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Diabetic man produces his own insulin after gene-edited cell transplant

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Originally published by Lydia Smith on August 13, 2025 The new proof-of-concept study points a way to curing diabetes without the need for immune-suppressing drugs .   A man with type 1 diabetes has become the first patient to produce his own insulin after receiving genetically engineered cell transplants , without needing drugs to prevent rejection. The case, published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine , marks a potential breakthrough in the treatment of the disease , which affects 9.5 million people worldwide . Type 1 diabetes occurs when a patient's immune system destroys specialized cells, called islet cells, in their pancreas that are responsible for producing insulin , the hormone that regulates our blood sugar levels. The condition c an be managed with regular doses of synthetic insulin, but there is no cure . Read more t  

Discovery sparks new hope for breathing recovery after spinal cord injuries

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Originally published by Case Western Reserve University in medicalexpress.com, on August 12, 2025 Edited by Gaby Clark , reviewed by Robert Egan   ChAT+ INs are activated under a hypercapnic gas challenge. Credit: Cell Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116078 Late actor Christopher Reeve , best known for his role as Superman in the 1970s and '80s, became an activist for spinal cord injury research after being paralyzed in a horseback-riding accident —making him a lifelong wheelchair user and on a ventilator. Reeve, who died in 2004, was among about 300,000 people nationally living with a spinal cord injury , with respiratory complications being the most common cause of illness and death, according to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which he and his late wife created to support the research. But the results of a new study, led by researchers at  Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine , show promise that a group of nerve cells in...

CRISPR-GPT Turns Novice Scientists into Gene Editing Experts

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A large language model can design and troubleshoot CRISPR protocols from scratch, allowing first-time researchers to achieve up to 90 percent editing efficiency. Originally written by Rebecca Roberts, PhD, for The Nutshell section of The Scientist, on Aug 5, 2025 CRISPR-GPT was trained on over a decade of expert discussions and evaluated against almost 300 test cases.   Image credit:©iStock, Shinsei Motions CRISPR technology has revolutionized biology , largely because of its simplicity compared to previous gene editing techniques . However, it still takes weeks to learn, design, perform, and analyze CRISPR experiments; first-time CRISPR users often end up with low editing efficiencies and even experts can make costly mistakes. In a new study, researchers from S tanford University , Princeton University , and the University of California, Berkeley , teamed up with Google DeepMind to create CRISPR-GPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can guide researchers through...

The Secret to Hibernation Is Hidden in Human DNA and We Might One Day Activate It

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Hibernating animals reverse aging, avoid diabetes, and preserve muscle. Could we one day do the same? Originally published By Jenny Lehmann , at discovermagazine.com, on Aug 1, 2025   Hibernation might sound like an extreme way of life : Animals gain a lot of weight quickly, then drastically slow their metabolism to survive off stored energy through long, cold months. But for all its intensity, hibernation is surprisingly healthy , so much so that researchers are now exploring whether humans carry dormant versions of the same genetic switches that allow bears, ground squirrels, and other hibernators to cycle through extreme physiological changes without damaging their health . In two companion studies published in Science , a research team from University of Utah Health uncovered molecular pathways that could help make humans more like hibernators — at least in the ways that matter most for health and disease prevention . Read more  

These “Junk” Proteins May Fuel Adaptation

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And they could help some creatures adjust to changing climates Originally published by Sofia Quaglia, at nautil.us, on July 30, 202 Cell biologist Amy Gladfelter recently set out to solve a riddle that concerns one of the most fundamental features of evolution : adaptation . After a decade of study, she had noticed that one of her favorite fungi, Ashbya gossypii , thrives in a wide variety of environments , from the tropics of Trinidad to the often frigid plains of Wisconsin . How , she began to wonder, did the simple filamentous fungus , with its tiny genome and simple lifecycle, evolve such versatility —and how did the beach-town strains differ from the cold-adapted ones ? Gladfelter decided to tinker with Ashbya gossypii ’s genetic code to see what she could find out. In her laboratory at Duke University School of Medicine , she and her team sifted through 70 strains of the fungus and started methodically swapping proteins in its DNA . In particular, they focused on a protein ...

Genomewide study makes ‘quantum leap’ in understanding stuttering

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Analysis of DNA from 23andMe users points to variants in genes linked to brain function and sense of rhythm Originally published by Nazeefa Ahmed at Scienst, on 28 Jul 2025 In The King’s Speech , the 2010 biopic that portrays the United Kingdom’s King George VI’s lifelong struggle with his severe stutter , the king’s father tries to quell his son’s stammering by shouting, “Relax! Relax!” as if it were something he could simply control. Decades of research has shown stuttering is, in fact, an involuntary condition that is highly heritable, though its causes are multifaceted and murky. Now, some of the murk has cleared. Fuente: youtube.com Using data from 1.1 million users of the genetic testing service 23andMe , researchers have identified 57 previously unreported DNA regions linked to stuttering . The findings, published today in Nature Genetics , implicate genes involved in brain function and sense of rhythm , and suggest potential relationships between stuttering and other co...