In a study published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, Sheffield computer scientists in collaboration with AstraZeneca and the University of Southampton have developed a new machine learning framework that has shown the potential to be more accurate at inverse protein folding than existing state-of-the-art methods.

Obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are increasingly present in the population. Brown adipose tissue has a protective function against these prevalent diseases, as it burns calories and can produce body heat from fat. But as the body ages, the activity of brown adipose tissue decreases. This inactivation of brown adipose tissue - also typical of obese people - remains poorly studied in the scientific literature.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University in Sweden have identified a new treatment strategy for neuroblastoma, an aggressive form of childhood cancer. By combining two antioxidant enzyme inhibitors, they have converted cancer cells in mice into healthy nerve cells. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a novel algorithm that could provide a revolutionary tool for determining the best options for patients - both in the treatment of cancer and in the prescription of medicines. As recently published in Nature Communications, Jinze Liu, Ph.D., and Kevin Byrd, D.D.S., Ph.D., created Threshold-based Assignment of Cell Types from Multiplexed Imaging Data (TACIT), which assigns cell identities based on cell-marker expression profiles.

A series of digital tests, carried out via a smartphone app, could enhance the detection of disease progression in Huntington's disease and improve the efficiency of clinical trials, finds research led by scientists at University College London (UCL) and Roche.

The research, published in Brain, highlights how digitising tests designed to measure the progression of motor symptoms in people with Huntington's disease can provide a sensitive and reliable way to track changes in the function of patients.

We have all heard of antibodies - proteins produced by our bodies to bind to viruses or bacteria, marking them for elimination by the immune system. But not all of us are familiar with aptamers: short segments of DNA or RNA that are designed to bind, like antibodies, to specific targets. Synthetic and inexpensive to produce, aptamers are attractive alternatives to antibodies for biomedical diagnostics and therapeutics.

Food scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign identified the optimal fermentation conditions for pulses - the dried edible seeds of legumes - that increased their antioxidant and antidiabetic properties and their soluble protein content.

Using the bacteria Lactiplantibacillus plantarum 299v as the microorganism, the team fermented pulses obtained from varying concentrations of black bean, black-eyed pea, green split pea, red lentil and pinto bean flours.