People with greater exposure to air pollution face a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study by Yanling Deng of Emory University, U.S.A., and colleagues, published February 17^th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

UCLA researchers have demonstrated that lipid nanoparticles can package and deliver an entire therapeutic gene along with gene-editing machinery — a combination of large, complex components that non-viral carriers haven’t been able to handle before.

Using this delivery platform in a cell culture model of cystic fibrosis, researchers found that although only 3–4% of cells received the corrected gene, the treated cell populations restored 88–100% of normal function.

Replacing the entire faulty gene rather than correcting individual mutations may allow the therapy to work across all patients with cystic fibrosis.

A study co-led by University of Texas at Dallas bioengineers identified a distinctive feature of tissues from young patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer, a disease that typically affects older patients.

Researchers found that both cancerous and noncancerous colon tissue was mechanically stiffer in younger patients with respect to older patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The findings, published in the Jan. 30 print edition of Advanced Science, suggest that stiffness may create an environment that promotes the development of colorectal cancer in people under the age of 50. This work may offer new approaches for preventing and treating this disease — known as early-onset colorectal cancer — a condition that has been mysteriously rising over the past 30 years.