “There are two key advantages to using platelet membranes to coat anticancer drugs,” says assistant Prof Zhen Gu. “First, the surface of cancer cells has an affinity for platelets – they stick to each other...

Those with classically positive lifestyles, behaviors had different brain connections to those with classically negative ones
The researchers point out that their results resemble what psychologists refer to as the ‘general intelligence g-factor’: a variable first proposed in 1904 that’s sometimes used to summarize a person’s abilities at different cognitive tasks. While the new results include many real-life measures not included in the g-factor – such as income and life satisfaction, for instance — those such as memory, pattern recognition and reading ability are strongly mirrored.

A team of scientists led by the University’s Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain has investigated the connections in the brains of 461 people and compared them with 280 different behavioural and demographi...

CDK8 is asymmetrically loaded at SEs in MOLM-14 cells.

“Once we learned this molecule named cortistatin A was very potent and selective in terms of inhibiting the growth of AML cells, we tested it in mouse models of AML and found that it was as efficacious as any other molecule we had seen, without having deleterious effects,” Shair said. “This suggests we have identified a promising new therapeutic approach.” It’s one that could be available to test in patients relatively soon.
“We synthesized cortistatin A and we are working to develop novel therapeutics based on it by optimizing its drug-like properties,” Shair said.

MOA: The molecule inhibits a pair of nearly identical kinases, called CDK8 and CDK19, that his work indicates play a key role in the growth of AML cells...

The protein/peptide system can grow on demand by simply displacing the interface. Credit: QMUL

Researchers have developed a way of assembling organic molecules into complex tubular tissue-like structures without the use of moulds or techniques like 3-D printing. The study describes how peptides and proteins can be used to create materials that exhibit dynamic behaviors found in biological tissues like growth, morphogenesis, and healing.

The method uses solutions of peptide and protein molecules that, upon touching each other, self-assemble to form a dynamic tissue at the point at which they meet. As the material assembles itself it can be easily guided to grow into complex shapes.

This discovery could lead to the engineering of tissues like veins, arteries, or even the blood-brain barrier,...