DISEASE CATEGORY: Infectious disease INDICATION: Escherichia; pneumonia The lipids LXA4 and RvD1, ligands of the membrane receptor FPRL1, could treat E. coli pneumonia by promoting antibacterial functions in neutrophils. The release of neutrophil elastase, induced...

A Canadian team has shown how bacterial GI infections can trigger Parkinson's disease in genetically susceptible individuals. The findings add to mounting evidence implicating the gut microbiome in CNS disorders including autism, Alzheimer's disease and...

A new approach to synthetic lethality aims to overcome resistance to PARP inhibitors by pairing them with senolytic agents, marking one of the first moves beyond DNA damage repair combinations. PARP inhibitors hinder DNA damage...

ExCellThera Inc. is expanding cord blood into allogeneic stem cell transplants for cancer that have lower treatment-related mortality rates and GvHD incidence than competing technologies. Hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCTs) of unexpanded cord blood have...

A University of Montreal team has developed a proteogenomic screen that identifies mutated and non-mutated tumor-specific TCR antigens, including those arising from normally non-coding nucleotide sequences. The technique could help develop T cell immunotherapies targeting...

INDICATION: Liver fibrosis Patient sample and mouse studies suggest antagonizing AHR or RORγT could help treat liver fibrosis. In liver tissue samples from hepatitis patients, levels of IL-17A and IL-22, which are positively regulated by...

An October study in Nature Medicine from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Montreal has shown inhibiting the cell surface protease ADAM10 could treat a form of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis mediated by...

INDICATION: Lymphoma; melanoma Mouse studies suggest inhibiting GSK3 could help treat lymphoma and melanoma. In a mouse model of lymphoma, a GSK3 inhibitor tool compound decreased tumor growth and increased survival compared with no treatment,...

INDICATION: Pulmonary fibrosis Mouse studies suggest inhibiting ADAM10 could help treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). In a mouse model of IPF, an ADAM10 inhibitor tool compound decreased fibrosis in the lung and increased survival compared...

TECHNOLOGY: Transgenics and knockouts SMARCD2 -knockout mouse and zebrafish models could be used to screen therapies for neutrophil-specific granule deficiency, a congenital immunodeficiency. Whole-exome sequencing in four patients identified splice site and frameshift mutations in...