Combining discoveries in cancer immunology with sophisticated genetic engineering, Columbia University researchers have created a sort of "bacterial suicide squad" that targets tumors, attracting the host’s own immune cells to the cancer to destroy it. The new work, published today in Science Advances, marks a major step forward in efforts to enlist non-pathogenic bacteria to combat cancer.

A pilot trial by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, tested the nasal administration of the drug Foralumab, an anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody. Investigators found evidence that the drug dampened the inflammatory T cell response and decreased lung inflammation in patients with COVID-19.

Pancreatic cancer is an incurable form of cancer, and gene therapies are currently in clinical testing to treat this deadly disease. A comprehensive review of the gene and cell biotherapies in development to combat pancreatic cancer is published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Gene Therapy.

Cancer cells have an innate randomness in their ability to respond to chemotherapy, which is another tool in their arsenal of resisting treatment, new research led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research shows.

Understanding why some tumour cells become resistant to chemotherapy is a core challenge in cancer research, as chemotherapy is still a frontline treatment for most cancers.

The words that researchers use to describe their results can be harnessed to discover potential new treatments for Parkinson's disease, according to a new study published in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Angus McQuibban of the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues. The study employed an artificial intelligence (AI) system to identify an existing anti-cholesterol drug that has the ability to promote disposal of mitochondria, energy-making components of the cell which are damaged in the disease.

Inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis have complex disease mechanisms that can differ from patient to patient with the same diagnosis. This means that currently available drugs have little effect on many patients. Using so-called digital twins, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now obtained a deeper understanding of the "off and on" proteins that control these diseases.

The RNA molecule is commonly recognized as messenger between DNA and protein, but it can also be folded into intricate molecular machines. An example of a naturally occurring RNA machine is the ribosome, that functions as a protein factory in all cells. Inspired by natural RNA machines, researchers at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) have developed a method called "RNA origami", which makes it possible to design artificial RNA nanostructures that fold from a single stand of RNA.