“A small Indian biotechnology company is producing a home-grown version of a cutting-edge cancer treatment known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy that was pioneered in the United States. CAR-T therapies are used mainly to treat blood cancers and have burgeoned in the past few years.
The Indian CAR-T therapy costs one-tenth that of comparable commercial products available globally.”
From Nature.
“Two hotly anticipated clinical trials using stem cells to treat people with Parkinson’s disease have published encouraging results. The early-stage trials demonstrate that injecting stem-cell-derived neurons into the brain is safe. They also show hints of benefit: the transplanted cells can replace the dopamine-producing cells that die off in people with the disease, and survive long enough to produce the crucial hormone. Some participants experienced visible reductions in tremors.”
From Nature.
“A groundbreaking recent study shows that mosquitoes can be poisoned by the blood of people taking a specific medication. The drug, nitisinone, is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating certain rare genetic disorders, and researchers have now found that it is also highly effective at killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
The concept of poisoning mosquitoes through their blood meals isn’t entirely new. In the past, scientists have investigated ivermectin, a widely used antiparasitic drug, as a potential mosquito-killing agent. The idea is simple: When a mosquito bites a person or animal treated with ivermectin, the drug enters the mosquito’s system and ultimately kills it. However, ivermectin has limitations—it works relatively slowly, taking up to four days to kill mosquitoes, and its effects wear off quickly in the bloodstream.
Nitisinone presents a more promising alternative. Unlike traditional insecticides, which typically target the mosquito’s nervous system, nitisinone disrupts a crucial enzyme (HPPD) that mosquitoes need to digest their blood meal. Without this enzyme, mosquitoes experience a metabolic shutdown, leading to death within 24 hours—far faster than with ivermectin.
Perhaps most excitingly, nitisinone appears to be effective at much lower doses than previously expected. Even blood from people taking small amounts of the drug proved lethal to mosquitoes. This means that individuals in malaria-endemic regions could potentially take a safe low dose of nitisinone, turning their blood into a mosquito-killing agent without significant side effects.”
From Quillette.
Pan American Health Organization | Communicable Disease
“Two out of three cattle in South America are currently located in foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free zones where vaccination is not practiced. Across the entire Americas, more than 80% of cattle are in this condition, bringing the region closer to the eradication of the disease…
FMD free zone or country where vaccination is not practiced means that countries have managed to eradicate the disease without relying on systematic vaccination of cattle, which reduces associated costs and improves competitiveness in international markets.
FMD has represented a long-standing threat to food security and the economies of countries in the Americas. Vaccinating cattle has been the primary strategy to control outbreaks and prevent new cases, enabling several countries to achieve eradication. Once the absence of virus transmission is confirmed and internal risks in a territory are eliminated, countries can suspend vaccination and maintain eradication without the need for ongoing vaccination.”
“Mitochondria, the organelles in question, are best known as power packs—places where glucose molecules are disassembled to release the energy that drives metabolism… Mitochondria also initiate the suicide of cells that are damaged, cancerous or surplus to requirements; act as communications centres for signalling proteins; and regulate levels of calcium ions—which are involved in signalling as well…
With such a wide range of vital tasks to perform, it is hardly surprising that faulty mitochondria cause or contribute to many diseases. Some of these are congenital, the result of faulty mitochondrial genes. And some, such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems, occur when mitochondria wear out in old age. If a technique to transplant healthy ones could be made to work, its potential would be enormous.
One person trying to make this happen is James McCully of Harvard Medical School. He has developed a treatment for premature babies who, because the mitochondria in their heart muscles have been damaged by ischemia (the medical term for restricted blood flow), need the assistance of a heart-lung machine. Without such intervention, they would die. Even with it, only 60% survive.
In a trial, the results of which were published just over four years ago, Dr McCully improved that rate to 80%. His technique involves taking a small piece of tissue from the child’s abdominal wall, breaking it up to liberate the mitochondria, separating them from other cellular gubbins in a centrifuge and perfusing them back into the failing heart.
There is a chance that Dr McCully’s results may have been a statistical fluke—only ten babies were given the procedure in his experiments—but it suggests his technique is at least safe. He and his colleagues found that their procedure immediately increased production of signalling molecules in the babies, which stopped inflammation and cellular suicide. And, shortly afterwards, the perfused mitochondria took up residence in the damaged heart muscle, restoring its function in the longer term.
Dr McCully now hopes to extend this approach, which is currently being assessed by America’s Food and Drug Administration, to other ischemia-affected tissues, including adult hearts, lungs, kidneys and limbs. He is not alone. Lance Becker of the Feinstein Institute in New York plans to test a similar technique on premature babies. And Melanie Walker of the University of Washington, in Seattle, has just published the results of an experiment on a different type of ischemia—that which causes strokes.”
From The Economist.
