COVID-19 will continue to claim lives and cause deaths in 2023 There are over 50,000 patients in the US Bring it alone The number of deaths worldwide reaches approximately 7 million. The pandemic has also created an epidemic of survivors. continue to suffer From the long new coronavirus. But 2023 wasn't all bad news.
As more people develop immunity to the virus, the World Health Organization Decided on May 5th, COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern. The latest boosters of existing vaccines have helped reduce the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Novavax's new coronavirus vaccine It was approved this year.
Beyond COVID-19 vaccines, there have been many other interesting breakthroughs this year, some of which are particularly noteworthy for their potential impact on health and medicine.
1. The world's first CRISPR-based gene therapy becomes possible
world's first CRISPR-based gene therapy Approved by drug regulatory authorities. UK on November 16thand the December 8th in the US. Treats sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia, which are genetic disorders that affect red blood cells. Hemoglobin in red blood cells carries oxygen throughout the body. Errors in the hemoglobin gene result in the production of fragile red blood cells, causing a lack of oxygen in the body, a condition known as anemia. Patients with sickle cell disease also suffer from infections and severe pain when sickle cells form blood clots that block blood flow, while patients with beta thalassemia need blood transfusions every three to four weeks. I have to take it.
The newly approved gene therapy Cassibee, corrects the defective hemoglobin gene in a patient's bone marrow stem cells, allowing them to produce functional hemoglobin. A patient's stem cells are harvested from the bone marrow, edited in a laboratory, and then injected into the patient. One treatment may cure some patients for life.
Two inventors have fine-tuned CRISPR (short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”) to work as a precision gene-editing tool; Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer DoudnaHe won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry exactly three years ago in 2020.
This is exactly The first of dozens of potential treatments In development to treat other genetic diseases, canceror infertility.
2. The first drug to slow Alzheimer's disease is approved.
of US Food and Drug Administration Approved first drug targeting Alzheimer's disease one of the fundamental causes of disease. The drug Leqembi does not treat or improve the terminal symptoms of the disease, but 18 months later Treatment slows the decline in memory and thinking skills by approximately 30 percent If the drug is administered at an early stage of the disease.
Leqembi is a targeted monoclonal antibody. amyloid plaques Brain abnormalities are a defining feature of Alzheimer's disease. Abnormal levels of a naturally occurring protein called beta-amyloid clump together to form sticky plaques in the brain, causing inflammation and damaging nerve connections. The buildup of amyloid plaques leads to loss of memory and thinking skills, leading to Alzheimer's disease.
Clinical trials show that Leqembi removes amyloid plaques It is released by the brain and slows the progression of the disease.
3. Researchers produce healthy mouse pups from two fathers.no women needed
Yes, that's right.Researchers from Japan presented evidence at a scientific conference This means that it is possible to produce healthy, fertile mice without female mice laying eggs.
First, eggs were made from stem cells derived from the skin cells of male mice. These eggs were fertilized with another male's sperm, and the fertilized eggs were then implanted into female mice, where they grew and matured.
Only seven of the more than 600 implanted embryos developed into baby mice, but the offspring grew normally and became fertile adults.
It is still unclear whether the mouse offspring will develop exactly like mice born through conventional breeding. These findings have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals. The preliminary stage has so far failed in humans..
4. Scientists map every connection in insect brains
Scientists have created The first complete brain wiring diagram of an insect brain. It may not sound very impressive, but even the Drosophila brain contains a vast network of interconnected neurons called the connectome.
To date, only the brains of roundworms, sea squirts, and marine worms have been completely mapped. Each connection contains only a few hundred pieces.
But a complete map of the Drosophila larval connectome reveals that it contains more than 3,000 neurons and more than 500,000 connections between them. The development of this map took an international team of scientists over five years. Although the Drosophila brain is much simpler than the human brain, the techniques developed will help map more complex brains in the future.
The neural circuits in the Drosophila brain are similar to the neural networks used in machine learning. Understanding the similarities and complexity of the fly brain connectome will help decipher how the human brain works and how neurological diseases develop. It could also lead to the development of new machine learning techniques and more efficient artificial intelligence systems.
5. Pigment-producing cells become “clogged” and cause gray hair
scientist Indicates when cells produce pigmentCells called melanocytes become immature and cannot form blonde, brown, red, or black hair colors. This arrested state causes gray hair. New hair grows from hair follicles in the skin, where melanocytes are also present.
Scientists at New York University observed over two years that single melanocyte stem cells migrated up and down individual hair follicles in mice. Surprisingly, they discovered that melanocyte stem cells can move back and forth from gray, immature stem cells to mature, colored cells as they move up and down during the hair life cycle. However, as hair ages, melanocyte stem cells go through multiple cycles and become dull, becoming trapped near the roots of the hair as immature melanocytes. When the pigment is no longer produced, the hair turns gray.
6. Bacteria have been shown to help cancer cells spread more aggressively
scientists some bacteria were found Frequently found in many gastrointestinal tumors, they directly help cancer cells evade the body's immune response.
These bacteria not only work with tumor cells to promote cancer progression, but they also help cancer spread more rapidly by breaking down anti-cancer drugs and promoting cancer progression. treatment fails.
This study shows that some anticancer drugs It is effective because it also kills bacteria that live in tumors.. Understanding how a tumor's microenvironment influences its survival and progression may open new doors for cancer treatment.
7. AI identifies people at highest risk of pancreatic cancer
New artificial intelligence (AI) tools Can predict pancreatic cancer By identifying specific patterns of symptoms occurring in a patient's health record, it enables diagnosis up to three years before the actual diagnosis.
Pancreatic cancer is rare, but third largest Cancer-related causes of death. It is generally discovered at a later stage, when the disease has already spread to other areas of the body, making it very deadly.
Early stage symptoms pancreatic cancer It is easy to be misdiagnosed, but Many patients may live longer If only the cancer had been detected early. To this end, scientists trained an AI algorithm on his 6.2 million medical records over 41 years in Denmark, and discovered hidden data in the records of 24,000 of his patients who later developed pancreatic cancer. A pattern has been detected.
Each disease is recorded with a code in the medical record. The AI model analyzed the combination of these disease codes and the timing of their occurrence. The AI model learned how to identify people at highest risk for pancreatic cancer by comparing a specific set of symptoms that precede a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
The scientists then tested the AI tool by analyzing the records of nearly 3 million U.S. veterans over a 21-year period. This computer algorithm accurately identified approximately 4,000 individuals up to three years before they were actually diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This study shows that AI models are as accurate as genetic tests in predicting pancreatic cancer risk. Because pancreatic cancer is a very rare cancer, genetic testing is done. currently recommended It only applies to people who are at high risk or have a family history of the disease.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include news that the FDA has approved a gene therapy for sickle cell disease.
