Research News

A study of mice found that dietary sugar alters the gut microbiome, setting off a chain of events that leads to metabolic disease, pre-diabetes, and weight gain.

The findings, published today in Cell(link is external and opens in a new window), suggest that diet matters, but an optimal microbiome is equally important for the prevention of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and obesity.
Diet alters microbiome.

A three-drug medication known as a polypill, developed by the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) and Ferrer, is effective in preventing secondary adverse cardiovascular events in people who have previously had a heart attack, reducing cardiovascular mortality by 33 percent in this patient population.  These are findings from the SECURE trial led by Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, and General Director of CNIC.

Local supply of a medicine used to prevent malaria across Africa received a boost recently, as the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a quality certification to the first African manufacturer of a key antimalarial drug used to prevent infection in pregnant women and children. Called pre- qualification, this certification will enable Kenyan manufacturer Universal Corporation Ltd (UCL) to support regional efforts to combat malaria through local production of high-quality sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP).

New research from Cornell offers insights into a line of CRISPR systems, which could lead to promising antiviral and tissue engineering tools in animal and plants.

The research by Ailong Ke, the Robert J. Appel Professor of molecular biology and genetics in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Stan J.J. Brouns at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, focuses on a newly discovered CRISPR RNA-guided Caspase system, otherwise known as Craspase.

A new universal flu vaccine protects against diverse variants of both influenza A and B viruses in mice, according to a new study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

The researchers designed a single, universal influenza vaccine candidate with key cross-protective, less variable parts of the influenza A and B viruses: multi-neuraminidase protein subtypes known to be major antiviral drug targets and the universally conserved M2 ectodomain protein.

Israel based scientists found out that the rates of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19 were significantly lower among those who received nirmatrelvir in patients 65 years of age or older.

At the beginning of the surge of the omicron variant in January 2022, the Israeli authorities decided to pursue two lines of defense to protect the vulnerable and high-risk populations from severe Covid-19: a second booster dose and antiviral therapy.

In the war against cancer, one of the most critical battles is waged on a cellular level as T cells from the immune system are altered in the lab to attack cancer cells. This form of immunotherapy, called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, can be a life-saving treatment resulting in tumor control lasting ten years or longer. 

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have developed a new gene therapy approach that shows promise for treating the dry form of Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) – a progressive eye disease that affects up to 10% of adults over 65 years of age and is a leading cause of severe vision impairment and blindness in this age group.

Many tumor cells mist themselves with a protective perfume that disables the immune system. But a drug already approved for other purposes can apparently render this weapon harmless. This is shown in a study by the University of Bonn and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, which has now appeared in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. The researchers now want to further optimize the compound. In the medium term, this could pave the way for new anti-cancer drugs.