preclinical
28 stories tagged "preclinical"
Switching Off MTCH2 Makes Fat Cells Burn Fuel, and an Obesity-Drug Maker Paid for the Mice
Delete MTCH2 and fat cells burn fuel faster, while precursor cells mostly stop maturing into fat cells. The dish work leaned on a cervical cancer line and mouse cells, every mouse was male, and Boehringer Ingelheim funded the key mouse study.
Drugs & FDAMice Trained to Spot THC Gave the THC Answer for CBN, the Sleep-Gummy Cannabinoid
Mice given CBN twice daily for five days grew tolerant and twitched once a receptor blocker cut it off. A Canopy Growth sleep trial of CBN found about 0.5 fewer awakenings a night and missed its main measure.
Brain & AgingClear Most of the Brain's Microglia and Alzheimer's Mice Sleep Two Hours More, Plaque Load Unchanged
In amyloid mice, plaque piled up while lost sleep held flat, and the sleep came back when most microglia were cleared. That is an awkward result for an industry selling plaque removal.
Nutrition & FoodMicroplastics Make Tissue-Damaging Radicals in Water, No Sunlight Required
With no light, heat or catalyst, water turned the surfaces of six common microplastics into a source of hydroxyl radicals in lab tests, and the plastics that made the most radicals ruptured the most red blood cells.
Nutrition & FoodAn Oil Mill's Soy Emulsifier Protected Salt-Fed Mice's Memory
Salt-fed mice got worse at remembering objects and lost interest in each other. A soy lipid blunted both, in a study a food-ingredient maker helped start and fund.
CancerThe Sepsis Drug Eli Lilly Withdrew in 2011 Has a Second Life in a Dish of Blood Stem Cells
Soaked in activated protein C for one hour, human blood stem cells divided less, stayed quiescent, and engrafted better after transplant. The catch: the result lives in mice, and the molecule is one Eli Lilly withdrew as a failed sepsis drug in 2011.
Infectious DiseaseThe 'Pac-Man' Enzyme That Eats Bioplastic Also Breaks Down Penicillin
Konstanz researchers pulled an enzyme from forest soil that digests an experimental bioplastic and also cuts open penicillin. The press release says every bioplastic completely degraded. The paper's carbon numbers and the intact buried films say otherwise, and nobody put the gene in a living bacteri
Brain & AgingIn Lab Tests, the Alzheimer's Fragment Labeled 'Non-Amyloidogenic' Builds Amyloid Faster Than Amyloid Beta
For decades the alpha pathway was billed as the safe way to cut the Alzheimer's precursor protein. Its leftover fragment, p3, builds fibrils in less than half the time amyloid beta needs in lab tests, forms ring-shaped pores, and turns up in plaques where a common antibody stain can't tell the two a
Brain & AgingD-Serine Helped Old Mice in the Maze and Did Nothing for Their Skin or Bones
Restoring the protein menin in one patch of hypothalamus gave 20-month-old mice thicker skin, more bone and better learning. D-serine, the amino acid now in the headline, improved only the learning, and the one trial in healthy older adults that both news stories cite gave each person a single dose
CancerThe Compound That Outsmarts Cancer's Defenses: Eight Cell Lines, a Few Mice, and a Startup
Baylor researchers say CS18 dismantles the survival switch tumors use to resist treatment. It works in eight cell lines and a handful of mice, and its inventors just incorporated a company around it.
Brain & AgingA Bendable Fiber Thinner Than Six Hairs Records, Doses, and Stimulates a Mouse Brain at Once
Silicon brain probes scar the tissue they're built to read. A soft optical fiber from Denmark records, doses, and stimulates neurons at once, in mice, with a pharma foundation and pending patents behind it.
CancerUCLA Can Grow Thousands of Cancer-Fighting Cell Doses in Six Weeks. Every Patient So Far Has Been a Mouse.
The lab put a $5,000-a-dose price on an off-the-shelf cancer therapy grown from cord blood that controlled tumors in mice with ovarian cancer and melanoma. No human has received it.
Drugs & FDAThe 'Bone-Building Switch' Is Back in the Headlines. It Was Tested in Mice, and Only Mice
A publicly funded Leipzig compound rebuilt bone in ovariectomized mice, 8 per treated group. More than a year later the same experiment is still being sold to readers as a way to keep their bones strong for life.
CancerA New Cancer 'Weapon' That Has Only Ever Slowed Tumors in Mice
Stanford's tissue-resident natural killer cells slowed melanoma and head-and-neck tumors in mice. John Sunwoo warned against reading too much into that. The coverage read plenty into it anyway.
CancerThe Cells That Heal Wounds Are Feeding Breast Cancer Its Nerves
University of Oklahoma researchers blocked the protein in mice and triple-negative tumors grew far less. In patients, all they have is a correlation and a drug, already sold for something else, that has never been tried against breast cancer.
InvestigationsKing's College London Turned Sheep's Wool Into a Bone Scaffold, and Called It a Milestone Before a Single Human Trial
The wool membrane grew more organized bone than collagen in a rat's skull. Collagen still grew more of it, the sample size never made the press release, and no one has put the material in a person.
Brain & AgingThis Week's Autism 'Breakthrough': A Rare Mutation, an Injection Into Mice, and Not One Human Patient
An injection that silences one gene rescued social behavior in mutant mice and a dish of human cells. The headlines called it an autism therapy. No autistic person has received it, and the gene it targets is mutated in a small fraction of cases.
CancerIn 2021, Creatine Spread Cancer in Mice. This Week, a UCLA Lab Said It Fights It.
A UCLA study found creatine energized cancer-fighting immune cells in mice and lab dishes. It was never tested in a patient, and a separate line of research says the same supplement feeds metastasis.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Petri Dish of Angry Immune Cells, a Little Ultrasound, and a Very Big Headline
UAH researchers used sound waves to shift immune cells from attack mode toward repair. The press release said 'stop arthritis before it starts.' The experiment never touched a joint.
Metabolic & WeightA Gut Microbe Was Feeding Ammonia to Sick Livers. A Michigan Peptide Cut Off the Supply in Monkeys.
The compound reversed severe fatty liver in monkeys by starving one ammonia-making gut bacterium. It also comes from a company its lead inventor founded, and no human has taken it for this.
Infectious DiseaseThe Nose-Spray TB Vaccine in Your Feed This Week Has Only Ever Worked in Mice
Johns Hopkins fused two genes into a nasal spray, added it to a drug cocktail, and cleared tuberculosis faster in mice. DNA vaccines have dazzled mice for thirty years and disappointed humans nearly every time. This one has not been in a person yet.
CancerFor Twenty Years, a Vitamin B12 Cancer Drug Has Worked in Mice, Dogs, and Rats. It Still Hasn't Reached a Human Trial.
Nitrosylcobalamin crossed the blood-brain barrier and pooled in a rat's brain tumor. This study didn't shrink one, the synergy ran in a petri dish, and the scientist behind the headlines holds the patents.
CancerThe "Secret Reason" Cancer Drugs Stop Working Was Published in February
A Montreal team's antibody against the SLAMF6 brake on T cells made the rounds this week as a fresh discovery. The paper went up in February, the work is in mice, and the antibody has not been given to a person.
Metabolic & WeightSleep apnea's heart damage may run through the gut, not the airway
Researchers at UCSD report that knocking out a single bile-acid receptor abolishes the arterial plaque sleep-apnea conditions would otherwise drive in mice. The mechanism fits the CPAP era's underwhelming trial record better than the airway story ever did.