Research News

Aspirin should be favoured over warfarin to prevent blood clotting in children who undergo a surgery that replumbs their hearts, according to a new study.

The research, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, will have implications for clinicians when prescribing blood thinning medications after Fontan surgery, a complex congenital heart disease operation redirecting blood flow from the lower body to the lungs.

An antioxidant found in green tea may increase levels of p53, a natural anti-cancer protein, known as the “guardian of the genome” for its ability to repair DNA damage or destroy cancerous cells. Published today in Nature Communications, a study of the direct interaction between p53 and the green tea compound, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), points to a new target for cancer drug discovery.

Patients with advanced kidney cancer, who received a targeted drug combined with a checkpoint-blocker immunotherapy agent had longer survival than patients treated with the standard targeted drug, said an investigator from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, reporting results from a phase 3 clinical trial.

Research over the last 20 years has shown that atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory condition of the arterial blood vessel wall. Soluble mediators such as cytokines and chemokines are pivotal players in this disease, promoting vascular inflammation. However, the development of anti-inflammatory therapeutics directed against such mediators that could prevent atherosclerosis has proven difficult, despite promising clinical studies in the recent past.

Inhibiting a key enzyme that controls a large network of proteins important in cell division and growth paves the way for a new class of drugs that could stop glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, from growing.

Researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and University of Toronto, showed that chemically inhibiting the enzyme PRMT5 can suppress the growth of glioblastoma cells.

Humans possess a formidable multi-layered defense system that protects us against viral infections. Better understanding of these defenses and the tricks that viruses use to evade them could open novel avenues for treating viral infections and possibly other diseases.

The University of Kentucky has been selected as a testing site for the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson’s Phase 3 clinical research study ENSEMBLE 2, which is evaluating the safety and efficacy of a two-dose regimen of Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Although widely used in manufacturing, robots require much more agility for use in nursing and rehabilitation. With this in mind, an interdisciplinary research team led by Professor James Chang of the Department of Power Mechanical Engineering has recently applied the latest advances in AI, biomechanics, and human-factor engineering to develop a robot that can imitate the meticulous movements of a human hand. Endowed with sharp senses of vision and touch, the robot’s hands are nimble enough to catch a ball and pull out a tissue.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited announced new data from the Phase 1/2 trial of mobocertinib (TAK-788) orally administered in previously treated patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) Exon20 insertion+ metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) will be presented as a late-breaking oral session at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) on Friday, January 29 SGT.