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Tuesday, May 28

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Genetic Mosaicism Study Freshens Thinking about Old Blood

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Blood stem cells from healthy people carry major chromosomal alterations, suggesting that we are all genetic mosaics. While mosaic structural variants are continuously acquired throughout life, expanded subclones appear to be confined to…

Time Is on Cancer Immunotherapy’s Side

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A new study demonstrates that the circadian clock can be leveraged to enhance the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy. The findings provide deeper insights into the intricate relationship among the circadian clock, immune…

SCID Traced to Gene Variant Found to Impair V(D)J Recombination

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Researchers identified a single gene mutation common to 11 pediatric patients with sudden combined immunodeficiency (SCID) or Omenn syndrome (OS). The two closely related congenital errors in T cell development manifest early in life and…

22

Democratizing Precision Medicine

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The dawn of precision medicine has revolutionized the way we understand and treat diseases, particularly in the realms of oncology and rare diseases. Within this rapidly evolving field, MGI stands at the forefront, pioneering innovative…

15

Illumina Ventures Labs Adds Sequencing to Integrated Biosciences’ “Ultimate” Drug Screening

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In 2022, Integrated Biosciences' cofounders Felix Wong, PhD, and Max Wilson, PhD, took their first step toward manifesting the ultimate drug screen, building a platform for decoding how small molecules affect the responses of cells to…

Monday, May 27

18

Allergic Asthma Abated Using CAR T Cell Therapy in Mice

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Researchers used CAR T technology to successfully treat not cancer, but chronic asthma using a mouse model. They focused on asthma with “type 2-high signature” characterized by eosinophilia, increased mucus production, and bronchial…

Friday, May 24

21

Acoustic “Invisible Tweezers” Traverse Biological Tissues to Trap and Manipulate Target Objects

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Researchers have developed a robot-assisted surgical technique that uses acoustic vortex tweezers to capture and move small targets—such as cells and drugs—within the body, without the need for surgical incisions. Lab-based studies…

19

Placing the Brakes on Epstein-Barr Virus

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The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) can cause a range of diseases, including cancers. However, no drug or approved vaccination can specifically thwart EBV within the body. Now, new research shows that inhibition of a specific metabolic pathway in…

05

MilliporeSigma Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Mirus Bio for $600 Million

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MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Mirus Bio for US$ 600 million. Mirus Bio, based in Madison, WI, specializes in the…

Thursday, May 23

18

AGC Biologics and BioConnection Partner to Offer Biodrug Product Development and Manufacturing

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AGC Biologics offers a range of protein-biologics services spanning from cell line development to commercial-scale manufacturing across a global network of facilities on three continents, supporting drug substances for microbial and…

15

Radar Therapeutics Raises $13 Million to Design Therapies Using RNA Sensors

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Radar Therapeutics has raised $13.4 million in an oversubscribed seed financing round led by NfX Bio that it will use to advance various internal programs, expand its team, and pursue partnership opportunities.

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Sugar Rush: New Chemical Modification Improves ASO Targeting of CNS

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In recent years, the FDA has approved a growing number of ASO drugs for clinical use. Nevertheless, the advancement of ASO drug development has been impeded by the negative consequences of ASOs, such as off-target effects,…

Wednesday, May 22

23

Maternal Immune Response Affects Fetal Brain Development via Microglia

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Fetal brain development can be negatively impacted by an infection that occurs during pregnancy. Now, scientists show that immune reactions in pregnant mice are detected in developing embryos by microglia--the phagocytes of the brain. The…

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Biopharma Needs Digital Assistant for Potency Testing

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Current biopharmaceutical potency testing methods are time consuming, labor intensive, and--on a sterile manufacturing line--a potential source of contamination, says the team behind a new software-based alternative. To try and mitigate…

pDNA Isoforms Assessed by Microfluidic Electrophoresis

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For industry, the problem of bottlenecks to increased production need has been that as pDNA is synthesized and purified, the plasmids sometimes come out of their supercoiled isoform. In therapeutics, the resulting heterogeneous sequence…

Tackling Manufacturing Failures for Viral Vectors

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Bespark*bio aims to provide process development support to companies without their own internal expertise. Their approach is to help companies develop an efficient manufacturing process as early as possible in development. This includes…

Adding Metabolism to Models of Bioprocessing

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Building models is a key element of today’s science behind bioprocessing. The value of such models, however, depends on the information being produced. Multiscale modeling of bioprocessing that includes the metabolism of cells in a…

18

Legend Biotech Obtains Electroporation Technology License from MaxCyte Covering Cell-Based Therapies

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MaxCyte granted Legend Biotech a non-exclusive worldwide license to use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation technology and ExPERT platform in connection with the research, clinical development, and commercialization of cell-based therapeutic…

Leukemia Therapy Approach “Deletes” Affected Blood System While Transplanting Healthy Stem Cells

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Researchers developed an antibody-drug conjugate-based approach to treating leukemia that involves “deleting” the affected blood system by targeted removal of the leukemia patient’s blood cells, while simultaneously creating a healthy…

17

Accelerating ADC Discovery and Development with Novel Payload-Linker and Conjugation Technologies

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In this GEN webinar Jiawei Lu, PhD, Head of Bioconjugation Discovery Service at WuXiXDC, will discuss strategies for accelerating ADC discovery and development using novel payload linkers and conjugation technologies.

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Portal Bio and Multiply Labs Collaborate to Accelerate Cell Engineering

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Portal Biotechnologies and Multiply Labs announced a collaboration with the goal of leveraging automation to accelerate product timelines and reduce costs, helping innovative cell therapies reach more patients.

Schizophrenia, Bipolar, and Major Depressive Disorder Linked to New Gene Expression Patterns

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Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are non-coding sequences that make up about eight percent of the human genome. They originated from ancient retrovirus infections that infected humans millions of years ago and are thought to regulate…

Tuesday, May 21

23

Bone-Enhancing Peptide Shows Promise as Therapeutic for Osteoporosis and MSK Disorders

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Researchers identified the naturally occurring peptide PEPITEM as a potential therapeutic for osteoporosis and other disorders that feature bone loss. The team’s study found that PEPITEM enhances bone mineralization, formation and strength…

Cannibalism Genes in Human Genome Evolved to Serve New Cellular Functions

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Cell-in-cell phenomena in which one cell engulfs and sometimes consumes another—phenomena that include cell cannibalism—are widespread across the tree of life, and cell-in-cell-related genes occur in human cells, including noncancer cells,…

15

Bud-wiser: DOD Backs A-Alpha Bio for Biothreat Preparation

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As a graduate student in the lab of protein design expert David Baker, PhD, at the University of Washington, David Younger, PhD, noticed a major bottleneck to designing massive amounts of proteins in silico: how does anyone test so many…

Severe COVID-19 Lung Disease Linked to Ferroptosis

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The mechanisms underlying how SARS-CoV-2 infection causes severe COVID-19 pulmonary manifestations remain poorly understood. However, hyperferritinemia and disrupted lung iron homeostasis in COVID-19 patients has pointed to ferroptosis, an…

Autoimmune Disease Prediction Boosted by AI

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Researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine have developed a new artificial intelligence algorithm that may lead to improved predictions and novel therapies for autoimmune diseases. The algorithm dives into the genetic code…

Monday, May 20

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CRISPR Screen Broadens and Quickens Study of Gene Function across Cell Types

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Scientists at Scripps Research have leveraged AAVs’ versatile tropism and labeling capacity to expand the scale of in vivo CRISPR screening with single-cell transcriptomic phenotyping across embryonic to adult brains and peripheral nervous…

20

Tumor-Targeting, Drug-Loaded Extracellular Vesicles Improve Survival in Cancer-Bearing Mice

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Researchers created a cancer treatment that uses extracellular vesicles (EVs) studded with antibodies to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to tumor cells. Their study, in cancer-bearing mice, showed that treatment reduced tumor growth…

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Scorpius Holdings Expands Its San Antonio Site in San Antonio with New Storage and Testing Facility

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The new Scorpius facility in San Antonio will feature specialized storage areas with temperatures maintained between -20°C and -80°C for raw materials, alongside spaces designated for contained sampling and quality control testing.…