RNA Sequencing News and Research

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Immunotherapy combination shrinks rare angiosarcoma tumors in 25% of patients

Researchers from SWOG Cancer Research Network, a cancer clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment, part of the National Institutes of Health, have shown that the immunotherapy combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab shrinks rare angiosarcoma tumors in 25 percent of all patients, with some having an even stronger response to the drug combination.

15 Nov 2020

Immunotherapy drugs trigger inflammatory arthritis in subset of cancer patients

Since doctors began treating cancer patients with immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors nearly a decade ago, they have observed that a subset of these patients experience a side effect that clinically looks like inflammatory arthritis.

10 Nov 2020

Spit testing may aid non-invasive concussion diagnosis

Doctors may soon be able to more accurately diagnose concussions by measuring the number of certain molecules in a person's saliva, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

9 Nov 2020

Mouth may be primary route of SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission

A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv in October 2020 shows that the virus also multiplies robustly in the oral cavity, indicating that saliva plays a role in viral transmission.

29 Oct 2020

Genetic analysis with RNA sequencing can increase diagnostic yield, shows study

In the world of rare genetic diseases, exome and genome sequencing are two powerful tools used to make a diagnosis. A recent addition to the toolkit, RNA sequencing, has been demonstrated to help researchers narrow down disease candidate variants identified first on exome and genome sequencing.

28 Oct 2020

Scientists identify new therapeutic targets for SARS-CoV-2

To identify new potential therapeutic targets for SARS-CoV-2, a team of scientists at the New York Genome Center, New York University, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, performed a genome-scale, loss-of-function CRISPR screen to systematically knockout all genes in the human genome.

27 Oct 2020

Lung biomarkers may predict severe COVID-19

Two University of New Mexico researchers postulate certain specific biomarkers' relevance in predicting the potential for progression to severe COVID-19 in a paper published on the preprint server bioRxiv*

27 Oct 2020

Multimodal mapping of immune landscape in pancreatic cancer could guide personalized therapies

Pancreatic cancer has remained resistant to immunotherapies that are revolutionizing the treatment of many types of cancer.

27 Oct 2020

Transcriptomics identifies possible COVID-19 therapies

By using a diverse set of transcriptomic SARS-CoV-2 signatures, US researchers put to use their previously developed drug repositioning pipeline to pinpoint potential drug candidates for the treatment of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The study is currently available on bioRxiv preprint server.

26 Oct 2020

Researchers assess molecular basis of SARS-CoV-2 severity and poor outcomes in lung disease

A recent study published on the preprint server bioRxiv in October 2020 shows that in patients with chronic lung disease, the pattern of gene expression in the different types of cell changes such that the lung epithelium is prepared to tackle SARS-CoV-2 infection. Also, the altered gene programs have an impact on the immune response.

22 Oct 2020

Researchers explore SARS-CoV-2 at single cell resolution in human airway epithelial cells

The cellular tropism of the SARS-CoV-2 virus affects several aspects of infection, such as the spread of the virus within and between hosts, tissue pathology, immune control mechanisms, and the response to treatment with promising antiviral drugs.

21 Oct 2020

Researchers report the discovery of innate immune signaling pathway in fibroblasts

Vanderbilt University researchers have reported the counterintuitive discovery that certain chemotherapeutic agents used to treat tumors can have the opposite effect of tissue overgrowth in normal, intact mammary glands, epidermis and hair follicles.

16 Oct 2020

Scientists discover new method to retrieve lost single-cell RNA-sequencing information

Sequencing RNA from individual cells can reveal a great deal of information about what those cells are doing in the body. MIT researchers have now greatly boosted the amount of information gleaned from each of those cells, by modifying the commonly used Seq-Well technique.

14 Oct 2020

Novel findings on mole growth could pave way for skin cancer treatments

Moles stop growing when they reach a certain size due to normal interactions between cells, despite having cancer-associated gene mutations, says a new study published today in eLife.

13 Oct 2020

Researchers explore molecular factors that drive the severity of COVID-19

While most COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic or mild, severe complications associated with acute respiratory distress have led to more than one million deaths worldwide in just several months.

13 Oct 2020

Study shows how CD4+ T cells respond to SARS-CoV-2 virus

As scientists around the world develop life-saving COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, many are still wondering exactly why the disease proves deadly in some people and mild in others.

7 Oct 2020

Chronic illnesses promote active SARS-CoV-2 infection via suppressed mucosal immunity

A recent paper published in the preprint server medRxiv in September 2020 discusses the “clinically relevant variation in the expression of COVID-19-related genes”, which is associated with the host and environmental factors, as well as host genetic factors.

6 Oct 2020

New findings could improve investigation of T cell response to COVID-19

Researchers in the United States have made an important discovery about the processing and presentation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral peptides that provides a better understanding of the immune response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may help facilitate the design of improved vaccines.

5 Oct 2020

Lung tissue in fatal COVID-19 shows broad cell tropism and extensive damage

In a recent preprint paper published on the medRxiv server, researchers demonstrated their investigation of fatal COVID-19 patients to assess infection in various cell types and the extent of damage it caused to the lung tissues.

30 Sep 2020

Small for gestational age babies more likely to experience asymmetric growth

Carrying a fetus that is small for gestational age is associated with increased rates of stillbirth and neonatal death as well as metabolic disease in later life.

30 Sep 2020