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This Symposium will be hosted live and available on-demandNovember 17-18, 2026 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM ETHigh-throughput omics technologies transform drug discovery by enabling comprehensive profiling of biological systems and providing insights into disease mechanisms, therapeutic targets, and biomarker development.Register now to reserve your spot!
Correcting for extrinsic mortality suggests intrinsic lifespan is far more heritable than previously thought. For decades, the heritability of human lifespan has been treated as modest, even disappointing. Twin studies and family analyses repeatedly suggested that genes account for perhaps 10–25% of variation in how long we live, leaving environment, chance and circumstance to do the rest. It was an appealing narrative, particularly for public health – improve living conditions and longevity follows – but one that never quite sat comfortably with the mounting biological evidence that aging itself is a regulated, genetically influenced process. A new paper in Science…
Genyro team (from left to right): Noah Robinson, PhD, Kaihang Wang, PhD, Adrian Woolfson, PhD, and Brian Hie, PhD. [Genyro] Adrian Woolfson, PhD, says biology is becoming a general design and manufacturing platform poised to unlock a multi-trillion-dollar bioeconomy. Key to this transition will be the ability to write new DNA sequences with engineerable outcomes across manufacturing, medicine, agriculture, materials, water purification and more. “Cells become platforms that you deploy, not organisms that you merely observe,” he told GEN Edge. A longstanding biotech executive, Woolfson formerly served as president and founder of genome writing company, Replay, after years of experience across Bristol Myers…
This Symposium will be hosted live and available on-demandSeptember 22-23, 2026 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM ETCell and gene therapies hold tremendous promise for a wide range of diseases and disorders.The translational potential of the latest promising approaches define their research and development trajectory.Register now to reserve your spot!
Scientists have designed an immunotherapy that reduces plaque in the arteries of mice, presenting a possible new treatment strategy against heart disease. The novel therapy uses a lab-generated antibody to destroy a harmful type of modulated smooth muscle cell (SMC) located within blood vessel walls that plays a central role in driving inflammation and dangerous plaque formation in the arteries of the human heart. These cells directly contribute to coronary artery disease (CAD), in which atherosclerotic plaque builds up in the arteries that feed blood to the heart. The team, headed by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in…
During his PhD, an immunologist at a Harvard Medical School-affiliated research hospital followed what he understood to be best practice: recording his work in an electronic lab notebook (ELN). Then the company behind the software was acquired, and the system changed. Links between experiments broke. Formatting was destroyed. “I lost access to a bunch of analysis results,” he said.The experience left him wary of relying on ELNs for a basic expectation in science: that the record of an experiment will still be there when it is needed.That incident is not an isolated cautionary tale. A new study suggests that current…
Data from a new study in mice connects unrepaired DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs), highly toxic tangles of protein and DNA, to inflammation-linked premature aging and embryonic lethality in mice. The findings suggest that targeting innate immune signaling may be a viable therapeutic strategy for conditions caused by defective DPC repair, such as Ruijs-Aalfs progeria syndrome (RJALS) and Cockayne syndrome. Details of the work are provided in a new Science paper titled “DNA-protein cross-links promote cGAS-STING-driven premature aging and embryonic lethality.” DNA-protein crosslinks form when proteins become covalently trapped to DNA and form harmful knots that block essential cellular processes such as…
A few years ago, Caetano Reis e Sousa, an immunologist at The Francis Crick Institute, and his team were investigating how the immune system detects tissue damage. They were specifically exploring the role of Gc globulin, a protein that scavenges actin filaments secreted by damaged and cancerous cells.When they engineered Gc globulin knockout mice, the researchers observed that the animals showed tumor resistance. However, they soon noticed something intriguing: Wild type mice that expressed Gc globulin acquired tumor resistance when housed with Gc globulin-deficient animals. Reis e Sousa and his team realized that they were treading in relatively unknown waters.…
Credit: Northwestern University A total artificial lung system kept a patient in critical condition alive for two days without lungs, helping stabilize him enough to receive a life-saving lung transplantation. Two years later, the patient has fully recovered and shows excellent lung function. A study published today in the Med journal details the procedure, which took place at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Unlike previous artificial lungs, the system used in this study was designed to adapt to changes in blood flow, significantly reducing the risk of stroke and heart attack associated with the use of existing lung replacement…
Credit: Westend61/Getty Images Place cells—the hippocampal neurons discovered by Nobel laureate John O’Keefe, PhD—normally fire in crisp, rapid sequences that replay our recent experiences during rest, helping memories take hold. But in Alzheimer’s disease, that internal rehearsal appears to become undone. In a new study from University College London (UCL), researchers report that hippocampal replay still occurs in an Alzheimer’s mouse model, yet the sequences lose their structure, hinting at a subtle but profound breakdown in the machinery that stabilizes memories. The work, published in Current Biology and titled “Disrupted hippocampal replay is associated with reduced offline map stabilization in…