October 3, 2025—BRONX, NY—Scientists at Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine have shown for the first time that glioblastoma—the deadliest form of brain cancer—affects not just the brain but also erodes the skull, alters the makeup of skull marrow, and interferes with the body’s immune response. Drugs intended to inhibit skull-bone loss made the cancer more aggressive, according to results published today in Nature Neuroscience.

Until now, a crucial step in the biosynthesis of iridoids, a class of plant defense substances that are also medically relevant, had remained undiscovered. A team from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, in collaboration with the University of Georgia and other international partners, has now identified the enzyme responsible for this step in icepac. This enzyme shows great potential for the future biotechnological production of important iridoids and cancer drugs derived from them.

The human repairome, REPAIRome, will allow researchers around the world to rapidly check out how each of the 20,000 human genes affects DNA repair.

Created by researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), it is published today in the journal Science.

The human repairome is ‘a powerful resource for the scientific community’, the authors write in Science. It has ‘implications for human health, including cancer treatment’.

It also allows progress ‘towards full control of CRISPR-Cas gene-editing technologies’, they add.

The repairome is ‘a platform for new discoveries,’ says CNIO researcher Felipe Cortés. It has already helped to detect new genetic mechanisms involved in kidney cancer.