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Magazine
In the Nov. 10 SN: Real benefits of virtual therapy, monkey malaria in humans, round electrons disappoint, mouse pups with two dads, bats’ hover techniques, Europa’s icy spikes, a vampire burial and more.
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News
Artificial intelligence crowdsources data to speed up drug discovery
10/18/2018 - 14:00 Artificial Intelligence, Biomedicine, TechnologyA new cryptographic system could allow pharmaceutical companies and academic labs to work together to develop new medications more quickly — without revealing any confidential data to their competitors.
The centerpiece of this computing system is an artificial intelligence program known as a neural network. The AI studies information about which drugs interact with various proteins in...
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Letters to the Editor
Readers wonder about a hydrogen wall, pig lung transplants and more
Wonderwall10/17/2018 - 07:15 Astronomy, Biomedicine, GeneticsAn ultraviolet glow spotted by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft may signal a hydrogen wall that separates the solar system from the rest of the Milky Way galaxy, Lisa Grossman reported in “New Horizons may have seen a glow at the solar system’s edge” (SN: 9/15/18, p. 10).
Online reader RayRay wondered if researchers could see similar walls at the edges of other solar...
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Feature
Lisa Manning describes the physics of how cells move
Lisa Manning, 38Physics and biologySyracuse University09/26/2018 - 08:30 Biomedicine, Cells, Development, PhysicsThink of tissues as mosh pits of cells. The cells may not be able to crowd surf, but they can jam.
Specifically, cells can undergo a jamming transition, a physical role change that was previously known to occur only among foams, sand and other nonliving materials. It’s one of the ways that physicist Lisa Manning has shown how...
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News
A new antibiotic uses sneaky tactics to kill drug-resistant superbugs
09/12/2018 - 13:00 Chemistry, Biomedicine, HealthDrug-resistant bacteria have a new challenger.
A new molecule can kill deadly strains of common bacteria, such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumonia, that are resistant to most existing antibiotics. The drug works differently from currently available antibiotics, potentially making it harder for bacteria to develop resistance, researchers report September 12 in Nature.
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News in Brief
CRISPR gene editing relieves muscular dystrophy symptoms in dogs
08/30/2018 - 14:00 Biomedicine, GeneticsGene editing can reverse muscular dystrophy in dogs.
Using CRISPR/Cas9 in beagle puppies, scientists have fixed a genetic mutation that causes muscle weakness and degeneration, researchers report online August 30 in Science.
Corrections to the gene responsible for muscular dystrophy have been made before in mice and human muscle cells in dishes, but never in a larger mammal. The...
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News in Brief
Cancer drugs may help the liver recover from common painkiller overdoses
08/15/2018 - 14:15 BiomedicineExperimental anticancer drugs may help protect against liver damage caused by acetaminophen overdoses.
In mice poisoned with the common painkiller, the drugs prevented liver cells from entering a sort of pre-death state known as senescence. The drugs also widened the treatment window: Mice need to get the drug doctors currently use to counteract an overdose within four hours or they will...
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News
The first gene-silencing drug wins FDA approval
08/10/2018 - 15:52 Biomedicine, Clinical Trials, Health, GeneticsA Nobel Prize–winning discovery — that small double-stranded RNA molecules can silence genes by interrupting the translation of DNA’s instructions into proteins — is finally delivering on its medical promise.
The first drug that takes advantage of this natural biological process, called RNA interference, was approved August 10 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It targets a rare...
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News
Scientists successfully transplant lab-grown lungs into pigs
08/03/2018 - 10:43 Biomedicine, Cells, TechnologyFor the first time, researchers have created lungs in the lab and successfully transplanted them into pigs.
These bioengineered lungs, described online August 1 in Science Translational Medicine, developed healthy blood vessels that allowed pigs to live for several weeks after surgery. That’s a significant improvement from previous efforts: Lab-grown lungs implanted in rodents failed...
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Feature
The brain may clean out Alzheimer’s plaques during sleep
07/15/2018 - 06:00 Biomedicine, Neuroscience, Mental HealthNeuroscientist Barbara Bendlin studies the brain as Alzheimer’s disease develops. When she goes home, she tries to leave her work in the lab. But one recent research project has crossed into her personal life: She now takes sleep much more seriously.
Bendlin works at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, home to the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention, a study of more than 1,500...
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News
Cancer cells engineered with CRISPR slay their own kin
07/11/2018 - 14:00 Cancer, Biomedicine, GeneticsUsing gene editing, scientists have hoodwinked tumor cells into turning against their own kind.
Cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream have something of a homing instinct, able to find and return to the tumor where they originated. To capitalize on that ability, researchers engineered these roving tumor cells to secrete a protein that triggers a death switch in resident tumor cells...