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Damaged cartilage of joints could be regrown with new biomaterial

 

Scientists at the Northwestern University have successfully developed a novel biomaterial that could be used to regenerate high-quality cartilage of the knee joints. The study was conducted on a large-animal model. It has a rubbery appearance, and it is material of a complex network of molecules. These molecules together assembled create a natural environment of the human cartilage.

In this new study, researchers used this material to replace the damaged cartilage in the knee joints of animals. They got promising results within just six months. They observed evidences of the cartilage getting repaired. There was a growing new cartilage, which consisted of natural biopolymers, such as collagen II and proteoglycans. They facilitated mechanical resilience in joints, and the process took place without any pain.

However, researchers have to perform more work in this regard. They are of the view that the novel material has the potential to prevent complete knee replacement surgeries in the near future. The material could be effectively used to treat degenerative diseases, such as osteoarthritis. It can also be used to repair injuries of sportsmen. The study has been published in detail in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Samuel I. Stupp is the researcher who led this study at the Northwestern University. He said that cartilage is one of the most important components of the joints in human body. During the course of time, a cartilage can get damaged or may undergo a breakdown. This can severely impact the overall health and mobility of affected people.

In humans, adults do not have natural ability to heal the damage done to cartilage. With this new therapy, researchers could induce repair in the damaged tissue that does not regenerate naturally. The mode of treatment offered has the potential to solve a serious clinical problem.

In this study, the human cartilage was activated with the use of “dancing molecules.” They could boost the synthesis of proteins associated with the tissue matrix. In another related study, a hybrid biomaterial was used in place of “dancing molecules.” The new biomaterial has two components: the first component is a bioactive peptide that binds with TGFb-1 (transforming growth factor beta-1).

The growth factor is an essential protein that promotes the growth and maintenance of the cartilage. The peptide modifies hyaluronic acid, which is a natural polysaccharide that is present in the cartilage. It also binds with the lubricating synovial fluid of joints.

Many people are well-versed with hyaluronic acid as it is a common ingredient of many skincare products. According to Stupp, it is also found naturally in most tissues of the human body, and this includes the brain and the joints. The researchers chose hyaluronic acid as it was very similar to the natural polymers of the cartilage.

The team of researchers were supervised by Stupp as they integrated the chemically modified particles of hyaluronic acid and the bioactive peptide. Thus, they strived to self-organize the nanoscale fibers into bundles, which resembled the natural structure of the cartilage. The main objective of the researchers was to create an enthralling scaffold for the cells in the human body. This would induce them to regenerate the cartilage tissue.

 

 

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ResearchGate and The Royal Society deepen their partnership of collaboration in the year 2024

 

The Royal Society and ResearchGate have joined hands to expand their partnership. They have decided to jointly cover all the journals of Royal Society, increasing the visibility and readership of 45000 articles at a global level.

Currently, the Journal Home product of Researchgate platform has increased the visibility of 10 journals of Royal Society publisher. These 10 journals are of open access and subscription model of publishing. In the year 2023, ResearchGate was provided content of journals published by Royal Society.

In the year 2024, both the parties have further strengthened their partnership as it was a successful collaboration. The readership and the reach of the content provided by the Royal Society has increased manifold due to ResearchGate platform.

It was found that in the year 2023, two open access journals of the Royal Society saw a 64% increase in their usage on the ResearchGate platform. The trend of increased usage continues for these two journals as their articles have been viewed more than 1.75 million times on ResearchGate in the past 12 months.

Using the platform of Researchgate, the Royal Society’s journals could get more engagement from researches who are in their early stage of careers. The publishers of Royal Society were targeting to increase their reach in this critical demographic group.

In the year 2024, ResearchGate has introduced a new product named Journal Home. There are dedicated profiles of all the journal titles of the Royal Society publisher. The important information and the content that is relevant is sourced from each journal and provided through the Journal Home platform of ResearchGate.

The branding of prominent journals is being done on all the associated pages dedicated to articles. Journal Home provides insights into unique network, paving the path to increase The Royal Society’s engagement with the journal community.

Each of the journals’ profiles contain the names of editors and authors. Thus, members of ResearchGate platform can understand how a journal is connected to a network of academic professionals.

Authors of the Royal Society publisher have benefitted additionally from the partnership of the publisher with ResearchGate. Their research work gets added automatically to their profiles on ResearchGate platform.

Thus, the visibility of the articles is boosted and the platform provides insights into who is currently reading the article and citing their research paper. Thus, the connectivity of the authors with the readers has increased significantly.

More 75,000 authors have benefitted as they have added their articles to their profiles on ResearchGate. The discovery and accessibility of these articles has increased sharply due to features of “Journals Home.”

 

 

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Immunotherapy efficacy increased with the discovery of a novel drug that bypassed inhibitory immune cells

The immune system was recruited to tackle tumor cells. The survival rates of millions of cancer patients improved after receiving immunotherapy. But, the treatment method also has a drawback: only one out of five patients had a favorable outcome to treatments of this kind. Researchers at the Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis wanted to understand and address the limitations of immunotherapy. They performed an extensive research study and found that in the fight against cancer, the immune system can act as its worst enemy.

In another study, researchers investigated a subset of immune cells, that is, type 1 regulatory T cells, or Tr1 cells in mice. They found that these cells performed their normal function of preventing an overreaction of the immune system. Meanwhile, they also inadvertently suppressed the cancer-fighting power of immunotherapy. According to senior researchers at the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine, the Tr1 cells have a heretofore character that is considered to be an unrecognized obstacle to the efficacy of immunotherapy.

It suppresses its fight against cancer. Therefore, in the mouse model, the researchers tried to circumvent this limitation. They could revitalize the cancer-fighting cells in the immune system. Thus, this finding is an important development in expanding the benefits of immunotherapy. More and more cancer patients can now avail the novel developments of immunotherapy. A detailed information of this study is available in the journal Nature.

Personalized form of immunotherapy is now available to cancer patients in the form of vaccines. Cancer vaccines are aimed at the mutant proteins, which are specific to a tumor in a patient. These vaccines encourage an attack on tumor cells by boosting the activity of killer T cells. At the same time, they allow the healthy cells to remain unaffected. In another study conducted by Schreiber’s group, it was found that helper T cells are also activated with vaccines that are more effective.

The helper T cells are another type of immune cells. They are used for recruiting and expanding the killer T cells. These cells are known to destroy tumor cells. These researchers tried to supercharge the cancer vaccine by adding an additional amount of helper T cell targets. They found that a different type of T cell was generated. This type of T cell suppressed the rejection of tumor cells.

In another study, a group of researchers laid down the following hypothesis: when the activation of helper T cells was increased, they could induce an enhanced elimination of sarcoma tumors in mice. They injected vaccines in groups of mice with tumors. These vaccines could activate the killer T cells in an equal manner and also trigger different extent of activation of helper T cells.

In their latest study, the researchers were surprised to know the activity of the vaccine. They had developed the vaccine to hyperactivate helper T cells. However, the effect of this vaccine was opposite and it suppressed the rejection of tumor cells. The researchers were of the view that the vaccine should have eliminate the sarcoma tumors in mice as it activated more and more T cells.

The vaccine contained helper T cell targets in higher doses, and this induced inhibitory activity in Tr1 cells. Thus, the elimination of tumor cells was blocked completely. In general, Tr1 cells control an immune system that is overactive. However, ours is the first study to show that they can dampen the fight against cancer. The brakes on the immune system are generally put by Tr1 cells. They prevent the immune system from attacking healthy cells of the human body. However, no previous study has investigated its role in cancer comprehensively.

Previously published data was investigated thoroughly by researchers. They found that more Tr1 cells were present in tumor patients who showed a poor response to immunotherapy treatment. The number of Tr1 cells was lesser in tumor patients who had shown a good response to immunotherapy treatment. When tumors grew bigger in size in mice, the number of Tr1 cells increased proportionately. This made the mice develop an insensitivity to immunotherapy.

Researchers wanted to bypass the inhibiting cells in mice, which were vaccinated. Therefore, they treated these mice with a drug that improved the cancer-fighting power of killer T cells. This drug was developed by Asher Biotherapeutics, which is start up in the field of biotechnology. The drug could carry out modifications in interleukin 2 (IL-2). Please note that IL-2 is a protein that boosts the activity of the immune system. The drug could specifically enhance the activity of killer T cells and reduce the toxicity associated with other treatments that do not modify IL-2.

The inhibition of Tr1 cells was overcome by the additional boost provided by the drug. Thus, the immunotherapy was found to be more effective. The lead researcher said that they are focusing on providing personalized immunotherapy and widening the efficacy of the treatment. The researchers said that in order to attain the most robust anti-tumor response, they had to understand how to trigger the immune system. For this purpose, they referred to related studies in recent decades. These studies investigated the basic immunology of the tumor. In our current study, the main aim of researchers was to improve the immunotherapy and to benefit more patients with cancer.