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Could scorpion venom inspire new treatments for liver disease?

Scorpion venom peptides show promising anti-inflammatory, antiviral, analgesic, and immunomodulatory effects, with experimental evidence suggesting that some candidates could target pathways involved in chronic liver disease and viral hepatitis. The review highlights Kv1.3-blocking peptides and antiviral compounds as potential therapeutic leads, while emphasizing that limited hepatic efficacy data, poor pharmacokinetics, immunogenicity, and manufacturing challenges must be overcome before clinical translation.

8 Sep 2026

New target makes cancer cells vulnerable to immune destruction

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have identified a molecular switch that helps determine whether cancer cells remain soft and difficult to destroy or become stiff enough for the immune system to attack.

20 Jul 2026

New review shows why antidepressants often fail in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s depression

A Molecular Psychiatry review shows that depression in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease may reflect disease-specific molecular, neurotransmitter, inflammatory, and circuit-level disruptions rather than standard depression biology alone. It argues that broad antidepressants often show limited efficacy in these patients and that future trials should use biomarkers, neuroimaging, and symptom profiling to guide targeted treatments.

7 Jul 2026

Mild hypoxia in preterm infants linked to lifelong memory issues

During intensive care after preterm births, babies can experience low oxygen in their tissue and cells-or hypoxia.

23 Mar 2026

Tiny organism offers insight into neurological side effects of chemotherapy

Chemotherapy remains one of the most powerful tools in the fight against cancer, yet it often comes with significant long-term side effects that can dramatically affect patients' quality of life.

11 Feb 2026

AI model ranks genetic variants from severe to mild disease mutations

popEVE combines evolutionary insights with human population data to identify damaging genetic mutations, improving variant scoring for rare diseases.

3 Dec 2025

Researchers visualize how brain network development is altered in rare childhood disorder

Researchers at the VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology have visualized how brain network development is altered in a model of KCNQ2-related developmental and epileptic encephalopathy, a rare childhood brain disorder.

31 Oct 2025

Mount Sinai researchers explore new depression treatment targeting brain’s potassium channels

A mechanism involving potassium channels in the brain that control brain cell activity could provide a new and fundamentally different way of treating depression symptoms in adults with major depressive disorder, according to two complementary papers published recently by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

21 May 2025

Genetic variation found to influence tumor microbiota and colorectal cancer progression

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide. While scientists believe that gut microbiota play an important role in both the onset and progression of CRC, emerging evidence points to the significance of intratumoral microbiota-microbiota inside tumors-in CRC progression.

29 Apr 2025

Study reveals key role of opsin 3 in regulating food intake and energy balance

Scientists discovered years ago that the hypothalamus - which helps to manage body temperature, hunger, sex drive, sleep and more - includes neurons that express the protein opsin 3 (OPN3).

14 Feb 2025

How fruit fly genetics could change the fight against mosquito diseases

How fruit flies mate may hold a key to limiting the spread of diseases by mosquitoes.

25 Jan 2025

Breakthrough gene discovery offers new hope for medulloblastoma therapy

Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have identified a key gene that could lead to next-generation treatments for medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children.

24 Jan 2025

Vitamin D receptor activation slows cell overgrowth in pulmonary hypertension

The study demonstrates that activating the vitamin D receptor (VDR) with calcitriol suppresses cell proliferation in pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells, potentially reducing disease severity in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

12 Nov 2024

Novel gene therapy holds potential in treating patients with epilepsy

Researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) are working on a therapy that holds potential in treating patients with epilepsy, a neurological disorder defined by recurring seizures due to abnormal brain activity.

9 Oct 2024

Study finds potential for antidiabetic drugs to modify osteoarthritis risk

Whether antidiabetic medications could potentially be used as disease-modifying osteoarthritis drugs or DMOADs for the therapeutic management of osteoarthritis.

21 Aug 2024

Tiny titin mutation linked to developmental heart defects and adult atrial fibrillation

Millions of adults have atrial fibrillation - an irregular beating of the upper chambers of the heart that yields increased risk of heart failure, stroke and death.

25 Jul 2024

CNIC researchers unravel complexities of Andersen-Tawil syndrome

A team at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) has made a breakthrough discovery in the understanding of cardiac arrhythmias by unraveling the complexities of Andersen-Tawil syndrome (ATS), an extremely rare inherited cardiac disorder.

10 Apr 2024