As scientists race to develop and test new treatments for COVID-19, Dana-Farber’s Wayne Marasco, MD, PhD, and his lab team are bringing one of the world’s most formidable resources to the effort: a “library” of 27 billion human antibodies against viruses, bacteria, and other bodily invaders. The collection, created by Marasco and his associates in 1997 using blood samples from more…
While the majority of people with COVID-19 won’t require hospitalization, those who do are likely to seek medical help as a result of acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, a severe lung injury common in patients with critical illnesses. At present, there is no effective treatment for ARDS other than supportive care with mechanical ventilation. A team of physician-scientists at…
“Honest to God, there are dozens of targets we could hit. We can afford to be generous and give a partner like Roche whatever they want,” Arrakis CEO Michael Gilman said of the Roche collaboration, in which the privately held startup will help Roche develop drugs that target RNA, the element inside molecules that uses DNA instructions to create proteins.…
The awardees and honorable mentions for the 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition were recently posted and several Biology & MCBB students were recognized. MCBB Ph.D. student Marisol Dothard, Biology Ph.D. student Zoey Werbin in the Bhatnagar lab, and M.S. Biology student Caroline Fleming in the Rotjan lab were all awarded with a 3-year graduate research fellowship as well as incoming…
Former foes Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. are joining forces, with plans to work together on multiple gene-silencing drugs. Alnylam (Nasdaq: ALNY) and Dicerna (Nasdaq: DRNA) say they’ll work to treat a genetic disease called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (A1AT), according to a press release. Dicerna will assess each party’s pre-existing drug candidates for the disease over the next year before…
Boston Biomedical, Inc. today announced the first patient has been dosed in a phase 1 study evaluating the investigational agent TP-3654, a PIM kinase inhibitor, in patients with intermediate-2 and high-risk primary or secondary myelofibrosis. The multicenter, open-label, dose-escalation study will identify the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and recommended phase 2 dose as well as assess the overall safety of…
Many biological features are conserved and thus considered to be resistant to evolutionary change. While rapid genetic adaptation following the removal of conserved genes has been observed, we often lack a mechanistic understanding of how adaptation happens. We used the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to investigate the evolutionary plasticity of chromosome metabolism, a network of evolutionary conserved modules. We experimentally evolved…
Fatty liver disease not associated with alcohol consumption, which is called Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease or NAFLD, affects more than one billion people worldwide. Even in children the numbers are overwhelming, with up to 80 percent of pediatric patients who are considered obese affected worldwide. People with NAFLD can progress to a severe form known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which…
Imagine you are meeting a friend for dinner at a new restaurant. You may try dishes you haven’t had before, and your surroundings will be completely new to you. However, your brain knows that you have had similar experiences — perusing a menu, ordering appetizers, and splurging on dessert are all things that you have probably done when dining out.…
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded McLean Hospital’s Neuroregeneration Institute (NRI) a $6 million grant over 5 years to further its groundbreaking research on stem cell-based therapy for Parkinson’s disease (PD). The NIH developed the Cooperative Research to Enable and Advance Translational Enterprises for Biologics (CREATE Bio) program in 2014. It is managed by the NIH’s National Institute…
