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Toxicology is a very diverse field, spanning chemistry, biology, and clinical science. Data varies enormously in accessibility, quantity, quality, terminology, and format. That makes it a complex domain for AI, but also one where AI can be very useful when applied carefully. A realistic AI-assisted safety pipeline today is not about replacing the expert toxicologist. It is about augmentation. AI agents and Large Language Models (LLMs) can autonomously search for data, collate information, generate summaries, and produce plots. This allows safety scientists to bring their expertise to bear more efficiently, while AI helps uncover and organize the evidence. We should also remember task-specific models. DeepDILI, for example, combined classical and deep learning approaches to predict drug-induced liver injury (DILI), a major cause of post-marketing drug withdrawals. Models like this can have a real impact when focused on specific safety pain points.

Stupp's team is currently testing these systems in animal studies and adding additional signals to create highly bioactive therapies. "With the success of the study in human cartilage cells, we predict that cartilage regeneration will be greatly enhanced when used in highly translational pre-clinical models," Stupp said. "It should develop into a novel bioactive material for regeneration of cartilage tissue in joints." Stupp's lab is also testing the ability of dancing molecules to regenerate bone - and already has promising early results, which likely will be published later this year. Simultaneously, he is testing the molecules in human organoids to accelerate the process of discovering and optimizing therapeutic materials. Stupp's team also continues to build its case to the Food and Drug Administration, aiming to gain approval for clinical trials to test the therapy for spinal cord repair. "We are beginning to see the tremendous breadth of conditions that this fundamental discovery on 'dancing molecules' could apply to," Stupp said. "Controlling supramolecular motion through chemical design appears to be a powerful tool to increase efficacy for a range of regenerative therapies." The study, "Supramolecular motion enables chondrogenic bioactivity of a cyclic peptide mimetic of transforming growth factor-β1," was supported by a gift from Mike and Mary Sue Shannon to Northwestern University for research on musculoskeletal regeneration at the Center for Regenerative Nanomedicine of the Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology. Yuan, S. C., et al. (2024). Supramolecular Motion Enables Chondrogenic Bioactivity of a Cyclic Peptide Mimetic of Transforming Growth Factor-β1. Journal of the American Chemical Society. doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c05170

My lab primarily focuses on neuroscience, but we approach problems from the perspective of axon biology. We're deeply interested in how neurons develop, undergo polarization and establish/maintain connectivity. This understanding helps not only in the development of the nervous system but also sheds light on age-related degeneration linked to the loss of axon connectivity. We use various cellular models, such as compartmentalised microfluidic neuronal cultures, to study how axons face different environments compared to cell bodies. Within this context, our research is focused on RNA biology, specifically the role of non-coding RNAs or microRNAs in regulating local axon protein synthesis. This knowledge is especially valuable when exploring different diseases and conditions like pain or neurodegeneration.

This is a win for the field. Until now, we have been focused on immune therapies that might make tumors more vulnerable to the body's immune system, and on finding new chemotherapy combinations that kill cancer cells. This new treatment has given us a new focus, and I think it will spur a lot of scientific discovery over the next few years. There have only been a handful of KRAS researchers and their relevance to therapy was always questioned. That is about to change. The most important next step for the field is to better understand the biology of cancer. We know that many pancreatic tumors will eventually become resistant to daraxonrasib, and we need to understand how this happens. We also need to identify additional genetic pathways and treatments that can target them. That's how we will turn pancreas cancer from a deadly, deadly cancer into something we can manage-and one day, even cure.

The endogenous opioids and their receptors are widely distributed throughout the central and peripheral nervous systems, particularly the parts of these systems that regulate pain, emotion, reward, stress responses, motivation, drug addiction, and autonomic control. The differential expression and location of the various receptor subtypes across different neurons account for the wide range of opioid-related behaviors. The activation of µ-opioid receptors is mainly known for playing a role in pain relief. Still, research has also indicated it may be involved in behaviors related to survival, such as appetite and reproduction. The activity of µ-opioid receptors is also known to play a critical role in responses to social stimuli by modulating responses to social rejection or social acceptance, for example. Activation of the δ-opioid receptors and κ-opioid receptors is also known to be involved in pain modulation. Also, studies have shown that NOP activation is involved in pain mechanisms and several behaviors related to psychological stress. Alterations in the endogenous opioid system are suspected to be involved in Parkinson's disease, seizures, neuroprotective mechanisms, and depression.