Integral Molecular, a leader in antibody discovery and characterization, has published new research in the journal mAbs, revealing that as many as one-third of antibody-based drugs exhibit nonspecific binding to unintended targets. A serious concern, off-target drug binding is a significant cause of adverse events in patients, with the potential to even cause death. Analysis of antibody off-target binding across different phases of clinical development suggests this to be a major cause of drug attrition. Early specificity testing could improve drug approvals and patient safety.

More than 39 million people around the world could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, according to a study published in The Lancet.

The new study by the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project is the first global analysis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) trends over time.

It reveals that more than one million people died each year as a result of AMR between 1990 and 2021.

Cancer has been described as "a wound that does not heal," implying that the immune system is unable to wipe out invading tumor cells. A new discovery confirms that a key molecule can reprogram immune cells that normally protect against infection and cancer, turning them into bad guys that promote cancer growth.

Studying the behavior of these "pro-tumor" immune cells is important because they could be targets for therapies that block their harmful activity, said Minsoo Kim, PhD, corresponding author of the study and a research leader at the Wilmot Cancer Institute.

Laughter may be as effective as eye drops in improving symptoms of dry eye disease, finds a clinical trial from China published by The BMJ.

The researchers suggest that laughter exercise could be an initial treatment for relieving symptoms of dry eye disease.

Dry eye disease (DED) is a chronic condition estimated to affect around 360 million individuals worldwide.

Bothnia dystrophy is a form of hereditary blindness, prevalent in the region Västerbotten in Sweden. A new study at Karolinska Institutet published in Nature Communications shows that gene therapy can improve vision in patients with the disease.

Bothnia dystrophy occurs mainly in the region Västerbotten in Sweden, but the disease has also been identified in other parts of the world.

A new study from King's College London shows that off-label prescriptions of a common antidepressant doesn't help breathlessness in patients with respiratory disease - and may cause side effects.

Researchers warn prescribing medicines for a use which it has not been licensed could make things worse, even though the prescriber was trying to help.

Scientists at Harvard Medical School have designed a versatile, ChatGPT-like AI model capable of performing an array of diagnostic tasks across multiple forms of cancers.

The new AI system, described Sept. 4 in Nature, goes a step beyond many current AI approaches to cancer diagnosis, the researchers said.

Current AI systems are typically trained to perform specific tasks - such as detecting cancer presence or predicting a tumor's genetic profile - and they tend to work only in a handful of cancer types.