Research & University News

Two scientists who identified proteins which act as a break on the immune system have been awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery, which is the scientific basis for the ‘immune checkpoint’ class of medicines. James P. Allison, who discovered CTLA-4, and Tasuku Honjo, who discovered PD-1, were cited by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet for their landmark work in the global fight against cancer. Both proteins can prevent the immune system from recognising cancer cells.

Scientists from University College London have identified a second source of endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels, potentially opening up a path for exploring the use of stem cells to grow new blood vessels and repair damaged ones.

A study published in the journal Science on 7 September 2018 gives new insights into how exercise can improve memory and possibly help prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease. The corollary is that pharmaceutical treatments might be designed to mimic this effect.

Research carried out by scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany suggests that colon cancer is stimulated by cell stress and bacteria and not by inflammation, as previously thought.

A study in Plos Biology by researchers from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München has described a metabolic network in mice that is not controlled by the brain but rather by the ‘circadian clock’ inside muscle cells.

The inference of this discovery, reported on 10 August, is that diseases like diabetes and obesity are influenced by the body’s internal clock rather than just the endocrine system or the brain.

Scientists in Vienna, Austria have used organoid technology to grow brain tumours in the laboratory, enabling them to replicate the process of brain carcinogenesis, potentially making the discovery of new biomarkers and treatments for these cancers easier.

A study published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research concludes that elevated levels of kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1), a transmembrane protein in blood plasma, can predict renal cell carcinoma (RCC) incidence up to five years before a diagnosis.

An early warning of kidney cancer could make the difference between life and death. When diagnosed early, eight out of 10 people will survive for five years or more. But if the disease is diagnosed late, only one out of 10 survive, according to the charity Cancer Research UK.

A study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine by researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Denver in the US suggests that idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) may be related to an increase in extracellular vesicles that relay WNT5A signals to the lungs for an increase in connective tissue.

Extracellular vesicles are tiny pouches released by cells that can contain a large number of messenger substances, such as proteins and nucleic acids.

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK have reported unexpected genetic changes in mouse embryonic stem cells following the use of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool. They warn that the scientific community may be overestimating the potential for gene editing as a human therapy, and urge that more work be done to better understand the safety profile of the technology.

An international research group has reported promising data from an early clinical trial of a prophylactic vaccine against HIV-1 in healthy volunteers and a parallel study of the same vaccine in rhesus monkeys. The study results were published online in The Lancet on 6 July.