In the Literature

Blogs about published peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Polyserine Targeting: A New Strategy Against Neurodegeneration

Posted on by Johanna Lee

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s are marked by the accumulation of misfolded proteins that wreak havoc on neurons. One of the most notorious culprits is tau, a structural protein that, in its diseased form, clumps together into aggregates that spread throughout the brain. These aggregates interfere with normal cellular processes, leading to memory loss, behavioral changes, and other devastating symptoms. Preventing tau aggregation is therefore a key strategy for slowing the progression of these symptoms.

What if we could recruit molecular “helpers” to stop tau from accumulating?

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Developing an Experimental Model System to Understand the Tumor Microenvironment of Melanoma Brain Metastases

Posted on by Michele Arduengo, PhD

Cancer’s greatest threat is its ability to spread to other tissues—a process known as metastasis. Melanoma, a form of skin cancer, exemplifies this devastating progression. Although treatable when caught early—with surgical removal resulting in over 99% survival at five years—once melanoma metastasizes, five-year survival rates plummet dramatically to around 27%. Even more concerning, melanoma exhibits a particularly high tendency to invade the central nervous system, causing melanoma brain metastases (MBMs) that are incurable and reduce median survival to just 13 months.

To understand metastasis, we need reliable and realistic experimental models. Traditional cell cultures on plastic dishes are limited, failing to replicate the intricate spatial organization and biochemical interactions within living tissues. Animal models are informative but expensive, ethically complex, and not always accurate for human diseases. Addressing this critical gap, Reed-McBain and colleagues (2025) introduced an innovative microphysiological system (MPS) designed to simulate the tumor microenvironment in the brain affected by metastatic melanoma.

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How Computational Design Can Predict the Next Viral Variant—and Help Us Prepare

Posted on by Johanna Lee

As SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, one lesson is painfully clear: immunity today may not guarantee protection tomorrow. Viruses are experts at mutating into countless variants to evade detection or neutralization by the immune system. In the race to keep up with this “immune escape”, researchers have largely focused on reactive strategies—testing vaccines against variants that already exist. But what if we could flip the script and anticipate where the virus is going next?

That’s precisely the aim of a new study published in Immunity. This study introduces EVE-Vax, a computational design platform that builds synthetic spike proteins capable of mimicking immune escape mutations—before they naturally arise.

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IL-6/STAT3-Regulated Long Non-Coding RNA Is Involved in Colorectal Cancer Progression

Posted on by Michele Arduengo, PhD

Researchers from Wenzhou Medical University in China have identified a mechanism involving long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) that contributes to colorectal cancer (CRC) progression. CRC is the third most common cancer worldwide and is one of the most lethal cancers across the globe. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie the development and progression of CRC is critical to developing biomarkers to detect it and new therapeutics to treat it. 

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What’s Hiding in Your Mussels? 

Posted on by Shannon Sindermann
mussels

Fresh mussels might be a delicacy in many parts of the world, but a new study from Italy suggests they could also be carriers of something much less appetizing: infectious viruses and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Published in Food and Environmental Virology, Venuti et al. (2025) investigated 60 mussel batches originating from the Campania (Southern Italy), Lazio and Puglia regions—and what they found raises important questions about food safety and environmental monitoring. 

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Growing Our Understanding of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa: Why Comprehensive Population Data Matters

Posted on by Kelly Grooms
A digitally rendered illustration of a cancer cell superimposed over the African continent. The cancer cell, with a textured, reddish-orange surface and extending tendrils, appears to spread across the dark red map of Africa, symbolizing the impact or presence of cancer on the continent.

In the genomics era, the promise of precision medicine and tailored diagnostics is only as good as the datasets, which makes it imperative that those sets reflect the diversity of the human population. Populations from the African continent, the most genomically diverse region in the world, are underrepresented in current genomic data sets.  Nowhere is closing this data gap more urgent than with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which has a disproportionately high incidence in women of African descent and limited therapeutic options.

Highlighting why comprehensive population data is so important are the results of a recent study profiling of 30 TNBC tumor samples from Angola and Cape Verde (1).  Whole-exome sequencing (WES), enriched with untranslated regions (UTRs), showed that 86% of somatic variants in these samples had never been reported before. WES can be especially valuable when working with limited or degraded samples, such as the FFPE samples used in this study, because it allows you to gain valuable insights from samples that are impractical for whole-genome sequencing (WGS). This study’s results emphasize the value in expanding omics cancer research so that it includes all populations and areas of the genome.

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Seeing Signals in a New Light: Far-Red Chemigenetic Biosensors Illuminate Kinase Activity

Posted on by Johanna Lee

Cell signaling is a finely tuned process where both timing and spatial context play essential roles. Whether it’s a hormone triggering a cellular response or a drug modulating a pathway, these processes unfold in dynamic, spatially organized ways. To study them, researchers rely on chemigenetic biosensors—genetically encoded tools that light up in response to molecular activity. However, traditional biosensors are constrained by several limitations: poor photostability under prolonged imaging, limited spectral flexibility for multiplexing, and insufficient spatial resolution for studying signaling events at subcellular scales.

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Using Dual-Luciferase Assays to Identify the Role of Non-Coding RNAs in Disease

Posted on by Michele Arduengo, PhD

In recent years, non-coding RNAs—especially microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs)—have emerged as powerful regulators of cellular behavior. These molecules modulate gene expression, often by targeting mRNAs for translational suppression or degradation. Two recent studies—one focused on osteoarthritis and the other on 5-Fu-resistant colorectal cancer—illustrate how these non-coding, regulatory RNAs operate within disease-relevant signaling networks, providing new points for therapeutic intervention.

lncRNA, long noncoding RNA

Both studies use the pmirGLO Dual-Luciferase miRNA Target Expression Vector to evaluation predicted miRNA activity.  This dual-luciferase system offers a clean and quantifiable way to validate miRNA–mRNA interactions using a simple bioluminescent readout. By cloning the 3´ untranslated regions (UTRs) of suspected targets downstream of a firefly luciferase reporter and normalizing against Renilla luciferase, researchers can rapidly confirm whether a miRNA directly regulates its target.

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Measles and Immunosuppression—When Getting Well Means You Can Still Get Sick

Posted on by Kelly Grooms
26062330-March-7-Kelly-600x900-WEB

In 2000 measles was officially declared eliminated in the United States (1), meaning there had been no disease transmission for over 12 months. Unfortunately, recent years have shown us it was not gone for good. So far in 2025 there have been 6 outbreaks and 607 cases. Five hundred and sixty-seven of these cases (93%) are associated with an outbreak; seventy-four (12%) cases have resulted in hospitalization, and there has been one confirmed death, with another death under investigation (as of April 3, 2025; 2).  For comparison, there were two hundred and eighty-five total cases in 2024; one hundred and ninety-eight (69%) were associated with outbreaks; one hundred and fourteen (40%) cases resulted in hospitalization. There were no deaths (2).  

Help in Limiting a Dangerous Childhood Disease

Before the development of a vaccine in the 1960s, measles was practically a childhood rite of passage. This common childhood disease is not without teeth however. One out of every 20 children with measles develops pneumonia, 1 out of every 1,000 develops encephalitis (swelling of the brain), and 1 to 3 of every 1,000 dies from respiratory and neurological complications (3). In the years before a vaccine was available, it is estimated that there were between 3.5 and 5 million measles cases per year. (4). The first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. by John Enders in 1963, and not surprisingly, after the measles vaccine became widely used, the number of cases of measles plummeted. By 1970, there were under 1,000 cases (2).

Decreased Childhood Mortality from Other Infectious Diseases—An Unexpected Benefit

Surprisingly, with the disappearance of this childhood disease the number of childhood deaths from all infectious diseases dropped dramatically. As vaccination programs were instituted in England and parts of Europe, the same phenomenon was observed. Reduction or elimination of measles-related illness and death alone can’t explain the size of the decrease in childhood mortality. Although measles infection is associated with suppression of the immune system that will make the host vulnerable to other infections, these side effects were assumed to be short lived. In reality, the drop in mortality from infectious diseases following vaccination for measles lasted for years, not months (5).

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Advancing Neurodegenerative Disease Modeling: A Novel iPSC-Based Luminescence System for Parkinson’s Disease Research

Posted on by Amy Landreman

Advancing our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases requires model systems that faithfully recapitulate the biology of human neurons. A recent study by Gandy et al. in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences introduces an innovative luminescence-based platform to explore the role of Parkinson’s disease (PD)-associated genes in living cells. By leveraging human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and CRISPR-mediated endogenous tagging, researchers at the Early Drug Discovery Unit at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) at McGill University and Health Canada have created a powerful system for investigating protein expression and function in a physiologically relevant setting.

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