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Most medicines work by binding to and blocking the effect of disease-causing molecules. Now, to accelerate the identification of potential new medicines, bioengineers have created a computer model that mimics the way molecules bind.

Promising intracellular protein-based therapeutics have been of limited use due to the difficulty of delivery into diseased cells. Now bioengineers have developed nanoparticles that can deliver these therapeutics to their targets—avoiding degradation and toxic interactions with healthy tissues.

Millions of people are treated with antibiotics each year for infections or as a preventative measure. Two teams of NIBIB-funded scientists have been working to find alternative solutions for treating bacterial infections, especially antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Neurologists have observed reduced neural activity during non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM). Now MRI imaging during NREM reveals an exchange between brain blood and cerebrospinal fluid that may function to remove neurotoxic waste products.

A novel method produces a new class of radioactive tracers that are used for medical imaging. The method allows them to attach radioactive atoms to compounds that have previously been difficult or even impossible to label.  The advance will make it easier to track medications in the body and identify tumors and other diseases.

Doctors need better ways to detect and monitor heart disease, the leading cause of death in industrialized countries. Researchers with support from NIBIB has developed an improved optical imaging technique that found differences between potentially life-threatening coronary plaques and those posing less imminent danger for patients with coronary artery disease.

Low-frequency electric stimulation shows promise as a possible alternative to medications for restoring hair growth in people whose hair has begun to thin.

The novel approach better mimics the tumor environment in patients. Made with extracellular matrix (ECM) from pig brains and seeded with tumors from patients, the system is revealing tumor/ECM interactions that aid tumor growth, providing potential targets for new therapies.

Researchers have designed a more precise and versatile genome editing system, named prime editing, that harnesses the power of CRISPR-Cas9 in combination with another protein, reverse transcriptase, to directly edit DNA in human cells.