Health & Medicine
Reprogramming the immune system for personalised immunotherapy against cancer
For decades, researchers have strived to understand how the immune system recognises and fights cancer, ultimately aiming to exploit and augment these processes to create more effective cancer therapies. Dr Richard Koya, Associate Professor of Oncology, Associate Director of the Center for Immunotherapy, and Director of the Vector Development & Production Facility at Roswell Park Cancer Institute is a prominent […]
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Inhibiting cancer stem cell survival in the hostile tumour environment
Wouldn’t it be great if a small non-toxic molecule could be used to treat cancer? By investigating the possibility of using a cancer cell’s own physiology as a weapon against it, Dr Shoukat Dedhar, at the University of British Columbia, is developing a new treatment that could help prevent tumour growth and metastasis. Every two minutes, someone in the UK […]
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A new class of antibiotic drugs
Finding new classes of antibiotic drugs could not only save human lives, but also greatly reduce the healthcare costs related to tackling bacteria resistant to currently available drugs. Professor Chris McMaster, director of the Cheminformatics Drug Discovery Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, is developing a new class of antibiotics, while trying to overcome the many challenges associated with […]
Extending the half‑life of therapeutic peptides
Dr Mamoun Alhamadsheh is Associate Professor at the University of the Pacific, Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, California. He heads a multi-disciplinary team working in the field of protein-protein interactions. Their research is focused on the development of new treatments for diseases caused by protein aggregation, including Alzheimer’s disease and transthyretin amyloidosis. Their current work in […]
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Let’s hear it for the proteome
Hearing loss is one of the most common sensory impairments, affecting 250 million people worldwide. The causes of deafness, such as exposure to loud noise, are relatively well known, but exactly how they result in hearing loss remains unclear. Dr Jeffrey Savas, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, USA, heads up a lab dedicated to […]
Impaired theory of mind associated with very preterm birth – an invisible handicap
Dr Margot Taylor, Director of Functional Neuroimaging at the Hospital for Sick Children and Professor at the University of Toronto, is investigating how very preterm (VPT) birth impacts social cognitive function including Theory of Mind (ToM), a skill that enables us to appreciate that perspectives and beliefs of others can differ from our own. By using neuroimaging techniques, Dr Taylor […]
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Community collaborations targeting breast cancer
Dr Marion Kavanaugh-Lynch directs the California Breast Cancer Research Program of the University of California. Her latest work with the QuickStart programme in California offers coaching for partnership teams formed between communities and academics to conduct participatory research. With a focus on the environmental factors in breast cancer and social disparities in breast cancer, she has forged an important partnership […]
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Raising antibodies against protein complexes
Dr John LaCava of The Rockefeller University has identified a gap in the current availability of target-specific antibodies for the analysis of intracellular protein-protein interactions. Using the latest antibody production techniques, alongside immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry, he aims to identify important interactions between transcription factors and other macromolecules which are implicated in disease. Proteins are vital for the inner workings […]
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A shining light in the fight against childhood leukaemia?
Dr C. James Lim, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, as well as Investigator at the Michael Cuccione Childhood Cancer Research Program at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. His research group aims to unravel the mechanisms underlying acquired resistance to chemotherapy in childhood malignancies, with the goal of identifying new treatment […]
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Computational methods of researching cancer treatments
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms have the potential to bring substantial advances in the fields of research exploring complex diseases and trying to identify effective treatments. Dr Benjamin Haibe-Kains, working at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, has spent over a decade developing machine learning tools and databases that could help scientists gain a better understanding of […]
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