Many drugs work by inhibiting protein enzymes associated with a particular disease. Unfortunately, the same drugs can inhibit protein enzymes unrelated to the disease, resulting in harmful side effects. One potential solution is to better identify structural features that determine a protein enzyme's function.

A team of researchers has developed an ultrasound-based system that can non-invasively and remotely control genetic processes in live immune T cells so that they recognize and kill cancer cells. There is a critical need to non-invasively and remotely manipulate cells at a distance, particularly for translational applications in animals and humans, researchers said.

In a new study published in The Journal of Urology®, researchers determined that men who followed a Mediterranean diet, rich in fish, boiled potatoes, whole fruits, vegetables, legumes, and olive oil, and low consumption of juices had lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer (PC) than those who followed other dietary patterns like Prudent or Western diets.

Led by Professor Peter J. Sadler from Warwick's Department of Chemistry, researchers have developed a new line of attack against cancer: an organic-osmium compound, which is triggered using a non-toxic dose of sodium formate, a natural product found in many organisms, including nettles and ants.

A type of soil-dwelling bacterium produces molecules that induce death in melanoma cells, research at Oregon State University shows. The molecule is a secondary metabolite, also known as a natural product, of Streptomyces bottropensis, and its properties are important because there are not many therapies that effectively manage melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have used precision editing of the bacterial populations in the gut to prevent or reduce the severity of inflammation in a mouse model of colitis. The potential strategy - which targets metabolic pathways that are active only during intestinal inflammation - prevented or reduced inflammation in a mouse model of colitis while exerting no obvious effect in control animals with healthy, balanced bacterial populations, said Dr. Sebastian Winter, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and co-corresponding author of the study published online today in Nature.

A drug developed for diabetes could be used to treat Alzheimer's after scientists found it "significantly reversed memory loss" in mice through a triple method of action. The research, published in Brain Research, could bring substantial improvements in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease through the use of a drug originally created to treat type 2 diabetes.