Researchers have identified a four-protein complex that appears to play a key role in generating ribosomes — organelles that serve as protein factories for cells — as well as a surprising part in neurodevelopmental disorders. The findings could lead to new ways to manipulate ribosome production, which could impact a variety of conditions that affect human health.

Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, HIV infection is no longer the life sentence it once was. But despite the effectiveness of drugs to manage and treat the virus, it can never be fully eliminated from the human body, lingering in some cells deep in different human tissues where it goes unnoticed by the immune system. Now, new research by University of Alberta immunologist Shokrollah Elahi reveals a possible answer to the mystery of why infected people can’t get rid of HIV altogether. Elahi and his team found that in HIV patients, killer T cells — a type of white blood cells responsible for identifying and destroying cells infected with viruses — have very little to none of a protein called CD73. Because CD73 is responsible for migration and cell movement into the tissue, the lack of the protein compromises the ability of killer T cells to find and eliminate HIV-infected cells, explained Elahi.

Bioengineers have shown they can eradicate advanced-stage ovarian and colorectal cancer in mice in as little as six days with a treatment that could be ready for human clinical trials later this year.

A new study shows how certain RNA molecules control the repair of damaged DNA in cancer cells, a discovery that could eventually give rise to better cancer treatments.

A research group has discovered the logic that controls gene regulation in human cells. In the future, this new knowledge can be applied to, for example, investigating cancers and other genetic diseases.

In the long-term battle between a herpesvirus and its human host, a virologist and her team of students have identified some human RNA able to resist the viral takeover — and the mechanism by which that occurs.

A research team introduces a new large-scale study on human transcription factors combining two state-of-the art interactomics methods that allow rapid identification of protein-protein interactions and extensive functional information of this important gene family.

Researchers have identified a previously unrecognized key player in cancer evolution: clusters of mutations occurring at certain regions of the genome. These mutation clusters contribute to the progression of about 10% of human cancers and can be used to predict patient survival.

Using data from over 100,000 malignant and non-malignant cells from 15 human brain metastases, researchers have revealed two functional archetypes of metastatic cells across 7 different types of brain tumors, each containing both immune and non-immune cell types. Their findings provide a potential roadmap for metastatic tumor formation that could be used to design therapies to improve the treatment of metastasized patients.

In many mammals including humans, the placenta invades the wall of the uterus during pregnancy in the same way that cancer cells invade surrounding tissues. Using genomic sequences and gene expression information, researchers were able to predict specific signaling proteins that drive the expression of genes that decrease the susceptibility of invasion in human cells. Using a custom fabricated bio chip, the researchers confirmed that these predicted proteins did in fact decrease the invasion of both cancer and placental cells.

Mice are typically used as models in advanced prostate cancer research, but the profound differences between them and humans has long bedeviled the translation of findings from the animal to success in people. Dogs however are the only other animal that suffers from a significant incidence of prostate cancer, and researchers are finding them much more enlightening subjects in identification of drugs that show promise for human patients.

Researchers developed a single-use sensor strip that can be used with a circuit board to detect cerebrospinal fluid leaks. They collected nine clinical samples and introduced the test fluid into a small liquid channel on the tip of the sensor strips. The liquid channel held electrodes, which contained antibodies specific to proteins found only in human cerebrospinal fluid. The circuit board analyzed the signal and produced a four-digit number that correlates to the concentration of the protein beta-2-transferrin, found in CSF.

Researchers have explored the cellular changes that occur in human mammary tissue in lactating and non-lactating women, offering insight into the relationship between pregnancy, lactation, and breast cancer.

Researchers have developed a computational approach to identify GSH sites with significantly higher potential for the safe insertion of therapeutic genes and their durable expression across many cell types. For two out of 2,000 predicted GSH sites, the team provided an in-depth validation with adoptive T cell therapies and in vivo gene therapies for skin diseases in mind. By engineering the identified GSH sites to carry a reporter gene in T cells, and a therapeutic gene in skin cells, respectively, they demonstrated safe and long-lasting expression of the newly introduced genes.

New research shows that specific enzymes can remove lactic acid marks. This finding may increase our understanding of cancer medicine and how physical exercise, among other things, can affect human epigenetics.

The human immune system, that marvel of complexity, subtlety, and sophistication, includes a billion-year-old family of proteins used by bacteria to defend themselves against viruses, scientists have discovered.

Scientists have discovered that genes in human embryos rapidly become active after fertilization, opening a new window onto the start of human embryonic life.

Artificial intelligence (AI) models that evaluate medical images have potential to speed up and improve accuracy of cancer diagnoses, but they may also be vulnerable to cyberattacks. Researchers simulated an attack that falsified mammogram images, fooling both an AI breast cancer diagnosis model and human breast imaging radiologist experts.

Recently published research has found that most cancer-free individuals over age 60 carry at least 100 billion cells harboring at least one oncogenic, or tumor-causing, mutation.

Scientists have identified a rare population of potentially toxic senescent cells in human brains that can serve as a target for a new Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

Recent research compared the genetic expression profiles of a nonlethal canine tumor and the rare, devastating human oral tumor it resembles, laying the groundwork for potential translational medicine down the road.

Researchers have produced a single-cell chromatin atlas for the human genome. Delineating chromatin regions in cells of different human tissue types would be a major step toward understanding the role of gene regulatory elements (non-coding DNA) in human health or disease.

A new study has identified an RNA molecule that suppresses prostate tumors. The scientists found that prostate cancers develop ways to shut down this RNA molecule to allow themselves to grow. According to the new research — conducted in mice implanted with human prostate tumor samples — restoring this so-called long noncoding RNA could be a new strategy to treat prostate cancer that has developed resistance to hormonal therapies.

A decade ago, genome sequencing revealed a big surprise: about 50 percent of human cancers are linked to mutations in what are known as epigenetic regulators, which control the activity of genes. Medical researchers have now developed a new drug-like molecule that can counteract the effects of mutated epigenetic regulators, which are known to drive certain types of cancer including lymphoma.

Researchers have designed a way to selectively turn on gene expression in target cells, including human cells. Their technology can detect specific mRNA sequences, which triggers production of a specific protein.