Pain management, particularly long-term pain management, is a difficult problem. Opioids are effective at reducing pain, but they are addictive and carry with them the significant costs of addiction and overdose that affect not only the individual but society as well. 

Recently, work presented in Science by Reeder and colleagues proposes an engineering solution to pain management: miniature, implantable devices that can deliver localized and reversible neural blocking to reduce pain. While such devices could deliver any kind of stimulus ranging from electrical to pharmacological, the researchers developed a device that temporarily blocks neural signals by cooling.

For cancers that have proven challenging to target with traditional therapies, one emerging option is an approach called synthetic lethality. Synthetic lethality arises when inactivation of two gene products together lead to cell death but where inactivation of one does not (1, 2). Targeting a gene that is synthetic lethal to a cancer-related mutation creates an opening to specifically kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched.

In a recent study in Nature, scientists found that cells with amplification of CCNE1 are sensitive to inhibition of PKYMT1 kinase and identified a small molecule that is a selective inhibitor of PKYMT1 (3). When mice with tumor xenografts derived from CCNE1­-high cell lines were dosed with the drug, researchers observed significantly slower tumor growth, and in some cases where the drug was co-dosed with another chemotherapeutic, tumor growth was completely halted.

African Swine Fever is a highly contagious disease caused by the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) that can spread among populations of both wild and domestic pigs. While not transmissible to humans, it is passed between pigs through direct contact with bodily fluids or feces, through the consumption of contaminated food or through tick-borne transmission. With a mortality rate nearing 100%, this virus can easily devastate large populations of pigs.

ASFV is extremely resilient and is predominantly carried by wild pigs and soft ticks of the Ornithodoros genus. It can survive extended periods of time in processed meat, and contaminated pig products are a common source of transmission, posing a serious threat to the global pig industry due to rising demand for pork. The consequences of unchecked spread of ASFV can include a disruption in the production and exportation of pork products, job losses and other devastating effects. Among those countries with pig populations vulnerable to the spread of ASFV is the Philippines.