Features based on peer-reviewed papers published in Cells.
Professor Fuyuhiko Tamanoi's team showed that tiny, well-dispersed silica nanoparticles built up in tumors grown in chicken eggs and in mice, with fewer reaching healthy organs such as the liver and kidney.
Dr. Sujoy Bhattacharya's team found that reducing the protein Prominin-1 in retinal support cells of mice caused damage resembling dry age-related macular degeneration, partly by disrupting cellular cleanup.
Dr. Aditi Bhargava and Johannes Knapp's reanalysis of early COVID-19 patient data found that immune changes in intensive care differed by sex and that obesity was the strongest risk factor for death.
Professor Paul Higgins's team reviewed evidence that the protein made by the SERPINE1 gene helps bile duct cancer grow and resist treatment within the dense tissue around tumours.
Dr. Maria Laura Zenclussen's team found that silencing the enzyme HO-1 stopped trophoblast spheroids attaching to womb-lining cells, which carbon monoxide reversed, and HO-1-deficient mice showed disrupted uterine genes.
Professor Heinz Steiner's team found that the antidepressant vilazodone suppressed involuntary movements caused by levodopa in a rat model of Parkinson's disease without blunting levodopa's motor benefits.
Dr. Samir Merabet and Dr. Solène Vanderperre developed BiFOR, a method that shows protein pairs binding specific enhancers directly inside the salivary gland nuclei of fruit fly larvae.
Professor Alfredo Franco-Obregón's team found that brief magnetic pulses prompt muscle cells to release secretions that curb breast cancer cell growth and invasion, an effect that depends on the protein HTRA1.
