Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fast-progressing neurodegenerative disease with an average survival time of three years and no effective treatments. In ALS, motor neurons in the spinal cord, which are required for muscle contractions, die off, leading to progressive muscle paralysis. The molecular causes of ALS are poorly understood, but neuroinflammation, a process of excessive inflammation fueled by immune cells in the spinal cord, is thought to contribute to motor neuron death in ALS. Reducing neuroinflammation may be a tractable way to treat ALS.

To be able to study ALS-linked neuroinflammation in the lab, the team of Elisa Giacomelli and Lorenz Studer with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA, generated “spinal microtissues” containing motor neurons and immune cells from stem cells. Their work was published today in Stem Cell Reports.

For many patients, radioactive iodine treatment after thyroid cancer surgery means side effects like nausea and time in hospital isolated from loved ones. But new clinical trial results from researchers at UCL mean hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide could now safely be spared this treatment.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionised cancer treatment, but can cause serious heart damage in some patients. 

New research shows that cancer patients treated with these drugs have a decline in protective immune cells. Patients with lower levels of an immune biomarker before treatment experienced the greatest decline in protective immune cells, which are associated with heart damage and a life-threatening complication called myocarditis. 

The biomarker could help doctors to identify which patients are most at risk of myocarditis and other serious heart complications of immune checkpoint inhibitors in future.