by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Scientific basis: Diabetic kidney disease (DKD), a major cause of renal failure, cardiovascular disease, and mortality, affects ~1/3rd of diabetes patients. Mitochondria are organelles which produce energy in the form of ATP and contain their own genome known as...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Background: Human globin genes, coding for hemoglobin, are differentially activated in the embryonic, fetal and adult stages of hematopoiesis. Mutations in adult globin genes result in hemoglobinopathies such as sickle cell anemia. Reactivating fetal hemoglobin (HbF)...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Pathogen-infections lead to immediate upregulation of host-defence-genes, also called interferon-stimulated-genes (ISG). Many pathogens, including influenza-A-virus (IAV) counteract host ISG-expression. IAV-infection de-regulates transcription-termination so that...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that affects millions of people worldwide. Strikingly 9/10 SLE cases are women, yet little is understood as to why. Hormonal and environmental factors are believed to be partly responsible, and while there is...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
The class A scavenger receptors SR-A and MARCO are macrophage-restricted phagocytic receptors. They were discovered by their ability to take up oxidised lipids/lipoproteins (Ox-LDL) and develop lipid-laden foam cells in atherosclerotic plaques. However, they are also...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Head and neck cancers (HNC) are oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) that develop in fields premalignant mucosa, histologically diagnosed as oral epithelial dysplasia (OED). Chronic infection is associated with OED and OSCC but the mechanisms driving these...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Even when viral loads are suppressed by antiretroviral therapy in an infected individual, a small proportion of circulating CD4+ T cells harbour transcriptionally silent Human Immunodeficiency Virus type-1. This latent reservoir can be ‘re-awoken’ by inflammatory...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Asthma is a major health problem affecting millions of people globally. This disease is characterised by acute or chronic lung inflammation, epithelial cell activation and tissue remodelling/fibrosis. Immune cells trigger changes in the lung epithelium leading to loss...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Immune checkpoint inhibition (CPI) has revolutionised the landscape in cancer treatment. However, there are two major limitations to these treatments: firstly, and due to their immune-stimulatory nature, they may cause severe toxicity that mimics autoimmune diseases;...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Platelets are requisite for inflammation and host responses to infections. Platelets represent novel cellular targets from which we can control diseases such as asthma and COPD, or infections such bacterial or viral induced Pneumonia or COVID-19, for which society...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
Myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukaemia (MDS/AML) are closely related blood cancers. A subtype of MDS/AML with DNA-damage repair pathway (DDRp) gene mutations (especially TP53) and complex aneuploidal karyotype (CK-MDS/AML) is incurable with median...
by Samuel White | 11th September 2023
One of the first points of contact of pathogenic coronaviruses during infection is the alveolar epithelium of the lung. A consequence of infection of these cells is a dysregulated inflammatory response typified by hyper-production of inflammatory mediators that leads...
