Professor Alexander Hoffmann and Genhong Cheng from University of California, Los Angeles, jointly with Professor David Baltimore from California Institute of Technology, published a review article in the newly launched journal Immunity & Inflammation. This article provides a systematic overview of NF-κB, covering its activation mechanisms, gene regulatory networks, physiological and pathological roles. It also summarizes recent advances in therapeutic strategies targeting NF-κB, offering a critical foundation for deeper understanding the pathway’s functions and mechanisms.

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a protective pathway that helps cells manage stress during protein production. Cancer cells exploit this system to survive harsh tumor environments. In bones, they also disrupt the balance of bone-building and bone-resorbing cells, leading to skeletal fragility. Emerging therapies that target the UPR show promise in restoring bone health while selectively killing malignant cells, offering new hope for patients with cancer-associated bone disease.

A study coordinated from Badalona by IrsiCaixa, the Catalan Institute of Oncology and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (within the CARE programme) has identified KIMA, a genomic signature that makes it possible to anticipate which patients with HR+/HER2- breast cancer will respond less well to CDK4/6 inhibitors. The finding, published in the journal Clinical and Translational Medicine, may help personalize therapies and design new combinations.

An international study led by researchers from the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS) of Pompeu Fabra University and Stanford University (California) has designed a system to identify highly selective peptides with high therapeutic potential. The method is based on the use of biologically- and chemically-modified bacteriophages to screen, with a high degree of precision, up to 1 billion peptides simultaneously. This allows identifying those that can successfully distinguish very similar proteins that play a significant role in the development of cancer and diabetes, respectively, and that are currently being treated with non-specific drugs.

A large-scale metagenomic study of 2,561 gut samples from 14 mammal species on the Tibetan Plateau reconstructed 112,313 metagenome-assembled genomes representing 21,902 microbial species (86% unclassified) and identified 8,598 nonredundant antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) spanning 28 types. The authors report 334 high-risk ARGs and seven cross-species horizontal gene transfer events involving high-risk ARGs, including three transfers between humans and nonhuman mammals. Additionally, the abundance of ARGs in human gut microbiomes on the Tibetan Plateau was greater than that in those from eastern China, Europe, and the United States, whereas the abundance of ARGs in livestock gut microbiomes from the Tibetan Plateau was lower than that in livestock gut microbiomes from those regions. This study reveals that the gut microbiota of Tibetan Plateau mammals is a largely unexplored resource and a significant reservoir of ARGs, offering crucial insights into microbiome research and demonstrating potential public health implications.

Researchers at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a groundbreaking brain imaging technique that reveals how tiny blood vessels in the brain pulse with each heartbeat—changes that may hold clues to aging and diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The study, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research, introduces the first noninvasive method for measuring “microvascular volumetric pulsatility”—the rhythmic expansion and contraction of the brain’s smallest vessels—in living humans. Using ultra-high-field 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the team showed that these microvessel pulses increase with age, especially in the brain’s deep white matter, a region critical for communication between brain networks that is particularly susceptible as people age to reduced blood supply of distal arteries, the blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart and into the farthest parts of the body. Increasing microvessel pulses can disrupt systems in the brain, possibly speeding up memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. The USC team’s innovation combines two advanced MRI approaches—vascular space occupancy (VASO) and arterial spin labeling (ASL)—to track subtle volume changes in microvessels over the cardiac cycle. The researchers confirmed that older adults show heightened microvascular pulsations in deep white matter compared to younger adults, and that hypertension further amplifies these changes.