Are you seeing what I am seeing?

Then it's definitely time for a break!

#HappyHolidays #singlecells

What if we could study #cancer progression and #metastasis in vivo, in real time, and at single-cell resolution?

David Entenberg, Maja Oktay, and John Condeelis at Albert Einstein College of Medicine summarize the current state of the art of #intravital #imaging, present some of the challenges that remain in the field, how to address them, and future perspectives.

Article in Nature Reviews Cancer: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41568-022-00527-5

#tumor #microenvironment #biomarkers #invivo #microscopy

Host-#bacteriophage interactions in biofilms. @CareyNadell &co show that multispecies #bacterial #biofilm architecture qualitatively alters the community dynamics of matrix production, interspecific competition & bacteriophage propagation #PLOSBiology https://plos.io/3WAPv71

Did you know that during #embryo development, migrating #monocytes deposit tracks of pro-angiogenic #migrasomes guiding the formation of blood vessels?

In this interesting manuscript published in Nature Cell Biology, researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing studied this phenomenon in the chorioallantoic membrane of chick embryos: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-022-01026-3

This could have implications in organotypic #tissueengineering and provide new ways how to inhibit #angiogenesis in solid #tumors.

Did you know that circulating #tumor cells (CTCs) which are generated while we #sleep are much more likely to form metastases?

In this very interesting paper, researchers in the lab of Nicola Aceto at ETH Zürich found surprising evidence that the spread of tumors is dependent on the #circadian rythm of the patient.

This means we should consider carefully at which time of the day we diagnose or treat metastasizing cancers.

Article in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04875-y

#cancer #metastasis

For the white Xmas! 😉🎄

Did you know that dying #cancer cells in solid #tumors can drive tumor-associated #macrophages (TAMs) in both directions? They can become pro-tumorigenic and anti-tumorigenic.

Here is a very nice review article about the interface of TAMs with dying cancer cells in #immunooncology by the lab of Abhishek D. Garg at KU Leuven: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/11/23/3890

#celldeath #efferocytosis #microenvironment #immunosuppression #chemotherapy #radiotherapy

I just deleted my #Twitter account after 12 years of actively tweeting about biomedical research. #HelloMastodon

What if we could trace #cytotoxic #Tcells throughout the human body before and during #cancer #immunotherapy?

Researchers at the University of Groningen have used a CD8-specific positron emission tomography (#PET) tracer in a phase 1/2 clinical trial. Patients with solid tumors were imaged before and ~30 days after starting treatment with #antibodies against PD-L1, PD-1, and/or CTLA-4.

Article in Nature Medicine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02084-8

#checkpointinhibitor #solidtumor #clinicaltrial

Did you ever wonder how tissues which have a very high cell turnover rate like in our #intestine control #proliferation to avoid the development of #cancer?

In this very elegant study, Guizela Huelsz Prince and colleagues at AMOLF in #Amsterdam showed in intestinal #organoids that two daughter cells from the same mother cell always follow the same trajectory. Either they both divide, or neither divides. As a result, cell growth is constant.

Article in #eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/80682#x080a132e

Here is another highly valuable #openaccess resource combining cellular gene expression and morphological profile data. Marzieh Haghighi and colleagues at the Broad Institute measured roughly 1,000 features for each of the two data types, across more than 28,000 chemical and genetic perturbations.

Article in Nature Methods: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-022-01667-0

Data on #github: https://github.com/carpenterlab/2021_Haghighi_NatureMethods

#geneexpression #transcriptomics #phenotypic #multimodal #datascience #artificialintelligence

Great power comes with great #responsibility. What kind of world is this in which being a #leader became disconnected from the responsibility of being a role model for others to follow? This includes being a good fellow human, no matter where we live, who we are, or what we believe in.

As leaders, we should be aware that most of our words have consequences. Before we speak (or write), we should always let our words pass through three gates:

1. Is it true?
2. Is it necessary?
3. Is it kind?

Did you know that starting a high-fat #diet causes an adaptation of the #intestinal #epithelium within only 24 hours?

In this interesting study, Jacob Enriquez and colleagues at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center used physiological metrics and single-cell transcriptomics to interrogate the intestinal epithelial cell response to a high-fat diet in mice.

Article in Cell Reports: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(22)01512-1

#highfatdiet #lipidmetabolism #nutrition #differentiation #epigenetics

What if we could precisely track a single #virus particle as it is moving around in the #extracellular space at the millisecond timescale?

Researchers at Duke University have developed a fascinating new technique called 3D tracking and #imaging (3D-TrIm).

Research article in Nature Methods: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-022-01672-3

Web page of the Welsher lab: https://www.welsherlab.org/3d-trim-captures-viral-first-contacts/

Video source: YouTube

#microscopy #singleparticletracking #infection

What if there was an #artificialintelligence that could design #synthetic #genes (including regulatory #DNA elements) resulting in highly accurate #mRNA #expression levels in a given target cell?

Here is an excellent research paper on this topic by Jan Zrimec et al. (Chalmers tekniska högskola):

Controlling gene expression with deep generative design of regulatory DNA

#OpenAccess article in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32818-8

#GAN #deeplearning #transcription #geneexpression

What if we could incorporate #fluorogenic amino acids in synthetic #peptide probes for minimally invasive and targeted biological #imaging?

Enjoy this interesting research article from the lab of Marc Vendrell (The University of Edinburgh):

Small fluorogenic amino acids for peptide-guided background-free imaging

#OpenAccess article in Angewandte Chemie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202216231

Web page of Marc Vendrell's lab: https://www.ed.ac.uk/inflammation-research/people/principal-investigators/prof-marc-vendrell

#fluorescence #microscopy #superresolution #labeling

Are you interested in the future of engineered immune cell therapies?

In this comprehensive review article in Science, Darrell Irvine (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) et al. discuss current progress in treating human disease with immune cell therapeutics, emerging strategies for immune cell engineering, and challenges facing the field: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq6990

#celltherapy #CART #cancer #tumor #immunooncology #immunotherapy

What if we could force a single-cell #organism to evolve in real time into a multicellular life form?

Science fiction? Not quite. Read this fascinating research paper in Nature Scientific Reports by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Montana: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39558-8

The directed #evolution of a unicellular green alga into a #multicellular #life form took around 750 #asexual generations and was caused by the introduction of a #predator into the #environment.

What if there was an advanced #microscopy method which would allow us to observe individual #protein #molecules interacting with each other inside living cells?

The patented solution described in this research paper by Thomas Graham et al. (University of California, Berkeley) is called #proximity-assisted #photoactivation (PAPA).

Research article in eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/76870#xb177ad68

Image: Fluorescently labeled protein complexes in a live cell

#imaging #fluorescence #proteomics

Did you ever wonder about the differences between engineered T cell receptors (TCRs) and chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) in current T-cell therapy approaches for the treatment of #cancer?

Here is a comprehensive #openaccess review article by researchers at Miltenyi Biotec and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) summarizing similarities and differences by directly comparing the architecture, synapse formation, and signaling of TCRs and CARs: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/23/14563