Relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a so-called blood cancer, has an extremely poor prognosis because of resistance to anti-cancer drugs and frailty of the patient’s organ functions. A type of anti-tumor immunotherapy called allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation, which can exert anti-cancer effect accompanied by severe toxicity, is often performed for patients who are hard to treat with chemotherapy, but relapse still remains.

Peek inside the human genome and, among the 20,000 or so genes that serve as building blocks of life, you’ll also find flecks of DNA left behind by viruses that infected primate ancestors tens of millions of years ago.

These ancient hitchhikers, known as endogenous retroviruses, were long considered inert or 'junk' DNA, defanged of any ability to do damage. New CU Boulder research published July 17 in the journal Science Advances shows that, when reawakened, they can play a critical role in helping cancer survive and thrive.

The Phase III ARANOTE trial, investigating darolutamide plus ADT in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC), has met its primary endpoint of rPFS. Darolutamide plus ADT significantly increased rPFS compared to placebo plus ADT. The safety data were comparable between both treatment arms and reconfirm the established tolerability profile of darolutamide in advanced prostate cancer.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) announced that based on results from the ongoing pharmacokinetic study (NCT06153758), the company has selected its preferred once-daily modified release formulation for danuglipron, an oral glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. Pfizer plans to conduct dose optimization studies in the second half of 2024 evaluating multiple doses of the preferred modified release formulation to inform the registration enabling studies.

Proteins have evolved to excel at everything from contracting muscles to digesting food to recognizing viruses. To engineer better proteins, including antibodies, scientists often iteratively mutate the amino acids - the units that are arranged in a sequence to make up proteins - in different positions until the resulting protein has an improved function, like eliciting a stronger immune response or capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more efficiently.

A method to screen a wide variety of drug candidates without laborious purification steps could advance the fight against drug-resistant bacteria.

Efforts to combat the increasing threat of drug-resistant bacteria are being assisted by a new approach for streamlining the search for antimicrobial drug candidates, pioneered by researchers at Hokkaido University, led by Assistant Professor Kazuki Yamamoto and Professor Satoshi Ichikawa of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Bayer AG and Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), a gene therapy company wholly owned and independently operated as a subsidiary of Bayer AG, today announced that the United States (U.S.) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track Designation for AB-1005, which is being developed for moderate Parkinson's disease. AB-1005 has also been awarded the Innovation Passport, the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (UK MHRA) innovative medicine designation, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Individuals diagnosed with prediabetes can reduce their long-term risk of death and diabetes-related health complications if they delay the onset of diabetes for just four years through diet and exercise. Guangwei Li of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital and colleagues report these findings in a new study published July 9th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

Type 2 diabetes is associated with an increased risk of death and disability, and imposes a significant economic burden on individuals and societies worldwide.

Certain types of light have proven to be an effective, minimally invasive treatment for cancers located on or near the skin when combined with a light-activated drug. But deep-seated cancers, surrounded by tissue, blood and bone, have been beyond the reach of light's therapeutic effects.

To bring light's benefits to these harder-to-access cancers, engineers and scientists at the University of Notre Dame have devised a wireless LED device that can be implanted.

A new approach to treating the most malignant type of brain cancer - glioblastoma - has shown strong promise in pre-clinical settings, raising hopes of increasing current average survival rates beyond 18 months.

Targeted alpha therapy (TAT) is emerging as a potential additional treatment for glioblastoma (GB), a disease which has confounded oncologists for decades due to its aggressive nature and strong resistance to existing therapies.

A new study led by investigators from Mass Eye and Ear found that patients prescribed semaglutide (as Ozempic or Wegovy) for diabetes or weight loss had a higher risk of having a potentially blinding eye condition called NAION than similar patients who had not been prescribed these drugs.

Notably, the study found people with diabetes who had been prescribed semaglutide by their physician and then filled the prescription were more than four times more likely to be diagnosed with NAION.

Twelve years ago, cancer researchers at University of California San Diego identified a molecule that helps cancer cells survive by shuttling damaging inflammatory cells into tumor tissue. In new research, they show that the same molecule does the same thing in lung tissue infected with COVID-19 - and that the molecule can be suppressed with a repurposed cancer drug.

GSK plc (LSE/NYSE: GSK) and CureVac N.V. (Nasdaq: CVAC) today announced they have restructured their existing collaboration into a new licensing agreement, allowing each company to prioritise investment and focus their respective mRNA development activities.

Since 2020, GSK and CureVac have worked together to develop mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases.

New UCSF study shows that suppressing a protein turns ordinary fat into a calorie burner and may explain why drug trials attempting the feat haven’t been successful.

Researchers at UC San Francisco have figured out how to turn ordinary white fat cells, which store calories, into beige fat cells that burn calories to maintain body temperature.

AstraZeneca's Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) for sipavibart has been accepted under an accelerated assessment procedure by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), for the pre-exposure prophylaxis (prevention) of COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients.

Sipavibart is an investigational long-acting antibody designed to provide COVID-19 protection for immunocompromised patients who often do not respond adequately to vaccination alone and remain at high risk of serious outcomes from COVID-19.

When a cancer cell doesn't respond to traditional therapies, doctors may turn to a sort of viral biological warfare, by deploying 'troops' in the form of viral agents that are specifically engineered to target and eliminate cancer cells. The mode of attack is to transform the tumor into an immunologically "hot" environment, making it more visible and recognisable to our immune system.

Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are becoming a major societal challenge. To solve this problem, researchers are working on new drugs that kill bacteria without developing resistance, and on new materials that prevent the formation of bacterial biofilms. The latter are the source of resistant variants but are notoriously difficult to remove. Recently, researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences have discovered that making the surface undulated can help limit the spread of resistant bacteria.

AlphaFold is an outstanding example of artificial intelligence's computational capabilities in accurately predicting intricate protein structures. A new Review article explores AlphaFold's recent advancements and its potential impact on predictive medicine. The article is published in the peer-reviewed journal AI in Precision Oncology.

Vivek Subbiah, MD, from the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and coauthors, describe a shift toward predictive medicine,

Bayer AG, together with Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, presented plans for the construction of the Berlin Center for Gene and Cell Therapies. The project is being substantially financed and supported by Germany's Federal Government as well as the State of Berlin. The aim of the joint project is to bring these groundbreaking technologies to patients more quickly while creating a leading biotech ecosystem for innovative therapies in Berlin.

A new AI-powered program will allow researchers to level up their drug discovery efforts.

The program, called TopoFormer, was developed by an interdisciplinary team led by Guowei Wei, a Michigan State University Research Foundation Professor in the Department of Mathematics. TopoFormer translates three-dimensional information about molecules into data that typical AI-based drug-interaction models can use, expanding those models' abilities to predict how effective a drug might be.