How Elephants Are Highly Resistant to Cancer

By Sophia Hu Cancer is one of the leading causes of death across the globe and we humans have been developing battling strategies for many years, yet we still struggle. It is therefore intriguing to find out that cancer mortality in elephants is less than 5% while the human counterpart is 25% (1). However, if allContinue

Emerging techniques in characterising AAV vectors for gene therapy

By Charlotte Cheung Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) have emerged as vectors for gene therapy. However, sensitive and high-throughput analytical techniques are needed to efficiently characterise AAV products to ensure their safety and quality. Alongside traditional techniques such as ELISAs and qPCRs, modern techniques including mass photometry and SEC-MALS have shown to generate comparable and even superiorContinue

Toxins from amphibian skin have potential therapeutic applications

By Wang Guo Pathogenic microbes and cancer cells evolve due to natural selection caused by interactions with the immune system. Therefore, researchers and pharmaceutical companies must be constantly innovating and developing new drugs to fight existing diseases, but also newly emerging ones. However, creating a new drug from scratch is an extremely arduous, time-consuming andContinue

Why are some cancers so difficult to treat?

By Madeleine Eaton Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell division, leading to the formation of a tumour within the body. This is caused by both environmental and genetic factors and develops over time, eventually invading secondary tissues in the body in a process called metastasis.1 Cancer deaths account for a quarter of deaths inContinue

Xist. A potential gene therapy against Down syndrome?

By Themis Halka  When talking about diseases arising from chromosomal abnormalities, Down syndrome is one which springs to mind. Caused by a trisomy of chromosome 21, it is the leading genetic cause of intellectual disabilities worldwide, as well as a comorbidity for multiple health issues, including hematopoietic disorders or early-onset Alzheimer’s.1 Chromosomes are the supportContinue

DNA Hard drives- a new way to store and read data, what are they and what could they be used for?

By Jenny Tang    DNA Hard drives (DNA-HD) are based off DNA nanotechnology and nano pores which are achieved by reading molecules, one by one per millisecond using nanopores. This is done by annealing 7228 nucleotides stranded DNA, creating a scaffold. Taking advantage of the negative charge of DNA, it can be read by nanoporeContinue

The gut bacteriome and virome in Covid-19 patients

By Madeleine Pramoedya The bacteriome itself presents a subset of the microbiome which exclusively consists of bacteria. It is the most widely studied and characterised aspect of the gut microbiome.1 It has also long been suggested that the composition of the gut microbiome influences host physiology and plays a strong role in modulating the host’sContinue

The “Immortality Enzyme”: Human Telomerase Holoenzyme as a potential anti-cancer therapeutic target

By Alice Barocco Human Telomerase Holoenzyme, most known as Telomerase and often regarded as the “Immortality enzyme”, is a cellular reverse transcriptase comprised of protein subunits and RNA.1 The enzyme can be pictured as a molecular motor: its role is to add new stretches of DNA, more specifically a “TTAGGG” sequence, onto the ends ofContinue

Advancements in cancer immunotherapies: CAR-T cell technology

By Yuki Agarwala We encounter over 60,000 germs every day, yet we do not find ourselves falling sick every day due to the efficiency of our immune system.1 We have an innate and adaptive immune system – the innate response is a general reaction that occurs early during infections, whereas the adaptive response is antigen-specificContinue

The role of the gut microbiota in Alzheimer’s disease

By Michelle Lam Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia, affecting over 50 million people worldwide.1 With improvements in global health, dementia cases are projected to triple by 2050.2 Despite advancements in understanding disease progression, there are still no disease-modifying therapies available. Therefore, it is crucial that new biomarkers are identified to overcomeContinue