Embryonic stem cells and other pluripotent cells divide rapidly and have the capacity to become nearly any cell type in the body. Scientists have long sought to understand the signals that prompt stem cells to switch off pluripotency and adopt their final functional state. In a new study, researchers report that they have identified a key regulator of this process, a molecule known as BEND3.

The salinity of freshwater ecosystems caused by road de-icing salts, agriculture fertilizers, mining operations and climate change is increasing worldwide and current water quality guidelines don’t do enough to address the issue, an international study led by The University of Toledo and Queen’s University in Kingston has found.

Killing cancer cells without affecting surrounding normal cells is the most desirable approach for targeted cancer therapy. However, it cannot be easily achieved due to the similarities in the properties between normal and cancer cells. Researchers at the IBS developed an innovative approach called CINDELA (Cancer-specific INDEL Attacker), which attacks cancer-specific mutations and causes multiple DNA double-strand breaks to specifically induce cancer cell death. It is hoped that CINDELA can become a potential approach for personalized cancer treatments in most tumors.

The genetic variants we are born with can increase or decrease our risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19. The major genetic risk variant for severe COVID-19, one we inherited from Neandertals, is surprisingly common. This raises the question whether it may actually be of advantage to carry this variant. A study by Hugo Zeberg, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Germany and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, now shows that the same gene variant that increases the risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19 protects from another serious disease – it reduces a person’s risk of contracting HIV by 27 percent. This study is published in PNAS.

The livers of men diagnosed with hepatic diseases change sex as part of a potential self-protective mechanism. The surprise discovery was made during an investigation into why disruption of the body’s circadian clock is associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes and liver diseases.

In a paper in Cell Reports, Anindya Dutta, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues detail the first structure-function study of a long non-coding RNA, or lncRNA, called MUNC lncRNA. Their findings point out the importance of experimentally determining the structure of an lncRNA through a chemical method — rather than computer modeling — to identify structural domains that turn out to have multiple different functions.