Pharmaceutical scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have identified and characterised a unique multidomain enzyme capable of catalysing two distinct types of reactions, both vital for making drug molecules.

Natural products produced by living organisms such as plants, animals, and microorganisms, govern various survival and defence purposes. However, these compounds can be repurposed as drugs and medicines. Many well-known drugs, including ibuprofen and penicillin, are derived from these natural products.

Researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have identified a novel type of immune cell, called the stem-like CD4 T cell, that plays a pivotal role in anti-tumor immunity. The pre-clinical findings, published in Nature, highlight the potential to activate these cells to fight tumors more effectively, offering new hope for broader treatment success, particularly in patients with cancer that is unresponsive to current immunotherapies.

New research from biologists at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences reveals that mifepristone, a drug best known for its use for ending early pregnancies, might also extend lifespan. The findings could pave the way for anti-aging treatments.

Mifepristone, which is also used to treat Cushing's disease and certain cancers, has caught the attention of scientists exploring ways to promote longer, healthier lives.

Expanding access to new, highly effective weight-loss medications could prevent more than 40,000 deaths a year in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers at Yale School of Public Health and the University of Florida.

The findings highlight the critical need to remove existing barriers that are hindering people's access to effective weight loss treatments and impeding public health efforts to address the national obesity crisis, the researchers said.

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.