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The latest issue of Research Horizons focuses on future therapeutics and provides a snapshot of cutting-edge research from across the University of Cambridge. Nanobots small enough to move around our bloodstream, damaged hearts repaired with ‘off-the-shelf’ pieces of beating tissue, genetic diseases cured by ‘molecular scissors’ that snip out and r…

Gene editing using ‘molecular scissors’ that snip out and replace faulty DNA could provide an almost unimaginable future for some patients: a complete cure. Cambridge researchers are working towards making the technology cheap and safe, as well as examining the ethical and legal issues surrounding one of the most exciting medical advances of recent…

Our immune systems are meant to keep us healthy, but sometimes they turn their fire on us, with devastating results. Immunotherapies can help defend against this ‘friendly fire’ – and even weaponise it in our defence.An army of cells constantly patrols within us, attacking anything it recognises as foreign, keeping us safe from invading pathogens. …

Professor Tony Kouzarides is passionate about ecosystems: well-balanced communities that flourish on mutual and dynamic interactions. But the ecosystems that excite him are not made up of plants, animals and environments. They’re made up of experts.Kouzarides is the founding Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, which is due to open in 201…

When a drug fails late on in clinical trials it’s a major setback for launching new medicines. It can cost millions, even billions, of research and development funds. Now, an ‘adaptive’ approach to clinical trials and a genetic tool for predicting success are increasing the odds of picking a winner. “Did not meet primary endpoint.”Prosaic words, bu…

Nanotechnology is creating new opportunities for fighting disease – from delivering drugs in smart packaging to nanobots powered by the world’s tiniest engines. One way that researchers are attempting to improve the safety and efficacy of drugs, such as those used to treat cancer, is to use a relatively new area of research known as nanothrapeutics…

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have designed antibodies that target the protein deposits in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and stop their production. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, which affects nearly one million people in the UK and about 50 million worldwide. One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer…

Dr Trevor Lawley and  Professor Gordon Dougan are bug hunters, albeit not the conventional kind. The bugs they collect are invisible to the naked eye. And even though we’re teeming with them, researchers are only beginning to discover how they keep us healthy – and how we could use these bugs as drugs.Both researchers lead groups at the Wellcome Tr…

The stirrings of a revolution are starting to ripple through hundreds of laboratories. It’s a revolution that aims to result in new medicines – faster and with fewer failures – and it’s being led by three UK universities and three global pharmaceutical companies. In January 2016, the tech transfer offices (TTOs) of Cambridge, Imperial College and U…

It is almost impossible for an injured heart to fully mend itself. Within minutes of being deprived of oxygen – as happens during a heart attack when arteries to the heart are blocked – the heart’s muscle cells start to die. Dr Sanjay Sinah leads a team of stem cell biologists in the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Over the past five years, with fun…

Cambridge-based start-up Bicycle Therapeutics has recently raised £40 million from a range of investors to bring its cancer drug candidates to clinical trials.The company is developing a new class of drugs called ‘Bicycles’, which are based on small protein chains, or peptides, which have been chemically constrained, and have a similar shape to a b…

Researchers are working with pharmaceutical companies to make improvements across the whole supply chain, from how a pill is made to the moment it is swallowed by the patient.Dr Jag Srai, Head of the Centre for International Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) talked to Research Horizons about his team's…

How will precision medicine define 21st-century therapeutics? What will future healthcare look like? And what actually lies ‘beyond the pill’?In the latest edition of Research Horizons Professor Chris Lowe, Director of the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences, takes the long view on the future of therapeutics.Covering personalised and regenera…

Researchers from the MRC’s Toxicology Unit have identified two drugs that restore protein production rates in mice that have either prion disease or frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and which may therefore have potential as dementia treatments in humans. They are trazodone hydrochloride, a licensed antidepressant, and dibenzoylmethane, a compound bei…

The Milner Therapeutics Institute has announced Elysium Health as the latest company to become a partner in the Milner Therapeutics Consortium, which brings together the drug development capabilities of pharmaceutical companies with the ideas and know-how of Cambridge academics.The company will also join the Institute's Innovation Board to help def…