Molecular Awards

  Three years ago, Portnoy cofounded a startup, Laguna Biotherapeutics, that worked with scientists in his University of California, Berkeley lab to eliminate the bacteria's ability to cause disease while retaining its ability to rev up production of a type of immune system cell associated with increased survival in cancer patients. These so-called  gamma delta T cells  are general-purpose killers of cancer cells or any cell infected by a pathogen—bacteria, virus, or fungus. Laguna Bio will soon ask the FDA for clearance to evaluate the therapy in children with leukemia who have received unmatched bone marrow transplants. Stanford University Medical Center doctors hope that the engineered Listeria will boost gamma delta T cells in pediatric patients and help them stave off graft-versus-host disease, fight potentially deadly infections that take advantage of a transplant patient's compromised immune system, and prevent the cancer from returning. Portnoy and his colleagues ...

  Scientists have uncovered new DNA-binding proteins from some of the most extreme environments on Earth and shown that they can improve rapid medical tests for infectious diseases. The work has been published in  Nucleic Acids Research . The international research team, led by Durham University and working with partners in Iceland, Norway and Poland, analyzed genetic material from Icelandic volcanic lakes and deep-sea vents more than two kilometers below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. Nature is the world's largest source of useful enzymes, but many remain undiscovered. By using next-generation DNA sequencing, the researchers were able to search huge databases containing millions of potential proteins. This approach allowed them to identify previously unknown proteins that bind to single-stranded DNA and remain stable under harsh conditions such as high temperatures, extreme pH or high salt levels. The newly discovered proteins were carefully studied using a range of...

  A new computational model of the brain based closely on its biology and physiology not only learned a simple visual category learning task exactly as well as lab animals, but even enabled the discovery of counterintuitive activity by a group of neurons that researchers working with animals to perform the same task had not noticed in their data before, says a team of scientists at Dartmouth College, MIT, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Notably, the model produced these achievements without ever being trained on any data from animal experiments. Instead, it was built from scratch to faithfully represent how neurons connect into circuits and then communicate electrically and chemically across broader brain regions to produce cognition and behavior. Then, when the research team asked the model to perform the same task that they had previously performed with the animals (looking at patterns of dots and deciding which of two broader categories they fit), it produce...

  A Northwestern Medicine study has shed light on one of the most intricate construction projects in biology: how cells build and coordinate the internal scaffolding needed to create a healthy egg. The research,  published  in the  Journal of Cell Biology , details how two structural cellular systems work together to form developing egg cells. For an egg cell to form, a group of nurse cells all empty their contents into what will become the egg cell. All organelles and proteins, everything, go to the egg cell," said Wen Lu, Ph.D., research assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and a co-author of the study. "This is a very dramatic process that is foundational to the development of life, yet exactly how this is accomplished has remained unclear." The study, conducted in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), identifies previously unknown collaboration between actin filaments and microtubules—two key components of the cytoskeleton—during egg development...

  It's easy to feel powerless against cancer, but a new study has identified several ways that we can reduce the odds of it occurring. According to new analysis from the World Health Organization (WHO), more than a third of all cancer cases globally are preventable. Lung, stomach, and cervical cancers make up nearly half of those cases. This means that millions of deadly cancers every year could be prevented through medical intervention, behavior changes, reducing occupational risks, or tackling environmental pollutants. "Addressing these preventable causes represents one of the most powerful opportunities to reduce the global cancer burden," says Isabelle Soerjomataram, medical epidemiologist at WHO and senior author of the analysis. Website Link: molecularbiologist.org/ Contact Mail ID : support@molecularbiologist.org Nomination Link  : https://molecularbiologist.org/award-nomination/?ecategory=Awards&rcategory=Awardee #LifestyleFactors...

  In the realm of organ transplantation, the integration of pharmacogenomics into clinical practice has emerged as a transformative approach that holds the potential to significantly enhance patient outcomes. The recent literature, particularly a review by researchers K.D. Belfield, E.A. Cohen, and G. Girone, sheds light on the profound implications of pharmacogenomics in transplantation. This exciting field explores how an individual’s genetic makeup can influence their response to medications, thereby revolutionizing personalized medicine in organ transplant recipients. At the heart of pharmacogenomics is the interaction between genetics and drug metabolism. Each patient possesses a unique genetic profile that impacts how their body processes medications. In the context of transplantation, this means that the standard immunosuppressive therapies often prescribed may not be equally effective for every individual. By understanding these genetic variances, clinicians can tailor medi...