TET2 is a master epigenetic enzyme that converts 5-methylcytosine (5-mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC), reprograming tumor cells and causing them to enter a dormant state.
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is an inflammatory skin disease with significant diagnostic delay. Type XXII collagen is a fibrillar collagen located in the skin epidermis. Reliable biomarkers to aid in the diagnosis of HS and monitor the severity of disease are needed.
Lamassu Bio Inc. has been awarded a $2.05 million grant from the NIH and National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the development of SA-53 as a treatment for p53 wild-type sarcomas. SA-53 is designed to trigger the body’s natural defense mechanism p53 by blocking MDM2, a protein that deactivates p53 and contributes to treatment resistance.
The activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome exacerbates neuronal dysfunction in several neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as multiple sclerosis. Targeting NLRP3 is an approach to overcome brain inflammation, among others.
Fractyl Health Inc. has reported promising new preclinical findings supporting RJVA-001, the first clinical candidate in its Rejuva pancreatic gene therapy platform. The company’s GLP-1 gene therapy candidate has potential to treat metabolic diseases, including obesity and type 2 diabetes.
In allergic diseases, STAT6 is a critical transcription factor in the IL-4 and IL-13 signaling pathways and the key driver of Th2 inflammation. Because STAT6 functions through protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions, selectively and potently inhibiting STAT6 with traditional small-molecule inhibitors has been a challenge. However, it is well suited for a targeted protein degradation approach, whereby a binding event is adequate to direct degradation.
In cell and animal models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the expression of toxic dipeptides in neurons led to changes in the extracellular matrix (ECM) as a protective response. The authors wrote that their findings, which appeared in Nature Neuroscience on Feb. 29, 2024, could suggest new strategies for how to approach ALS.
A new spinout from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, is tackling biology to better understand immune cell function and to find targets that were thought to be undruggable. Onko-innate co-founders Jai Rautela and Nicholas Huntington first worked together at Huntington’s lab at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne where they studied the role of natural killer (NK) cells in tumor immunology and discovered some interesting regulatory pathways for cytokine responses.
University of Toronto has described histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer and neurological disorders.