Press monitoring
Saving Cavendish: Team grows world-first Panama disease-resistant bananas
17.11.2017 | Press monitoring
QUT researchers have developed and grown modified Cavendish bananas resistant to the devastating soil-borne fungus Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4), also known as Panama disease. In a world-first GM field trial conducted in heavily TR4-infested soil, one Cavendish line transformed with a gene taken from a wild banana remained completely TR4...
Promising autism drug shows early success in animal tests
15.11.2017 | Press monitoring
There is currently no single drug treatment for autism. Many doctors treat autistic patients with a variety of psychotropic drugs geared at managing their perceived antisocial symptoms, but this is reasonably controversial, especially in children. A new drug targeted at restoring an electrical signaling imbalance in the brain is showing exciting...
Boy with a genetic disease has had almost all his skin replaced
13.11.2017 | Press monitoring
A boy’s life has been saved by a gene therapy. The treatment replaced most of the 9-year-old’s skin, correcting a mutation that causes a severe skin-blistering condition. Epidermolysis bullosa is a rare disease in which the slightest touch – even dressing, for instance – can cause blisters and ulcers. Those with severe forms of the condition live...
Nanoparticles reduce inflammation by distracting the immune system
10.11.2017 | Press monitoring
It's a classic movie trope, someone distracts the guards while our hero sneaks past. A team of researchers at the University of Michigan has deployed the same tactic to reduce inflammation in the body, by using nanoparticles that distract immune cells from negatively inflaming an injury site. As with many scientific discoveries, this finding...
Scientists make significant breakthrough on road to new superbug-killing antibiotic teixobactin
8.11.2017 | Press monitoring
Scientists working to develop a 'game-changing' new antibiotic have made a significant advance towards creating commercially viable drug treatments by producing two simplified synthetic versions of the substance which are just as potent at killing superbugs like MRSA as its natural form. The breakthrough by researchers at the University of...
Peptide shield potentially leads to treatment that cancer can\'t resist
6.11.2017 | Press monitoring
Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a new method for cutting off cancer's ability to proliferate. The technique works by blocking certain proteins that cancer cells use to trigger uncontrolled growth in neighboring healthy cells, and it could lead to a new kind of treatment that cancer can't develop a resistance...
Donor organs created by dissolving and rebuilding pig livers
3.11.2017 | Press monitoring
Will we ever be able to grow transplant organs like the heart, lungs and liver on demand? A method that uses pig organs as scaffolding for creating new organs suggests it may be possible. In an effort to tackle lengthy waiting lists for organ transplants, researchers have been trying several approaches for creating replacement organs. One...
Pumpkin genomes sequenced, revealing uncommon evolutionary history
1.11.2017 | Press monitoring
For some, pumpkins conjure carved Halloween decorations, but for many people around the world, these gourds provide nutrition. Scientists at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) and the National Engineering Research Center for Vegetables in Beijing have sequenced the genomes of two important pumpkin species, Cucurbita maxima and Cucurbita...
Researchers engineer CRISPR to edit single RNA letters in human cells
30.10.2017 | Press monitoring
The Broad Institute and MIT scientists who first harnessed CRISPR for mammalian genome editing have engineered a new molecular system for efficiently editing RNA in human cells. RNA editing, which can alter gene products without making changes to the genome, has profound potential as a tool for both research and disease treatment. In a paper...
New pneumonia vaccine protects against over 70 strains of the disease
27.10.2017 | Press monitoring
A new vaccine targeting dozens of new strains of pneumonia could potentially save "hundreds of thousands of lives" according to researchers. Early studies show the new vaccine effectively protects against a variety of bacteria that causes pneumococcal disease including pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. Since the introduction in the early 2000s...
