Japanese scientists led by Shin Kaneko, an associate professor in the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Kyoto University, have developed the first practical bioengineering strategy for generating a universal pluripotent stem cell.

Collectively, lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) are caused by malfunctions in metabolic enzymes in the lysosome system. Depending on which enzyme is missing, toxic metabolites accumulate. While the LSDs are highly heterogenous – even within one disease, presentation can vary widely – neurodegeneration is a common feature in these disorders.

A Chinese study led by scientists at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou City has identified a linker of resistance from the mobile colistin resistance gene 3, which might represent a promising drug target against which to develop small-molecule inhibitors to reverse colistin resistance.

British and Taiwanese scientists have described a novel approach to the treatment of autoimmune rheumatoid arthritis, using an already approved DNA-methylation inhibitor, which was shown to effectively treat active inflammatory disease in animal models.

Roughly a year and a half after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many unknowns remain about the future of the virus. How it will mutate, how long protection from either illness or vaccination will last, when it will cease to be a pandemic and instead be endemic, even whether the worst is still ahead. And there is also an increasing acknowledgment that there remain unknowns about SARS-CoV-2’s past.

Investigators led by Russell Pieper at University of California, San Francisco have discovered that ALT-associated tumors are hypersensitive to a subgroup of poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase (PARP) inhibitors.

Researchers at Australia's Garvan Institute of Medical Research have for the first time mapped the genetic profile of the skeleton's master regulator cells, known as osteocytes.

A Japanese study has found that the Helicobacter pylori oncoprotein, CagA, elicited transient 'BRCAness', inducing genomic instability via DNA double-strand breaks and defective homologous recombination. The effects may underlie the gastric carcinogenesis associated with chronic H. pylori infection.

In the last decade, responsive neurostimulation (RNS) has become a mainstay of treatment for refractory focal epilepsy, but challenges with the technology remain. Researchers at Columbia University in New York appear to have overcome some of the major limitations through development of a compact, flexible, high performance implantable device that permits reading and manipulation of brain circuits.

Roughly a year and a half after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many unknowns remain about the future of the virus. How it will mutate, how long protection from either illness or vaccination will last, when it will cease to be a pandemic and instead be endemic, even whether the worst is still ahead. And there is also an increasing acknowledgment that there remain unknowns about SARS-CoV-2’s past.