What if drug companies could grow peptide-based diabetes or weight-loss medication using Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of tobacco plant? A team of University of Ottawa students aims to make that dream a reality with Phytogene. Ozempic, a go-to drug for type-II diabetes and weight loss, has been plagued by shortages until recently. The students found…

MIT engineers have developed an efficient method to directly convert skin cells into functional neurons, bypassing the time-consuming step of creating stem cells first. This streamlined process, achieving over 1000% yield in mouse cells, promises to accelerate the production of neurons for cell therapies. The research, which was published in Cell Systems, holds promise for…

Picture this: A lung cancer drug candidate was headed for abandonment until AI-powered pathology analysis identified which patients would benefit from it. Using machine learning and digital pathology, the two sponsors backing the candidate built an algorithm capable of distinguishing responders from non-responders to the compound they were developing. “Without that AI model and digital…

​Over 300 million people worldwide live with a rare disease, yet roughly 95% of these conditions lack an FDA-approved treatment. Traditional clinical trials face significant challenges in this segment. Barriers include small patient populations with correspondingly limited statistical power. Yet emerging biosimulation and virtual trial methods offer a promising path forward., says Oxana Iliach, vice-chair…

In 2024, the World Health Organization added 24 pathogens to its pandemic watchlist, including three that are zoonotic, meaning they spread from animals to humans. The newly added zoonotic diseases include avian influenza, mpox (previously known as monkeypox) and Sin Nombre virus, the latter of which jumps from mice to people and has a 30% fatality rate in…

Glucocorticoids, commonly referred to as steroids, are currently the standard of care for the treatment and management of many autoimmune disorders. They are highly effective at suppressing inflammation and the reducing the activity of the body’s immune system, providing rapid relief from associated symptoms. At the time of prescribing, steroids appear to be a low-cost,…

AnaptysBio has unveiled positive findings from its Phase 2b RENOIR clinical trial evaluating rosnilimab. Nearly 70% of participants achieved low disease activity (CDAI ≤10) by Week 14, with improvements persisting through Week 28. The investigational therapy met its primary endpoint by delivering statistically significant gains in DAS28‑CRP scores at Week 12 compared to placebo, alongside…

The humble vitamin biotin (vitamin B7) has emerged as a potential neuroprotective agent against manganese-induced neurotoxicity linked to Parkinson’s disease (PD). A recent study published in Science Signaling used fruit fly models and human dopaminergic neurons to show that biotin supplementation can reverse neurologic damage caused by excessive manganese exposure. Manganese, though essential at low…

COTA Healthcare recently unveiled what it calls a major breakthrough in real-world oncology data (RWD). At the heart of this achievement is a generative AI (GenAI) platform that the company says makes large-scale curation of cancer data both accurate and profitable, marking a significant shift from previous industry attempts to automate the labor-intensive RWD abstraction…

Generative AI has become a crucial tool in drug discovery, significantly accelerating the identification of new therapeutics. AI systems, trained with data on target engagement and pharmacological properties, can rapidly generate new therapeutic candidates, reducing R&D timelines by years. Several AI-assisted drugs are already in clinical trials. Like any pharmaceutical, AI-assisted therapeutics require patent protection.…

Current RA treatments, while effective for some, often fall short of providing long-term remission owing to the disease’s complexity, leaving many patients cycling through therapies like methotrexate and biologics without sustained relief. Here, rosnilimab stands out as novel by targeting the PD-1 pathway, aiming to reset the immune system through the selective depletion of pathogenic…

As the CEO and cofounder of Atropos Health, Dr. Brigham Hyde is focused on closing the “evidence gap” that frequently arises in modern medicine. While healthcare decisions often boil down to detective work, the pursuit of the best data to guide decisions is sometimes hamstrung by limited or partial guidance from clinical trials or established…

It may not be perfect, but OpenAI’s Deep Research tool can significantly accelerate mundane internet-based research tasks. You give it an assignment, it asks a few follow-up questions, which you reply and there it goes, thinking and researching your query for about five minutes — or as long as half an hour. Built on OpenAI’s…

“The era of ‘what if’ for AI in healthcare is over. Now, it’s all about ‘what is.’ ” So says Blythe Adamson, head of outcomes research and evidence generation at the real-world evidence platform Flatiron Health, a company reimagining cancer care infrastructure. “Post-ChatGPT,” she states, “the skepticism has vanished.” The proof? Flatiron is seeing data…

A new case series published in JAMA Ophthalmology has spotlighted rare but potentially serious vision issues in patients taking semaglutide or tirzepatide, two popular glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists commonly used to treat diabetes and aid weight loss. In the investigation, nine individuals reported sudden vision changes while on semaglutide or tirzepatide; seven of these…

Oxford Nanoimaging (ONI) recently launched the Aplo Scope super-resolution microscope that pushes imaging precision to 20 nm. The Aplo Scope integrates lasers, optics, chemistry, and software in a compact footprint, helping researchers capture and analyze molecular interactions at the nanoscale. With its user-friendly design and portability, ONI aims to simplify super-resolution microscopy and potentially reduce…

In recent years, the clinical research landscape has been marked by a steady rise in protocol complexity with more endpoints and procedures across all trial phases and therapeutic areas. This trend, driven by the increasing sophistication of trial designs, is evident across trial phases and major therapeutic areas. Resulting in more endpoints and procedures on…

A new AI technology known as VersAI, a proprietary AI technology from Verseon, is challenging the dominance of deep learning—especially in areas where data is scarce. In a recent preprint, Verseon researchers and a colleague at the Missouri University of Science and Technology show that VersAI can train predictive models considerably faster than Google AutoML, based…

The market for monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is worth over $330 billion and is expected to more than double by 2030. As the research pipeline continues to grow, developers are facing numerous challenges, not the least of which is measuring and maintaining critical quality attributes (CQAs).  One CQA that has drawn an increasing amount of attention…

For years, a stash of ancient scrolls have been sitting in storage, still rolled up. They may have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, before a volcano buried them — and Pompeii — in 79 CE. Since the scrolls were discovered in the 1800s, they have been carefully guarded. Researchers periodically pull out one scroll at…

One of the largest unmet needs in modern medicine is the effective treatment of osteoarthritis (OA)—a degenerative joint disease afflicting more than 30 million Americans and costing the healthcare system $459.5 billion in all-cause medical costs, according to a 2020 study in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. “We see this as one of…

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are tasked with monitoring and reporting safety events (adverse events, product quality complaints, special situations, etc.) to protect patient safety. This process – detecting, documenting, evaluating, reporting, and following up – is essential to meeting regulatory standards and ensuring optimal patient outcomes. However, many of these critical events are not being captured today. …

In the classic Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day, the main character is stuck reliving the same day—again and again. Biotech startups often face a similar fate when they sprint to first-in-human trials without planning for the realities of large-scale manufacturing. “Many times, researchers rush to get their product tested in humans with processes that are…

Capsida Biotherapeutics, a gene therapy startup that has quietly amassed a network of Big Pharma partnerships, announced in January that its partner AbbVie will exercise its option on their first neurodegenerative disease program, triggering a $40 million license payment. The five-year-old company, which has built its war chest primarily through pharma collaborations rather than traditional…

Immunotherapy resistance in solid tumors remains one of oncology’s most significant therapeutic challenges, with multiple cancer types showing limited response to current approaches. Microsatellite stable colorectal cancer (MSS CRC) exemplifies this challenge, with over 90% of MSS CRC cases failing to respond to checkpoint inhibitor monotherapy, while resistance patterns also emerge in many other immunologically…