A new paper led by Dr Johanna Michl and Professor Pawel Swietach from DPAG\u2019s Swietach Group has identified a new gene that allows cancer cells to survive in the typically acidic microenvironment of a malignant tumour. They have discovered drugs that inhibit the gene in other medical conditions also selectively kill cancer cells at acidic pH, without damaging healthy tissue. This defines a novel strategy for targeting acidic tumour regions.
A new study from Dr Yanfeng Zhang has uncovered the first evidence that dopamine-dependent long-term potentiation is also gated by the pause of striatal cholinergic interneurons and the depolarisation of the striatal spiny projection neurons. This discovery overturns previous ideas that the phasic dopamine release is the only factor gate corticostriatal synaptic plasticity, thus changing our understanding of dopamine functions in reinforcement learning.
A new paper from the Moln\u00e1r Group has shed light on substantial rewiring of corticothalamic connections that is triggered by early sensory loss during development. The study has identified a new mechanism that significantly rearranges the cortico-thalamo-cortical circuits but has not been considered before in patients with sensory loss for potential therapies.
Two projects aimed at tackling heart failure led by Associate Professor Sarah De Val and Dr Joaquim Vieira are to be funded by the 2022 TCS London Marathon with the British Heart Foundation as its Charity of the Year. The BHF\u2019s runners, who are raising \u00a33 million in funding, will include De Val Lab postdoctoral researcher Dr Alice Neal.
Congratulations to Dr Filipa Sim\u00f5es who has been awarded a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship. She will investigate how immune cells called macrophages facilitate long-lasting heart regeneration in the zebrafish and how this could be harnessed for the human heart.
A major collaborative study, in which DPAG\u2019s Dr James Grist plays a key role, involving teams in the universities of Oxford, Sheffield, Cardiff and Manchester, has identified abnormalities in the lungs of Long Covid patients who are experiencing breathlessness. Researchers are using a novel xenon gas scanning method to locate damaged areas that cannot be detected by routine scans.
Congratulations are in order for postdoctoral research scientist Dr Christoph Treiber who has been awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. His funded project will investigate the genetic components that may contribute to diversity of brain function and behaviour.
New collaborative research led by the Vyazovskiy Group has shed new light on the role of the hypothalamus in the transition between sleep and wake states.
A major new $9 million project funded by the Aligning Science Across Parkinson\u2019s (ASAP) initiative will map the original circuits vulnerable to Parkinson\u2019s on an unprecedented scale. The project is a collaboration between core investigators Stephanie Cragg, Richard Wade-Martins, and Peter Magill at Oxford, Mark Howe at Boston University and Dinos Meletis at the Karolinska Institutet, as well as collaborators Yulong Li at Peking University and Michael Lin at Stanford University.
New research led by Associate Professor Lisa Heather has found that a drug known as molidustat, currently in clinical trials for another condition, could reduce risk of heart failure after heart attacks.
New research from the Swietach Group in collaboration with NHS Blood and Transplant has demonstrated that the process of storing blood in blood banks can negatively impact the function of red blood cells and consequently may reduce the effectiveness of blood transfusions, a treatment commonly used to combat anaemia.
New research from the Parekh and Zaccolo groups reveals that a prototypical anchoring protein, known to be responsible for regulating several important physiological processes, also\u00a0orchestrates the formation of two important universal second messengers.
A pioneering collaborative mouse study from an international team of researchers including DPAG's Associate Professor Ana Domingos published in Nature offers new therapeutic avenues for reducing visceral fat stores, which have been associated with cardiovascular disease and multiple types of cancer.
Following the successful identification of long-term previously invisible lung damage in post-Covid patients, a large NIHR grant will enable a University of Oxford team including DPAG's Dr James Grist to continue this crucial work to shed light on why people with confirmed Long Covid continue to experience breathlessness following recovery from Covid-19.
More research is needed to improve the treatment of brain diseases such as depression, Alzheimer\u2019s or ADHD. A widely held view within the scientific community is that this cannot be done without ethically conducted animal research. A team of seventy international neuroscientists, including DPAG\u2019s Associate Professor Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, have now published a warning that animal research is under pressure, which endangers the further development of treatments.
Why we sleep, and the processes behind sleep, are amongst the most interesting questions in modern neuroscience. Researchers at the University of Oxford, including DPAG's Moln\u00e1r and Vyazovskiy group scientists, have now uncovered a new target for sleep investigations within the mammalian brain \u2013 the cerebral cortex. The paper, first authored by Dr Lukas Krone, was published today in Nature Neuroscience.
New research from the Heather Group has shown that in type 2 diabetes an overload of lipids reduces the heart\u2019s ability to generate energy during a heart attack, decreasing chances of recovery.
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