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An Orbimed-backed biotech launches with $85M and plans for a new kind of DNA medicine

BioPharma Drive: Drug Pricing

Rampart Biosciences closed a Series A round that will fund its goal to develop more potent DNA-based medicines that avoid immune responses.

DNA 111
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DNA element with a murky past is borrowing cell's repair machinery

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

They hijack a little-known piece of the cell's DNA repair function to close themselves into a ring-like shape and then create a matching double strand. The finding upends 40 years of conventional wisdom and may offer new insights into cancer, viral infections and immune responses.

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The role of CRISPR in microbiome engineering breakthroughs

Drug Target Review

When faced with a viral threat, bacterial cells developed an immune response by capturing and copying DNA fragments of viruses. This allowed bacteria to recognise subsequent attacks and cleave the viral DNA to stop the viral infection. It was also discovered that the Cas enzyme was responsible for DNA cleavage.

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Not all neoantigens are created equal

Drug Target Review

During the process of transformation from a normal cell into a cancer cell, a cell acquires a series of changes, or mutations, in its DNA. But DNA mutations can also result in changes to the proteins that are displayed on the surface of the cancer cell. Neoantigens are recognised as non-self and trigger an immune response.

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Designing a Better Probiotic. CRISPR Hubris?

PLOS: DNA Science

The molecular tools of CRISPR were borrowed and developed from the natural immune response of bacteria to viruses – bacteriophages – that infect them. DNA Science recently covered perfumes resurrected from extinct plants, but using older and less precise recombinant DNA technology. CRISPR Hubris?

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The immune system’s role in lung cancer risk

Drug Target Review

HLA are the critical molecules that our immune systems use to present peptides to T cells and facilitate recognition and killing in immune responses to pathogens. HLA-II presents peptides to CD4 T cells thought to be important for indirectly helping immune responses and facilitating antibody production.

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Is Recent Gene Therapy Setback for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Déjà vu All Over Again?

PLOS: DNA Science

Can they deliver healing genes without triggering an overactive immune response? The details are disturbingly reminiscent of the famous case of Jesse Gelsinger , who died from a ferocious immune response to experimental gene therapy in September 1999. million DNA bases. Muscles stop working.