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It is accepted wisdom that the visual sense is the dominant of the five senses for us humans. A notion that also has translated into sensory research. Or as the author of a paper in 2019 asked “Why Is There So Much More Research on Vision Than on Any Other Sensory Modality?” in which he observed that more textbook and journal article inches are spent on vision than on any other sensory modality across multiple disciplines ranging from biomedical sciences to perception and cognitive psychology.

Chemotherapy, using chemicals that are particularly toxic to rapidly dividing cancer cells, is the most commonly used cancer treatment, often in combination with surgery and/or radiotherapy. However, the side effects of chemotherapy are severe. Exosomes may offer a way of better targeting chemotherapy to cancer cells.

Biological discovery and crisis can both give rise to entirely new fields of study. In this article, we assess the impact of Covid on research output in 2020 and the rise of technologies such as CRISPR and cell reprogramming that have shaped the last 20 years.

Many cancers have developed an efficient way of blocking the body’s natural immune response by overexpressing a protein called programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1). Antibodies that neutralize PD-L1 are highly effective in some patients. Exosome-based diagnostics can predict responders.

Times of crisis can precipitate rapid technological development and the Covid-19 crisis is presenting an opportunity for new therapeutic modalities. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s Covid vaccines which both rely on RNA have been ground-breaking. Could Covid-19 also clear the path for the first exosome therapeutics?

Despite iPSCs having potential in many biomedical applications, there are currently major challenges that need to be addressed to unleash the full potential of iPSCs for disease modelling, both in clinical settings and their use for safety pharmacology to provide more effective and safer regenerative therapy.

What if we could reliably build cell-based structures resembling meat step-by-step in a lab, bypassing the need for livestock altogether? Advances in cellular biology, including identifying the signals that cause stem cells to turn into other cell types such as muscle or fat cells, have given us the key to unlock this possibility, with many companies founded in recent years to develop this technology.

Resident cytokines (released from cells in the body) are potent proteins that function at vanishingly low levels (measured in ng/kg). In contrast, therapeutic recombinant cytokines are typically dosed in mg/kg. Similarly, high mg/L concentrations are required for cytokines used in lab-based cell culture or in biomanufacturing. How do almost non-existent resident cytokines manage to achieve their effects?

Cell-based assays are a cornerstone of research and drug development. However, the beneficial effects of promising drugs can easily be missed amidst the noise of experimental data. This means good drug candidates are often overlooked. Just as concerning, data that would otherwise flag problematic candidates can be missed allowing drug candidates to progress to later stages before eventually failing.

Three-dimensional (3D) culture systems are becoming increasingly popular in both biomedical research and in drug discovery. It is becoming widely accepted that in vitro 3D cell culture technologies have the ability to mimic tissue-like structures and both physiological and disease states more effectively than traditional two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cultures on plastic surfaces.