Volume 25 Issue 8, August 2019

The global rise of ‘vaccine hesitancy’ is changing the landscape of disease transmission.

Designing oncology drugs to hit more than one biochemical target could lead to more effective drugs, but it’s a battle getting there.

Kristen Hege is corporate vice president of translational medicine at Celgene and a clinical professor at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She serves on the board of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer and was recognized by FierceBiotech as one of the top women in biopharma.

Siddhartha Jaiswal is an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he is also a member of the Immunology Program and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

Emerging virtual reality systems offer intriguing therapeutic possibilities, but their development and use should be guided by ethical priorities that account for the specific vulnerabilities of patients.

Large-scale analysis of 49 countries in Africa shows improvements in the prevalence of babies under 6 months of age being fed only breast milk, but there are large disparities in progress across and within countries.

Infants with congenital Zika virus infection are at risk for multiple abnormalities related to impairment in neurodevelopment. Although some findings apparent at birth may resolve with time, infants with no abnormalities apparent at birth may develop problems in early childhood.

TCF21, a gene associated with coronary heart disease, promotes plaque stability and reduces clinical events by enhancing smooth muscle cell phenotype modulation into “fibromyocytes” in atherosclerosis.

Particular bacteria from the gut microbiota metabolize levodopa (l-dopa), reducing bioavailability of the drug for treating Parkinson’s disease.

Exclusive breastfeeding in Africa is highly varied within and between countries, with many countries unlikely to reach World Health Organization 2025 targets without urgent action.

Nearly one-third of infants born to mothers with confirmed Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during pregnancy have developmental impairments that can be delayed in their presentation, warranting long-term monitoring of ZIKV-exposed children.

Flaviviruses can cause either symptomatic or asymptomatic infection. Here, symptomatic flavivirus infection associated with a live-attenuated yellow fever viral vaccine was linked to the cellular state before vaccination.

Modifying the gut microbiota, bile acid, or IL-22 may offer an alternative approach for the treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome.

Fecal microbiome transplantation or probiotic therapy with Akkermansia muciniphila extends the lifespan and improves the health status of progeroid mice, pointing to the importance of the gut microbiome in regulating lifespan and healthspan.

Deep molecular profiling of a single case of severe anti-PD-1-induced neurotoxicity shows oligoclonal cytotoxic memory CD4⁺ T cells are enriched in inflamed brain tissue.

Following anti-PD-1 therapy in patients with basal or squamous cell carcinoma, the CD8⁺ T cell response largely consists of an expanded and exhausted repertoire of new T cell clones.

Epigenetic states reminiscent of the cell of origin define clinically relevant markers for stratification of patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer.

Engineering of a menthol-controlled gene switch whose components are all of human origin may facilitate clinical translation of this approach, in which therapeutic protein production is triggered by topical application of menthol to the skin.

A genome-wide association study using electronic health record data in the Million Veteran Program uncovers new genetic loci associated specifically with peripheral artery disease, as compared to stroke or coronary artery disease.

The human coronary artery disease gene TCF21 promotes the transformation of smooth muscle cells within atherosclerotic plaques into a newly identified population of fibroblast-like cells that contribute to plaque stability.

A machine learning approach using high-dimensional phenotypic and functional profiling data identifies a multiple sclerosis-specific T cell population that is reduced following treatment.

A deep learning model trained on real-world digital pathology data achieves clinical performance in cancer diagnosis.

A biomimetic culture system is developed by reverse engineering to replicate key features of the human ocular surface at cellular, tissue and organ levels, and is used as an in vitro model of dry-eye disease compatible with drug-screening approaches.