Nucleic acid aptamers have attained significant prominence in diagnostics, therapeutics, and medical research owing to their affinity towards multiple molecular targets. Researchers have delved into the realm of aptamer research and their potential clinical applications, encompassing their prospects for treating a diverse array of orthopedic diseases. Although they can serve as an efficient and safe means for therapeutic delivery, further investigations regarding aptamer screening and production cost reduction are requisite.

Certain types of biochemical processes can impair the immune system’s ability to recognize and kill cancer cells. Purdue University’s W. Andy Tao and his associates have developed a new way to study these processes. They demonstrated the validity of their method in experiments involving leukemia and rare liver cancer cell lines.

Tao and 10 co-authors published the details of their new method Aug. 1 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Their work provides a system for tracking and identifying the various types of proteins and an unheralded but widely secreted class of bioparticles called extracellular vesicles (EVs) that can compromise immunotherapy.