Since the passing of Professor Emeritus Alan Mackay-Sim AM in 2023, his ground-breaking legacy research is about to be realised with a Phase I human clinical trial commencing to test the efficacy and safety of the transplantation of olfactory cell nerve bridges to treat chronic spinal cord injury.

Griffith University researcher, Professor James St John, said olfactory ensheathing cells are the specialised cells within the olfactory (sense of smell) nerve within the nose that have numerous therapeutic properties for repairing and regenerating nerves.

The idea of using microorganisms as a source of new active ingredients is not new. Numerous drugs have already been developed on the basis of natural products from bacteria and fungi. These compete for available resources in their natural habitat, such as the soil, and use chemical signals to gain an advantage over their microbial competitors. It is therefore not surprising that a large proportion of the antibiotics available on the market is based on natural products from microorganisms.

Research published in Nature Genetics on Oct.14, by Yale Cancer Center researchers at Yale School of Medicine, found a higher concentration of a specific kind of DNA - extrachromosomal or ecDNA - in more aggressive and advanced cancers that could mark them as targets for future therapies.

Using data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas, the International Cancer Genomics Consortium, the Hartwig Medical Foundation, and the Glioma Longitudinal Analysis Consortium, the researchers considered more than 8,000 tumor samples, divided between newly diagnosed untreated tumors and those that had been through previous treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, and others.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 20% of children and teens are considered obese. Research shows it can have a dramatic impact on a variety of health conditions, including arthritis, heart conditions and other metabolic problems, and the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends early and intensive treatment to combat obesity. Over the last four years, Shriners Children's St. Louis researchers have been working to develop a new way to prevent the effects of childhood obesity.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences has identified an RNA molecule that is important for skin wound healing. The research, published in Nature Communications, may have implications for the treatment of hard-to-heal wounds.

The study focuses on the molecular processes in wound healing that regulate the transition from inflammation - a critical defence mechanism - to a proliferative phase, where new cells form to repair damaged tissue.

Imagine a world where your own immune cells are transformed into cancer-fighting superheroes. This is the promise of CAR-T cell therapy, a groundbreaking treatment that’s already saving lives.

In this therapy, patients' own immune cells are collected, genetically engineered so that they specifically target cancer cells, then returned to the body. The result is a potent new option for battling blood cancers. However, as with any superhero journey, the process of harnessing this incredible power comes with its own set of challenges.

Some proteins in the human body are easy to block with a drug; they have an obvious spot in their structure where a drug can fit, like a key in a lock. But other proteins are more difficult to target, with no clear drug-binding sites.

To design a drug that blocks a cancer-related protein, Scripps Research scientists took a hint from the protein's paralog, or "twin."