Volume 42 Issue 4, April 2024

Drug hunters are finding that ancient virus-like artifacts in the human genome could offer new avenues to treat neurodegeneration, cancer, autoimmunity and even aging with antibodies, vaccines and antiretroviral agents.

The prime editing field is booming, with companies making strategic decisions to avoid an IP showdown.

VitaDAO funds longevity research through a blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), showcasing the potential of collaborative, transparent and alternative systems while also highlighting the challenges of coordination, regulation, biases and skepticism in reshaping traditional research financing methods.

A new approach to targeting mucins via protein degradation shows promise against cancer.

A recently discovered RNA species on the cell surface is studied by proximity ligation.

Wild three-dimensional imaging of solvent-cleared organs (wildDISCO) uses conventional antibodies for whole-body staining in mice, creating comprehensive biological atlases of nerves, blood vessels and lymphatics. It uncovers pathological changes, such as tertiary lymphoid structures in cancer, and it enables the precise tracking of therapeutic molecules and cells, enhancing our understanding of disease pathology and treatment.

Generating A-to-C transversions in specific targets via base editing technology has been challenging. By fusing an evolved alkyladenine DNA glycosylase with an engineered adenine deaminase TadA-8e variant and nickase Cas9, we have developed A-to-C base editors that generate precise and efficient A-to-C transversions in cells and in mouse embryos, expanding the possible applications of base editing.

Minigraph-Cactus, a method to efficiently combine multiple reference genome assemblies into a pangenome reference graph, can be used to improve accuracy of read mapping and variant calling compared with a single reference in downstream applications.