DL COMP BIOTECH

For decades, a question has buzzed around the scientific community: are diabetes and Parkinson's disease interlinked, with the risk of Parkinson's increasing among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM)?  A PubMed query search using the keywords "(Diabetes[Title/Abstract]) AND (Parkinson's[Title/Abstract])" yielded 2,406 results, indicating the intensity with which this question has been pursued over the years. However, this chase may have reached a turning point. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Olivier Rascol et al. showed that a diabetes drug slowed the progression of motor issues associated with Parkinson's disease. This phase 2, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial investigated whether a diabetes drug called hashtag # Lixisenatide could slow the worsening of motor symptoms in people with early-stage Parkinson's disease. After one year of follow-up, the group receiving the treatment saw no worsening movem...

The immune system is always in a constant battle against varieties of pathogens. Sometimes, they win by themselves, sometimes, they need a push to attain victory. Among various means to do so, one way is to provide them with a vaccine push, where the goal is to recognize specific pathogens, like viruses or bacteria, well before an infection occurs. However, this concept of vaccination has now expanded beyond interventions that prevent disease to treat or ameliorate ongoing pathology. Along with eliciting new immune responses in naive individuals, vaccines can now be used to enhance pre-existing immunity and modulate its type to better tackle the targeted disease. Therapeutic cancer vaccines fall into this category, where they identify proteins produced by cancer cells, known as antigens, to provoke a powerful immune response to existing tumours. The preventive vs therapeutic comparisons of vaccines can be visualized in a battleground scenario, while the former’s goal is to identify the...

 % Define the PDB ID you want to download pdb_id = 'desired PDB ID'; % Replace with your desired PDB ID ,    % Construct the URL for the PDB file pdb_url = strcat('https://files.rcsb.org/download/', pdb_id, '.pdb'); % Specify the download location on your computer download_dir = 'path_to_save_directory'; % Replace with your desired download directory % Create the full path for the downloaded file download_path = fullfile(download_dir, strcat(pdb_id, '.pdb')); % Download the PDB file try     pdb_data = webread(pdb_url);          % Open the file in binary write mode     fid = fopen(download_path, 'wb');          % Write the PDB data as binary     fwrite(fid, pdb_data);          % Close the file     fclose(fid);          disp(['PDB file ', pdb_id, ' downloaded successfully to ', download_path]); catch     error(' Failed to ...

A momentous revelation unfolded in the distant echoes of 1552 B.C., casting a light on the enigma that would later be named diabetes. Hesy-Ra, an Egyptian physician and an astute observer of the human condition, etched history's first known account of diabetes symptoms. In the papyrus scrolls of time, he chronicled frequent urination as a symptom of a mysterious disease that also caused emaciation. Intriguingly, the ancients of that age also witnessed a curious phenomenon. They noted with fascination that the ants were drawn to the very essence of this enigmatic ailment – the urine of those afflicted by it. Thus, the symphony of nature's elements was orchestrating an age-old ballet, and ants were the first humble spectators drawn to a substance that held secrets beyond their ken.  Centuries drifted by, and like the vigilant ants drawn to secrets held in the urine, a new cast of spectators took the stage. These unique individuals, dubbed "water tasters," embarked on an...

Let's go back to our days of algebra and consider there was a person named X.  X was 82 years older and was suffering from an aggressive form of blood cancer. He already had to go through six courses of chemotherapy, but the wait to be cured was still a far cry. His saviors, the doctors, whom, in his poem, D. H. Lawrence has ornamented as “ the ones who work with science and arts, and knows the secrets of the mill”, were systematically evaluating a roster of conventional cancer medications. Their aim was to discover an effective solution, methodically eliminating options one by one." Needless to say, the drugs were doing everything but cure X. The hopes were dying, and they were taking X with them, slowly, on a bed adorned with the persistent presence of suffering. But then the doctors, knowing that there was nothing to lose, decided to embrace a boon that, until then, had remained just an elusive dream, hovering ever closer to the realm of reality: the boon of Artificial inte...

P ancreatic malignancies exhibit a multifaceted microenvironment, governing metabolic shifts and fostering a dynamic interplay among diverse cell populations residing in this specialised area. Despite the decade-long endeavours to predominantly elucidate the most lethal pancreatic malignancy, Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) continues to stand as one of the most lethal forms of cancer. Adding more concerns, it has been hypothesised that PDAC will overtake colorectal cancer before 2040, moving only behind lung cancer as a leading cause of cancer-related mortality. With almost 97% of oncology trials failing to reach the clinical stage, the dreadful question arises, “Was a solution ever there?”. Cut back through the decades, a hope amidst all odds can be seen, where the culprit cells driving the spread of pancreatic cancer have been identified. Maybe it could be premature enthusiasm to say that we have now found the weakness to target, but a hope is always a hope, and we can be che...

Proteins constitute the primary foundation of life, serving as pivotal components in the execution of vital life functions. Therefore, the essential task of functionally annotating proteins is paramount for comprehending life processes at the molecular level. For this purpose, various computational methods based on machine learning and deep learning, such as biological sequence analysis, protein structure prediction, and medical image processing, have been published. Typically, machine learning methods amalgamate features extracted from diverse data sources to assess the similarity between proteins and functional terms, leading to the annotation of similar functions for proteins exhibiting this likeness. Models based on deep learning typically emphasize extracting protein sequence features using convolutional neural networks and recurrent neural networks. They subsequently incorporate sequence similarity, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network data, and other information to enhance ...