Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School (DukeNUS), in collaboration with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)'s Bioinformatics Institute (BII), and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), USA, have discovered that the dengue virus changes its shape through mutations in Envelope (E) protein to evade vaccines and therapeutics.

Researchers have identified a potential new drug target in the fight against cancer. In a study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers describe how a cancer-linked version of the protein mitoNEET can close the primary gateways in the outer surface of mitochondria, the "power plants" that supply cells with chemical energy.

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a method to address failures in a promising anti-cancer drug, bringing together tools from genome engineering, protein engineering and biomaterials science to improve the efficacy, accuracy and longevity of certain cancer therapies.

A potential treatment for polycystic kidney disease - a genetic disorder that causes the kidneys to swell with multiple cysts and can eventually lead to organ failure - has shown promising results in animal testing. A study describing the drug's development and testing appears today in Nature Communications. The study shows an approximately 50 percent reduction in kidney size in afflicted mice following treatment.

A research team from the University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center has found that a compound molecule used for drug delivery of insulin could be used to treat glioblastoma, an aggressive, usually fatal form of brain cancer. Glioblastoma, also known as GBM, is a fast-growing, web-like tumor that arises from supportive tissue around the brain and resists surgical treatment.

A new drug discovered through a research collaboration between the University at Buffalo and Tetra Therapeutics may protect against memory loss, nerve damage and other symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Preclinical research found that the drug - called BPN14770 - deters the effects of amyloid beta, a hallmark protein of Alzheimer's that is toxic to nerve cells.

Insilico Medicine, a global leader in artificial intelligence for drug discovery, announced the publication of a paper titled, "Deep learning enables rapid identification of potent DDR1 kinase inhibitors," in Nature Biotechnology. The paper describes a timed challenge, where the new artificial intelligence system called Generative Tensorial Reinforcement Learning (GENTRL) designed six novel inhibitors of DDR1, a kinase target implicated in fibrosis and other diseases, in 21 days.