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Category: biotech/medical

“The dream of predicting a protein shape just from its gene sequence is now a reality,” said Paul Adams, Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences at Berkeley Lab. For Adams and other structural biologists who study proteins, predicting their shape offers a key to understanding their function and accelerating treatments for diseases like cancer and COVID-19.

The current approaches to accurately mapping that shape, however, usually rely on complex experiments at synchrotrons. But even these sophisticated processes have their limitations—the data and quality aren’t always sufficient to understand a protein at an atomic level. By applying powerful machine learning methods to the large library of protein structures it is now possible to predict a protein’s shape from its gene sequence.

Researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division joined an led by the University of Washington to produce a computer software tool called RoseTTAFold. The algorithm simultaneously takes into account patterns, distances, and coordinates of amino acids. As these data inputs flow in, the tool assesses relationships within and between structures, eventually helping to build a very detailed picture of a protein’s .

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In humans, as well as all vertebrate animals, turning a fertilized egg into an embryo with a little beating heart requires that stem cells differentiate, specialize, and generate specific tissues, such as bones, blood vessels and a nervous system. This process is kickstarted and regulated by retinal. Animals can’t produce their own retinal, though, they must ingest it from plants, or from animals that eat plants.

Plant roots and animal embryos rely on the same chemical for successful development.

What do frog eggs have in common with anti-aging creams? Their success depends on a group of chemical compounds called retinoids, which are capable of generating and re-generating tissues.

A new study in plants shows that retinoids’ tissue-generating capacities are also responsible for the appropriate development of roots.

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More treatments are available for Covid-19 as hospitalizations spike, but some drugs are sitting on the shelves unused.

As record daily Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths this month in the US have pushed the pandemic to new crisis levels, senior government health officials have lamented that many patients are not getting the drugs — including monoclonal antibodies, antivirals, and corticosteroids — available to treat the disease, leaving many doses unused.

“Even with a vaccine, we know we will not prevent every infection,” said US Surgeon General Jerome Adams on January 14 during a press conference. “So today we want to remind everyone that for those of you who do contract Covid, we have excellent treatments to keep you out of the hospital, to keep you out of the ICU, to help you recover quickly.”

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Sept 9 (Reuters) — Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) said on Thursday it is developing a single vaccine that combines a booster dose against COVID-19 with its experimental flu shot.

The company hopes to eventually add vaccines it is working on for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and other respiratory diseases as an annual shot.

“We believe this is a very large opportunity that is ahead of us, if we could bring to market a high efficacy pan-respiratory annual booster,” Moderna Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel said during a presentation to update investors on its drugs in development.

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Within the last decade, scientists have adapted CRISPR systems from microbes into gene editing technology, a precise and programmable system for modifying DNA. Now, scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a new class of programmable DNA modifying systems called OMEGAs (Obligate Mobile Element Guided Activity), which may naturally be involved in shuffling small bits of DNA throughout bacterial genomes.

These ancient DNA-cutting enzymes are guided to their targets by small pieces of RNA. While they originated in bacteria, they have now been engineered to work in human cells, suggesting they could be useful in the development of gene editing therapies, particularly as they are small (~30% the size of Cas9), making them easier to deliver to cells than bulkier enzymes. The discovery, reported in the journal Science, provides evidence that natural RNA-guided enzymes are among the most abundant proteins on earth, pointing toward a vast new area of biology that is poised to drive the next revolution in genome editing technology.

The research was led by McGovern investigator Feng Zhang, who is James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and a core institute member of the Broad Institute. Zhang’s team has been exploring natural diversity in search of new molecular systems that can be rationally programmed.

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Huge swaths of our DNA library are made up of non-coding genes that were long regarded as “junk DNA”. Recent findings, however, have shown these bits of DNA actually have many purposes in mammals.

Some help form the structure in our DNA molecules so they can be packaged neatly within our cell nuclei while others are involved in gene regulation. Now, researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered another potential purpose for these non-coding instructions, within the genomes of marsupials.

Some of the gene sequences once considered “junk” are actually fragments of viruses left buried in our DNA from an infection in a long-forgotten ancestor.

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A team of researchers from Texas A&M University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering has designed and 3D bioprinted a highly realistic model of a blood vessel.

The model is made of a newly nanoengineered, purpose-built hydrogel bioink and closely mimics the natural vascular function of a real blood vessel, as well as its disease response. The team hopes its work can pave the way for advanced cardiovascular drug development, expediting treatment approval while eliminating the need for animal and human testing altogether.

“A remarkably unique characteristic of this nanoengineered bioink is that regardless of cell density, it demonstrates a high printability and ability to protect encapsulated cells against high shear forces in the bioprinting process,” said Akhilesh Gaharwar, associate professor at the university and co-author of the study. “Remarkably, 3D bioprinted cells maintain a healthy phenotype and remain viable for nearly one month post-fabrication.”

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On the Outskirts of the Nucleus If you open a biology textbook and run through the images depicting how DNA is organized in the cell’s nucleus, chances are you’ll start feeling hungry; the chains of DNA would seem like a bowl of ramen: long strings floating in liquid. However, according to two new.

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Summary: Machine learning algorithm produced fewer decision-making errors than professionals when it came to clinical diagnosis of patients.

Source: University of Montreal.

It’s an old adage: there’s no harm in getting a second opinion. But what if that second opinion could be generated by a computer, using artificial intelligence? Would it come up with better treatment recommendations than your professional proposes?

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