Il lavoro, condotto dall’Irgb-Cnr e Università di Sassari e cofinanziato dalla Fism, è pubblicato su New England Journal of Medicine e svela per la prima volta un importante meccanismo biologico che predispone a queste malattie, gettando le basi per nuove terapie personalizzate e per lo sviluppo di nuovi farmaci. L’individuazione di un nesso di causa-effetto diretto come quello tra una particolare forma di Tnfsf13B e il rischio di sviluppare le due patologie è un evento rarissimo in studi di questo genere. All’origine del rischio di sviluppare sclerosi multipla (Sm) e lupus eritematoso sistemico, malattie autoimmuni a carico rispettivamente della mielina del sistema nervoso centrale e di pelle, reni e altri organi, vi sarebbe anche una particolare forma di Tnfsf13B, un gene che presiede alla sintesi di una proteina con importanti funzioni immunologiche: la citochina Baff. A rivelarlo su New England Journal of Medicine, la più antica e prestigiosa rivista di medicina al mondo, uno studio di un gruppo internazionale di ricercatori cofinanziato dalla Fondazione italiana sclerosi multipla (Fism) e coordinato da Francesco Cucca, direttore dell’Istituto di ricerca genetica e biomedica del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Irgb-Cnr) e professore di genetica medica dell’Università di Sassari. Alla pubblicazione italiana la rivista americana dedica anche un editoriale.

The moon appears in an image captured by the SEVIRI instrument on a EUMETSAT Meteosat Second Generation satellite.

When American astronaut Alfred Worden, who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971, was asked what he was feeling at that time, he replied: “Now I know why I’m here. Not for a closer look at the moon, but to look back at our home, the Earth.” Those words have an interesting parallel to work being carried out today, as scientists look to the Moon to help gain an accurate understanding of the weather and climate on Earth.

Photo caption: The Nereis virens worm inspired new research out of the MIT Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics. Its jaw is made of soft organic material, but is as strong as harder materials such as human dentin. / Alexander Semenov / Wikimedia Commons

The gelatinous jaw of a sea worm, which becomes hard or flexible depending on the environment around it, has inspired researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a new material that can be applied to soft robotics. Despite having the texture of a gel, this compound is endowed with great mechanical resistance and consistency, and is able to adapt to changing environments. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have looked at a sea worm called Nereis virens in order to create a changing material, which has the ability to be flexible or rigid at convenience. The jaw of this worm has a texture similar to gelatin, but if the environment varies, the material may adopt the hardness of dentin or human bones.

A study recently published in PLOS Biology provides information that substantially changes the prevailing idea about the brain formation process in vertebrates and sheds some light on how it might have evolved. The findings show that the interpretation maintained hitherto regarding the principal regions formed at the beginning of vertebrate brain development is not correct. This research was led jointly by the researchers José Luis Ferran and Luis Puelles of the Department of Human Anatomy and Psychobiology of the UMU; Manuel Irimia of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), and Jordi García Fernández of the Genetics Department of the University of Barcelona. The brain of an invertebrate organism, amphioxus (a fish-like marine chordate), whose place in the evolutionary tree is very close to the origin of the vertebrates, was used for the research.