Research News

Enzymes, which are crucial to controlling how cells replicate in the human body, could be the very ingredient that encourages DNA to spontaneously mutate – causing potentially permanent genetic errors, according to new research from the University of Surrey.

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have revamped an anti-cancer drug to better target cancer cells and leave healthy tissues unharmed. Scientists have dubbed this type of targeted approach a “prodrug” — a medicine designed to release its payload in a particular area of the body and in no other areas. The Johns Hopkins-discovered prodrug, called DRP-104 (sirpiglenastat), is in early-stage clinical trials in people with advanced solid tumors.

The process by which the mRNA codes for a particular protein is known as translation. It is the final step in which an mRNA carrying information from DNA synthesises proteins. It is a necessary process performed by almost all living cells, leaving erythrocytes (Reb Blood Cells or RBCs), which are believed to be the only exception. A research team led by Sandeep M Eswarappa, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, has identified that mature human RBCs can also make their proteins.

Currently, various classes of drugs are available for the treatment of mental illnesses - such as depression and anxiety disorders. However, although these drugs confer benefits, they are also associated with adverse side-effects. Conseqeuntly, medical researchers continuously thrive to improve the pharmacological properties of therapeutic agents to optimize the benefit-to-side-effect ratio.

A recent study by the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital shows that carnitine intake in the first postnatal weeks promotes better growth and larger brain size at term equivalent age in very preterm infants. Carnitine intake from breast milk in particular seems to be associated with better growth. The findings were published in Nutrients.

Advances inin vivoiron-based coordination assembly have enabled the simultaneous detection and treatment of iron-overload disorders. Specific interactions between local FeIIIand organic ligands (e.g., indocyanine green and lecithin) facilitate magnetic resonance imaging with enhanced sensitivity and photoacoustic imaging with high contrast, thus overcoming the longstanding limitations of traditional iron quantification approaches.

Tata 1mg, a digital healthcare platform, on Friday announced that one-third of the people who tested for HbA1c at Tata 1mg Labs, were found to have diabetes, with the highest incidence reported among the 40-60 years age group.

In Alzheimer's disease, the degeneration of brain cells is linked to formation of toxic protein aggregates and deposits known as amyloid plaques. Similar processes play an important role also in type 2 diabetes. A research team under the lead of the Technical University of Munich has now developed “mini-proteins”, so-called peptides, which are able to bind the proteins that form amyloids and prevent their aggregation into cytotoxic amyloids.

How can a drug be delivered exactly where it is needed, while limiting the risk of side effects? The use of nanoparticles to encapsulate a drug to protect it and the body until it reaches its point of action is being increasingly studied. However, this requires identifying the right nanoparticle for each drug according to a series of precise parameters.