Researchers from Università degli Studi di Foggia presented data from a study that aimed to investigate different circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) as possible biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of multiple sclerosis (MS).
African Americans are 10 times more likely to develop chronic kidney disease (CKD) than Americans of European descent in part due to inheritance of one of two high-risk (HR) APOL1 variants (G1/G2, not G0) that are only present in people of West African or Caribbean ancestry. By contrast, these two APOL1 HR variants confer a beneficial resistance to otherwise lethal trypanosomiasis, which is caused by a pathogen endemic to West Africa, but still this ultimately results in a 4-fold increased risk for end-stage kidney disease (ESKD).
Researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and affiliated organizations presented data from a study that aimed to identify new pathogenic genes for autosomal dominant hypotrichosis (hair loss).
Researchers from Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf and affiliated organizations presented data from a study that aimed to identify novel neurological biomarkers in distal sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN).
Researchers from the Universities of Malaga and Cordoba (Spain) presented data from a study that aimed to identify matrisome regulator miRNAs in obesity and prediabetes that could represent novel noninvasive circulating biomarkers of adipose tissue (AT) fibrosis.
Lipids are “very diverse, but also vastly understudied,” Anne Brunet told the audience at the recent meeting on Aging Research and Drug Discovery. Advances in the ability to predict protein structures have fueled a much better understanding of the human proteome and its estimated 20,000 members. The lipidome is much larger, numbering maybe 100,000 total. And what those lipids do remains much more fuzzy. “Very little is known about their function, and especially their function during aging,” Brunet said. Slowly, however, technological advances are enabling researchers to understand the roles of lipids as well.
“Change is the only constant” is an ageless truth. In the search for age-related biomarkers, it is also a prosaic confounding factor. Age-related biomarkers will be critical for the development of antiaging therapeutics. “Nobody is planning to do a life span study in humans,” Eric Verdin told the audience at the 10th Conference on Aging Research and Drug Development in Copenhagen on Monday. “Hence the need for … surrogate markers.” And “we are not there … we are actually quite far from there.”
Despite continual investment in research focused on high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC), the 5-year survival rate of ∼30% for most patients has remained unchanged for decades. While ≤20% of HGSOC patients present with treatment-refractory disease, therapeutic strategies have not changed outcomes for these patients in 40 years.
To identify candidate therapeutic targets for cancers with SF3B1 hotspot mutations, drug-sensitivity screening of an in-house library of 80 small-molecule inhibitors resulted in the identification of a series of candidate SF3B1 mutant (SF3B1[MUT]) synthetic lethal drugs that led to significant reduction of survival in SF3B1(K700E) cells.
Characterized by periods of deep and profound depression alternating with periods of excessive mania mood swings with diminished sleep, bipolar spectrum disorder (BSD) affected an estimated 40 million people globally in 2019 in the U.S. with a major part of the problem attributed to delays in diagnosis including a mean time of 5-13 years. These delays in BSD diagnosis exert lifelong impacts including heightened suicide risk, relationship strains, impaired work/education performance, significant financial burdens and increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
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