Salk Institute researchers investigated the impacts of entinostat, a drug that targets HDAC proteins, and found it inactivates DNA damage repair genes in pancreatic cancer cells. Their discovery led to new treatment strategies that pair entinostat with DNA-damaging therapies, as well as the development of a nanoparticle-based delivery approach that limits toxicity by selectively delivering entinostat to tumors. The findings could improve treatment outcomes and expand therapeutic options for pancreatic cancer, and similar strategies could be applied for treating other cancer types that resist DNA-damaging therapies.

How large, fully folded proteins can pass through cell membranes without destroying them has long been one of the open questions in cell biology. Using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo‑EM), Leonid Sazanov and Ziyu Zhao at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) have now uncovered new details about a molecular “gate.” Their findings were published in Molecular Cell.

Scientists at the Simon Foundation’s Flatiron Institute have modeled the strange dynamics of supersize fruit fly sperm, which swim about in a storage organ one-tenth the length of a single sperm. A new paper published June 22 in the journal Nature Physics shows how researchers combined mathematical models with more traditional biological approaches to find that, unlike human sperm, fruit fly sperm propel themselves off each other to create a slow collective churn.

Structural biology relies on advanced crystallographic platforms to obtain high-quality diffraction data from challenging samples. The BL18U1 microcrystallography beamline at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) demonstrates strong capability in beamline optics, microbeam delivery, multi-energy operation, integrated instrumentation, and anomalous diffraction experiments. Supporting protein crystals, small-molecule crystals, and other demanding samples, BL18U1 provides users with an efficient platform for high-quality data collection and has enabled the determination of a large number of high-quality crystal structures.

Strange “chimeric” RNA once thought to be the product of cancer is actually an important controller of women’s health, including influencing their susceptibility to infectious disease and autoimmune disorders, new research suggests. 

The study, conducted on the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster, shows that macrophages detect nutritional stress caused by a high-sugar diet and send a signal to the endocrine system to delay development.

This mechanism delays metamorphosis, giving the larvae time to grow and reach a functional, well-proportioned adult stage.

Published in Current Biology, the study opens up new questions about how nutrition, immunity, and hormones coordinate during development.