What the scientists are saying…
Hope for bowel disease sufferers
Scientists have pinpointed one of the principal drivers of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) – a breakthrough that could lead to new treatments, reports The Guardian. Around 500,000 people in the UK and seven million worldwide have IBD, the main forms of which are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. It occurs when the immune system attacks the bowel, and symptoms include abdominal pain, weight loss, fatigue, bloody stools and diarrhoea. Existing treatments do not work for everyone and an incomplete understanding of the drivers of IBD has hindered the hunt for new ones. The new research, by a team at The Francis Crick Institute, focused on a “gene desert” – a stretch of DNA that is devoid of proteincoding genes – which has previously been linked to auto-immune disorders. The researchers found that part of it acts like a volume control for nearby genes, and that when turned up too high, one of them, ETS2, causes inflammation of the sort associated with IBD. They then looked for a drug that might tamp down ETS2, and honed in on MEK inhibitors, which are used to treat cancer. In tests in the lab, these reduced inflammation in gut samples. “What we have found is one of the very central pathways that goes wrong when people get inflammatory bowel disease and this has been something of a holy grail,” said the study’s final author Dr James Lee.
Tetanus linked to Parkinson’s
Could the tetanus vaccine be used to treat or even prevent Parkinson’s disease? That’s the intriguing possibility raised by new research at Tel Aviv University. For the study, a team examined the health and vaccine records of 1,446 people who had been diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease between the ages of 45 and 75, and compared them with those of 7,230 nonsufferers. This revealed that having recently had a tetanus jab following a wound infection seemed to halve the risk of being diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The researchers speculate that tetanus bacteria attack the nervous system in Parkinson’s patients, possibly via nerve cells in the nose. If further research confirms the results, the vaccine could be used to ward off the disease or slow its progression – something existing drugs are unable to do.
A dye to make cancer cells glow
Prostate cancer is often treated with surgery, but if the cancerous tissue is not completely eradicated, the disease may return. And if surgeons inadvertently damage healthy tissue, it can lead to life-changing side effects, including incontinence. Now scientists have developed a fluorescent dye that clings to cancer cells, giving them a clearer view of the tumour’s edge and allowing them to identify clusters of cancerous cells that have spread into surrounding tissue. The dye, which is attached to an antibody-like molecule, hones in on a protein that is found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. A special light can then be used to make the cancerous cells glow. In a small trial of 23 patients, the dye was used to successfully identify cells that had spread; further clinical trials are under way, and the hope is that it could in time be made to work for other types of cancer too.
The tiny ape found in Germany
A kneecap and two teeth found in Bavaria indicate the existence of a previously unknown species of great ape that is the smallest to have ever lived, scientists have claimed. Named Buronius manfredschmidi, the tiny creature lived some 11.6 million years ago, and is estimated to have weighed just 10kg – roughly the same as a French bulldog and far lighter than any other hominid on record. The thin enamel and light wear on its teeth point to a diet of soft fruits and leaves, while the structure of the kneecap (or patella) suggests that it was a skilled climber. Other fossilised remains found at the same site indicate that it lived alongside a much larger ape that ate tougher foods; the differences in their diets would have allowed them to cohabit without competing for resources. “It’s hard to say why there are no small hominids living today,” said study leader Prof Madelaine Böhme, noting that “in evolutionary lineages you normally start small and get bigger”. But other experts suggested that the fossilised remains could be from a juvenile great ape – or from another type of primate altogether.