Cell & Gene Therapy

21/02/2026

21/02/2026

Malaysia’s often overlooked biotechnology sector had a landmark moment at the National Bioeconomy Showcase 2024 last month when Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Chang Lih Kang took to the stage to announce the country’s second unicorn — ALPS Global Holding Bhd. Unicorns ar...

17/02/2026

A new Alzheimer's study has produced a first-of-its-kind genetic map, which could provide vital insights into the cause-and-effect sequences of gene activity that may be driving the disease in the brain.

14/02/2026

Chronic pain doesn’t always mean tissue is still injured.

In many cases, the original damage has already healed — but the immune system never completed its exit.

After injury or inflammation, immune cells are meant to activate, coordinate cleanup, and then stand down. That stand-down isn’t automatic. It requires specific biochemical signals that tell immune cells the job is finished and it’s safe to leave.

When those signals fail to arrive, immune cells linger near nerves.

Not aggressively.
Not destructively.
But persistently.

They continue releasing low-grade inflammatory mediators that lower the activation threshold of pain-sensing nerves. Those sensitized nerves, in turn, release signals that attract and stimulate more immune cells. A self-sustaining neuro-immune loop forms — even though the tissue itself is structurally intact.

🔁 This loop doesn’t stay local.
Peripheral immune signals activate glial cells in the spinal cord and brain, amplifying pain centrally. Pain becomes less about damage and more about signaling. That’s why scans often look normal while symptoms remain severe.

At the core of this persistence is failed resolution.

🧹 Macrophages are supposed to switch from an inflammatory role to a cleanup-and-repair role, clearing debris through a process called efferocytosis. When that transition stalls, cellular debris and danger signals accumulate, keeping immune cells in a pro-inflammatory, pain-maintaining state.

The immune system doesn’t stay active because it’s confused or broken.
It stays active because it never received the biochemical message to stand down.

🌿 This is where certain medicinal plants matter — and why the same ones keep showing up across chronic pain, autoimmunity, and inflammation.

They don’t numb pain.
They don’t silence symptoms.

They influence immune behavior.

Compounds in plants like turmeric, boswellia, skullcap, ginger, and reishi help reduce cytokine signaling near nerves, support macrophage transition out of inflammatory states, calm glial overactivation, and restore the signaling conditions required for immune disengagement.

In other words, they help the immune system finish what it started.

🔕 When immune signaling finally quiets, nerves often follow. Pain eases not because it was forced away, but because the conversation keeping it alive finally ended.

🧩 Chronic pain doesn’t always mean something is broken.

Often, it means the body never got the signal that it was safe to stop protecting.

13/02/2026

Gene-editing, prevent serious inherited diseases

The idea of self-amplifying gene editing is to get cells to pass on packages of CRISPR machinery to their neighbours, boosting the effect

13/02/2026

Three start-ups are aiming to create gene-edited babies. Columnist Michael Le Page has no doubt that editing our offspring will one day become routine, but not like this

12/02/2026

Science Advanced: Taklamakan Desert China grown forest cover in the country from 10% of its area in 1949 to more than 25% today.

Huge-scale ecological engineering around the edges of one of the world's largest and driest deserts has turned it into a carbon sink that absorbs more CO2 than it emits, research suggests.

11/02/2026

in vivo CAR-T, where gene editing is used to generate CAR-T cells within a patient’s body

Ever since 6-year-old Emily Whitehead became the first pediatric patient to receive CAR-T cell therapy in 2012, when T cells were removed from her body and reprogrammed to attack her leukemia befor | Ever since 6-year-old Emily Whitehead became the first patient to receive CAR-T cell therapy in 2012...

11/02/2026

In vivo chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy

In vivo chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell engineering uses targeted delivery systems to generate CAR-T cells directly in patients, bypassing ex vivo manufacturing. This Review examines emerging viral and lipid nanoparticle platforms, early clinical proof of concept and potential applications be...

11/02/2026

Airbag Protection Prevents Injuries

11/02/2026

China’s First AI Hospital

11/02/2026

RNA modifications orchestrate cell fate

Researchers are embarking on the RNA equivalent of the Human Genome Project, including sequencing all the chemical modifications that make cells unique.