Cancer cells have an insatiable appetite for energy as they multiply more rapidly than normal cells. Greedy cancer cells hijack various cellular functions to find and exploit energy and other resources, including a group of enzymes that help normal cells maintain a balance of energy.

These enzymes, called creatine kinases (CK), allow cells to transport energy produced at the mitochondria to where it is needed throughout the cell.

A research team led by Prof. LIU Chenli from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Prof. XIAO Yichuan from the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health of CAS elucidated the mechanism behind bacterial cancer therapy using a genetically engineered bacterial strain.

Exploring the use of antitumor bacteria in cancer therapy dates back to the 1860s.

Can a drug that's used to treat malaria be repurposed to fight cancer? Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have secured a patent for the anti-malarial drug pyronaridine to do just that. Pyronaridine has been used to treat the mosquito-borne infectious disease for over 30 years.

The discovery is the result of a serendipitous encounter at UTEP.

LMU researchers have shown that a particular type of immune cell acts more flexibly than previously thought - with potential for new therapeutic approaches.

As part of the innate immune system, dendritic cells are in the body's first line of defense against infections. They detect pathogens and coordinate the immune response.

Working toward more effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed two strains of mycobacteria with "kill switches" that can be triggered to stop the bacteria after they activate an immune response. Two preclinical studies, published, Jan. 10 in Nature Microbiology, tackle the challenge of engineering bacteria that are safe for use in controlled human infection trials or as better vaccines.

Vaccines to treat cancers have been around since 2010, the first being approved for prostate cancer, and another in 2015 for melanoma. Since then, many therapeutic - as opposed to preventive - cancer vaccines have been in development, but none approved. One hurdle is the difficulty in finding antigens in tumors that look foreign enough to trigger an immune response.

New research suggests that antidepressants can accelerate cognitive decline in people with dementia. At the same time, some drugs appear to be less harmful than others, which can help doctors make better treatment decisions, according to the study published in BMC Medicine.

Antidepressants are often used to relieve symptoms such as anxiety, depression, aggressiveness, and sleep disturbances in dementia sufferers.