Lead researcher, University of Birmingham Professor Andrew Dove Researchers demonstrate the potential to “fine-tune” material properties for biological implants.
Researchers have discovered that succinic acid – a product found naturally within the body – could be used to control the degradation of a new polyester biomaterial created for use in soft tissue repair or flexible electronics. Such control might enable development of biomaterials that would mimic the elasticity and strength of biological tissues yet also biodegrade as needed for healing.
The team consisting of researchers from the University of Birmingham and Duke University developed the biomaterial and discovered that it could control the rate at which water penetrates the material (and therefore degradation speed) by adding varying amounts of succinic acid, they reported in a study published in
Abstract
Necroptosis is a lytic, proinflammatory cell death pathway, which has been implicated in host defense and, when dysregulated, the pathology of many human diseases. The central mediators of this pathway are the receptor-interacting serine/threonine protein kinases RIPK1 and RIPK3 and the terminal executioner, the pseudokinase mixed lineage kinase domain–like (MLKL). Here, we review the chronology of signaling along the RIPK1-RIPK3-MLKL axis and highlight how the subcellular compartmentalization of signaling events controls the initiation and execution of necroptosis. We propose that a network of modulators surrounds the necroptotic signaling core and that this network, rather than acting universally, tunes necroptosis in a context-, cell type–, and species-dependent manner. Such a high degree of mechanistic flexibility is likely an important property that helps necroptosis operate as a robust, emergency form of cell death.
Credit: Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have discovered that three patients with a severe genetic immunodeficiency spontaneously repaired the harmful variants in their DNA and restored normal immune function over time.
As cells grow and divide to produce new cells, DNA is copied from the parent cell to provide instructions for the new daughter cells. Random changes that occur as the DNA is copied are usually harmless but in some cases are associated with the development of diseases like cancer.
However, the Garvan-led Clinical Immunogenomics Research Consortium Australasia (CIRCA) found three patients with DOCK8 deficiency had repaired the faulty genes through a rare DNA change known as somatic reversion.
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Researchers in the UK and the United States have succeeded in fine tuning a new thermoplastic biomaterial to enable both the rate at which it degrades in the body and its mechanical properties to be controlled independently.
The material, a type of polyester, has been designed for use in soft tissue repair or flexible bioelectronics by a team at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Duke University in the US.
Materials that successfully replicate the necessary elasticity and strength of biological tissues but which also biodegrade over an appropriate timescale are extremely difficult to engineer. This is because the chemistry used to produce a material s mechanical properties will also typically govern the rate at which it degrades.
In normal breast development, estrogen stimulates and androgen inhibits growth at puberty and throughout adult life. Abnormal estrogen activity is responsible for the majority of breast cancers, but the role of androgen activity in this disease has been controversial.
Androgens were historically used to treat breast cancer, but knowledge of hormone receptors in breast tissue was rudimentary at the time and the treatment s efficacy misunderstood. Androgen therapy was discontinued due to virilising side effects and the advent of anti-estrogenic endocrine therapies.
While endocrine therapy is standard-of-care for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, resistance to these drugs are the major cause of breast cancer mortality.