GENIO italiano Giuseppe Cotellessa

 USING ISOTHERMAL TITRATION CALORIMETRY TO CHARACTERIZE ENZYME KINETICS /  UTILIZZO DELLA CALORIMETRIA DELLA TITOLAZIONE ISOTERMICA PER CARATTERIZZARE LA CINETICA ENZIMATICA Segnalato dal Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa / Reported by Dr. Giuseppe Cotellessa  Principles  Enzymes are proteins that function as biological catalysts, which play crucial roles in the biochemical processes that occur in living organisms.  Understanding how enzymes function, and how to activate or inhibit their activity, is a core research focus for biochemists. Since many drug targets are enzymes, the development of new therapies requires understanding of how the target enzyme binds and catalyzes its natural substrate. Several drugs are therapeutic enzymes, which are injected into the patient to treat genetic disorders characterized by missing or defective enzymes. Enzymes are also important in other industries including food science, biofuels, and detergents. Although enzymes were discovered in the mid-1800s, isol

Ancient dog DNA reveals 11,000 years of canine evolution /   Il DNA del cane antico rivela 11.000 anni di evoluzione del cane Segnalato dal Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa /  Reported by Dr. Giuseppe Cotellessa New Guinea singing dogs are related to Australian dingoes ./ I cani cantanti della Nuova Guinea sono imparentati con i dingo australiani Credit: Daniel Heuclin/NPL  Genomes trace how the animals moved around the world — often with humans by their side. Human history is for the dogs. The largest-ever study of ancient genomes from the animals suggests that where people went, so did their four-legged friends — to a point. The research also identified major regional shifts in human ancestry that left little mark on dog populations, as well as times when dogs changed, but their masters didn’t. The analysis of more than two dozen Eurasian dogs also suggests the animals were domesticated and became widespread around the world well before 11,000 years ago. But it does not make any claims as t

Biomarkers used to distinguish mesothelioma from noncancerous tissue /  Biomarcatori utilizzati per distinguere il mesotelioma dal tessuto non canceroso Segnalato dal Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa / Reported by Dr. Giuseppe Cotellessa The difficult differential diagnosis between malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) and noncancerous pleural tissue with reactive mesothelial proliferations (RMPs) may be aided by four biomarkers, identified by scientists from Copenhagen University Hospital (Copenhagen, Denmark). Enabling more accurate diagnoses when dealing with pleural biopsy samples taken from patients with clinical suspicion of MPM may facilitate improved patient outcomes, as this is a frequent differential diagnostic problem. As there are currently no generally accepted diagnostic biomarkers for distinguishing MPM from noncancerous abnormalities, such as reactive mesothelial hyperplasia or fibrous pleurisy (organizing pleuritis), differentiating the two conditions can be difficult. This le

Exploratory biomarker assays: key assay parameters to evaluate in the face of evolving biomarker context-of-use /  Saggi esplorativi dei biomarcatori: parametri chiave del dosaggio da valutare di fronte all'evoluzione del contesto d'uso dei biomarcatori Segnalato dal Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa /  Reported by Dr. Giuseppe Cotellessa The field of biomarkers has seen extensive growth enabled by multiple advanced technological tools at our disposal. Such tools have enabled quantitative and semi-quantitative measurement of protein analytes in soluble matrices such as blood (serum or plasma), urine and cerebrospinal fluid. Soluble biomarkers are routinely analyzed using ligand-binding assay (LBA) and LC–MS/MS-based approaches, however LBA-based biomarker assays will be the focus of this discussion. The field of LBA has evolved from plate-based ELISA to now multiple options for ultrasensitive platforms such as Simoa ®  and SMCxPro ® . Despite assay validation guidelines for bioanalyti