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These new solid-state ACs promise a cool future. Scientists aren’t so sure.

After three years of record-­breaking heat, this one is set to be yet another scorcher. Air-conditioning? Not going anywhere. The International Energy Agency projects that the number of AC units will triple by 2050.

That’s good for health—one Lancet study estimated that AC prevented nearly 200,000 premature deaths in 2019 alone—but bad for the planet. Artificial chill already accounts for 7% of global electricity use and 3% of greenhouse-gas emissions, and if improperly disposed of, the units can leak refrigerants with more global-­warming potential than carbon dioxide.

Feeling the heat, a number of scientists and startups are hoping to amp up solid-­state cooling, which is currently used at a small scale for things like mini fridges, EV batteries, and some high-end gaming computers. Traditional ACs transfer heat by using a compressor and a fan to circulate a refrigerant and turn it from liquid to gas.

Solid-state systems, on the other hand, move heat through conductive materials like gadolinium and bismuth telluride—which could theoretically cool spaces and surfaces with fewer messy side effects. 

The catch is whether they can match the efficiency of conventional AC. “One of the key questions that remain is why are the solid-state coolers not as efficient as typical thermodynamic cycles?” says Pramod Reddy, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan who studies heat transfer. 

Research and pilot programs are underway to test a range of approaches. Brooklyn-based Mimic Systems uses thermo­electric cooling, which passes a current through semiconductive materials to shift heat from one side to another. Its room-scale climate control system is being piloted in an apartment in Vancouver.

The German company Magnotherm is set to test its system, which relies on a magneto­caloric setup that transfers heat by magnetizing and demagnetizing materials, in a chain of supermarkets. A team in Hong Kong has announced that its elastocaloric device, whose material heats and cools as it expands and contracts, can dip below 0 °C. And the UK’s Barocal is betting on barocaloric systems, which change temperature in response to shifts in pressure. 

But experts, especially in thermoelectrics, have doubts about how well any solid-­state scheme can compete. For most modern HVAC systems, the coefficient of performance (COP) is 3, explains Jeff Snyder, a professor at Northwestern University who studies electrical and thermal conductivity. That essentially means the system moves three units of heat for every unit of energy that goes into it.

Thermoelectrics in particular tend to have a much lower performance at high levels of temperature change, Snyder says, which means they’re best suited for niche uses such as cooling the back of a car seat. 

brown HVAC unit below a window
Mimic’s room-scale thermoelectric HVAC unit is being tested in a Vancouver apartment.
COURTESY OF MIMIC SYSTEMS, INC

Efficiency, however, isn’t everything, argues Lindsay Rasmussen, a manager at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s climate tech accelerator Third Derivative, which supports both Magnotherm and Mimic. In the US, most ACs currently in use employ a refrigerant called R410A, which has a global-­warming potential more than 2,000 times that of carbon dioxide. Plus, their moving parts can make them less durable, especially compared with a solid-state model that’s less mechanically complex.

Still, a dearth of units makes it hard to answer the efficiency question. To understand how well alternatives work, says Rasmussen, researchers need to compare their long-term energy consumption with that of conventional models instead of simply looking at COP. Mimic claims, for example, that its room-scale model should match the draw of a typical AC unit over the course of a year. Elastocaloric and barocaloric systems also have promise, Rasmussen adds, but room-scale prototypes are probably two to three years away. 

In the end, the likelihood that solid-state cooling could replace compressor-based AC is slim. But as the planet warms and places like India install tens of millions of new AC units over the next decade, supplanting even a small number could make a dent. “If [solid-state] could take over even a 5% market share,” Rasmussen says, “that is a really large potential impact.” 

Sara Kiley Watson is a science journalist specializing in climate and sustainability. She’s based in The Hague.

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STAT+: One California politician’s unexpected crusade against ultra-processed food

California legislator Jesse Gabriel has made a name for himself with a suite of bills aimed at reducing the health harms of ultra-processed food. So it might seem counterintuitive that inside his office is a pillow shaped like a bag of Skittles, complete with the brand’s iconic upside-down rainbow and a few oversized felt candies peeking through a clear plastic window. 

“It’s an inside joke,” Gabriel explained one recent afternoon over Zoom, speaking from his office in downtown Sacramento. His staff gave him the pillow after he introduced a bill in 2023 that opponents dubbed, inaccurately, the “Skittles ban.” In fact, Skittles remain alive and well since his California Food Safety Act was signed into law, prohibiting the use of four additives (including brominated vegetable oil and potassium bromate) that have been linked to higher risk of cancer, reproductive problems, and other health issues. And the Food and Drug Administration eventually followed California’s lead by taking action on all four additives.

Gabriel was elected to the California State Assembly in 2018, but it’s only in the last few years that he’s emerged as a leader on the national stage in the fight against ultra-processed food. Since the 2023 food additives law, he’s been the force behind another state law banning six artificial food dyes, as well as one establishing the first U.S. legal definition of ultra-processed foods and banning those foods from school meals. 

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

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STAT+: Amid confusion over Pfizer’s emergency penicillin program, newborn is diagnosed with preventable syphilis

The request was an emergency. In late March, a woman in Gila County, Arizona, was diagnosed with syphilis, and she was pregnant. She needed an injection of penicillin — if possible, 30 days before delivery — but the bacteria corkscrewing through her body increased her risk of delivering early. Without timely treatment, her pregnancy could end in miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death, and if the infant survived, the child might live with bone deformities, brain damage, blindness, and deafness, among other complications. 

All of that could be prevented with one of the oldest antibiotics in the book — specifically, an injectable form of penicillin sold under the brand name Bicillin L-A.

It was the only treatment approved in the United States for syphilis during pregnancy, and there’d been a national shortage since July 2025. But Pfizer, the only company that sells it, had a protocol in place for exactly this scenario: an emergency request system “to be used for confirmed congenital and risk of congenital syphilis patients only.”

That was what was unfolding in Gila County — and on Friday, March 27, public health officials submitted a request. Pfizer confirmed receipt the next Monday, according to emails obtained by STAT. But over a week after that, on April 7, the medication still hadn’t arrived.

“What can be done to get bicillin for this patient ASAP? These are the kind of delays that make the emergency request line not a viable option for public health response,” a leader at the National Coalition of STD Directors wrote to a Pfizer representative, stepping in to help secure the drug. 

“Did they submit a medical request form first? I checked with Customer Service and they can’t locate. If we can get this medical request we will get it processed,” the Pfizer representative wrote back that same day.

But by the time this exchange was taking place, it was already too late. “Mom has delivered and we have missed our opportunity to prevent congenital syphilis,” wrote an official at the Arizona Department of Health Services, adding, “Yes, the county completed the medical request form.”

It was the outcome everyone was trying to avert. In February, the National Coalition of STD Directors had asked Pfizer to donate a fraction of its Bicillin L-A reserves to state health departments, so they’d have it on hand as a backstop in case this kind of emergency arose. But Pfizer hadn’t — and in early June, nearly four months after the coalition’s proposal, the company said it was still evaluating the idea of proactively sending out doses. This case in Arizona was a realization of the fears that had spurred the suggestion in the first place.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

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As states follow Trump’s Medicaid fraud playbook, people with disabilities struggle to find care

It’s hard for Jennifer Kucera to escape the past. The nursing home where she says she got scabies, was punched in the face, and was sexually assaulted is just three short blocks away from her current home in Berea, Ohio.

“I didn’t even know what scabies were,” said Kucera, who has spinal muscular atrophy and needs around-the-clock care from Medicaid-funded providers to help her bathe, dress, and otherwise navigate her life. “These are all things that really shouldn’t happen in a place where you’re supposed to be protected.”

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StockWatch: Parabilis Medicines Makes Wall Street History with $770.5M IPO

In what’s shaping up to be a historic year for biotech initial public offerings, Parabilis Medicines (Nasdaq: PBLS) made its mark on Wall Street this past week by pricing the largest-ever IPO by a drug developer. This upsized offering raised an eye-popping $770.5 million in gross proceeds.

No sooner did Parabilis begin trading public shares on Wednesday, a day after offering 33.5 million shares of its common stock at $20 per share, than its stock price leaped 58% from the IPO price, closing its first full trading day at $31.60. Those shares slid 4% on profit taking Thursday, closing at $30.31, then fell another 10% Friday to finish the week at $27.26.

A day earlier, Parabilis announced the closing of its IPO, including a full exercise by underwriters of their 30-day option to buy an additional 5.025 million shares at the IPO price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. That added another $100.5 million to the initial $670 million in gross proceeds, which translates to another $93.5 million in net proceeds. When added to the $618.2 million net that Parabilis garnered from the original IPO, the company’s haul from the offering rises to a no-less-eye-popping $711.7 million, according to Parabilis’ IPO final prospectus.

Parabilis priced its IPO above its initial price range of $17–19 a share. The company initially planned to offer 25 million shares, then raised that offer to 33.3 million before adding 200,000 more shares to finalize its offering.

Parabilis’ IPO surpasses the $625 million IPO carried out in April by Kailera Therapeutics (Nasdaq: KLRA), which topped the previous record-high among U.S. biotechs, the $604 million offering of Moderna (Nasdaq: MRNA) in December 2018, two years before the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine developer won FDA emergency authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine.

Based in Cambridge, MA, Parabilis is a developer of drugs and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting historically undruggable protein targets and based on stabilized helical peptides or Helicons™.  Parabilis says it has generated proprietary datasets, comprising millions of data points for hundreds of thousands of Helicons across dozens of drug-like properties, following a decade of Helicon drug discovery.

“Unlike Kailera, which formed in 2024 and quickly stockpiled private capital before going public, Parabilis took a longer and far less linear road,” commented Ben Zercher, senior biotech & pharma analyst with PitchBook.

Parabilis was founded in 2015 as FogPharma to commercialize technology developed in and in-licensed from the lab of Harvard University researcher and serial entrepreneur Gregory Verdine, PhD, who served as the company’s co-founder and CEO from 2015–2023.

Six venture rounds

While the company closed six venture rounds, Zercher noted, its valuation had fluctuated in the face of the post-pandemic period that saw private biotechs struggle, as well as leadership turnover and the rebrand through which FogPharma became Parabilis in 2024.

The rebranded company built momentum last year, according to Zercher, on the strength of its lead candidate zolucatetide (formerly FOG-001), a stabilized peptide built using the company’s Helicon platform. Zolucatetide is the first and only direct inhibitor of the elusive β-catenin:TCF interaction, according to the company.

Parabilis stated in its final prospectus that it plans to spend approximately $150 million in IPO proceeds toward continuing ongoing clinical development of zolucatetide in desmoid tumors, including continuation of dose expansion and the launch of a Phase III registrational trial to topline data.

Approximately $120 million is set to be spent on continuing the ongoing clinical development of zolucatetide across several additional indications, including dose escalation and expansion in familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP); hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of primary liver cancer; and other rare tumors, with the aim of collecting data to support a registrational trial.

Parabilis plans to use the largest share of its IPO proceeds, approximately $190 million, toward advancing its pipeline of additional programs—including its ETS-related gene (ERG) protein degrader, an allosteric androgen receptor in its active state (ARON), and beta-catenin degraders—to Phase I clinical data.

“Our current pipeline is focused on various cancers and tumor types; however, we believe Helicons could also have broad applicability against targets in many diseases with substantial unmet need outside oncology, and we plan to evaluate other therapeutic areas in the future,” Parabilis stated in the final prospectus.

The remainder of the proceeds would be used, Parabilis said, toward continued evolution of the Helicon platform for discovering and developing drug candidates, as well as toward general corporate purposes that include additional development efforts, working capital, and operating expenses.

Zolucatetide received the FDA’s Fast Track designation last year, followed in March by the agency’s Orphan Drug designation. In January, Parabilis closed on a $305.2 million Series F crossover financing round by selling 49,518,175 shares at $6.1644 per share to various investors, garnering $304.5 million in net proceeds. Parabilis finished the first quarter with $329.039 million in cash and cash equivalents as of March 31.

Fifteenth biopharma IPO so far in 2026

Parabilis is the 15th and latest biotech or pharmaceutical company to carry out an IPO this year, raising a combined $12.11 billion in proceeds, according to PitchBook data. Biotech and pharma accounted for 15 IPOs in all of 2025, raising a combined $10.49 billion—an improvement in dollars over 2024’s $8.83 billion, which was raised in 33 IPOs.

Seven of this year’s IPO companies have seen their shares rise since their initial offerings, led by the 466% share price increase of Veradermics (NYSE: MANE), a developer of treatments for dermatology and aesthetic conditions that closed Friday at $96.24 a share.

“With the biotech window reopened, the volume of IPOs reflects a backlog of quality companies that kept building through the biotech funding downturn rather than a wave of hype,” Zercher added. “Where the pandemic-era class sold preclinical optionality, Parabilis and the 2026 cohort are being priced on de-risked clinical programs with clear regulatory paths.”

In addition to its IPO, Parabilis said, it has also closed on selling 4,166,666 shares at $18 per share—90% of the IPO price per share—through a concurrent private placement to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals that has raised approximately $75 million in proceeds.

Parabilis’ initial IPO filing, dated May 19, came just a day after Parabilis inked an up-to-$2.3 billion-plus strategic research collaboration with Regeneron to discover and develop an initial five candidates encompassing “antibody-Helicon conjugates,” a new form of ADCs aimed at challenging and historically undruggable targets by combining the cell permeability of small molecules with the binding capabilities of larger biologics, in order to reach targets long considered undruggable.

Financial runway into H2 2029

Regeneron agreed to pay Parabilis $50 million upfront toward launching the collaboration. That upfront payment, plus proceeds from the IPO and the company’s existing cash and cash equivalents, “will be sufficient to fund our operations into the second half of 2029,” Parabilis stated in its IPO final prospectus.

According to that final prospectus, Parabilis ended the first quarter with a $45.316 million net loss, up 18% from its $38.326 million net loss of Q1 2025, as well as a net loss of $145.889 million for last year, up nearly 24% from its $117.914 million net loss for 2024. The company has no reported revenue.

Parabilis’ accumulated deficit rose 8% during Q1, to $586.82 million from $541.504 million at the end of 2025.

To fund its operations, Parabilis reported, it has raised a total of $876.8 million as of March 31. That total consisted of $811.8 million from sales of its convertible preferred stock, $15 million in borrowings under a term loan, and a $50 million Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE).

Leerink Partners, BofA Securities, Evercore ISI, and Guggenheim Securities are acting as active book-running managers for Parabilis’ IPO, while LifeSci Capital is acting as a passive book-running manager.

Leaders and laggards

  • Propanc Biopharma (Nasdaq: PPCB) shares soared 80% from $1.35 to $2.43 Thursday after the Australian developer of therapies for pancreatic, ovarian, and colorectal cancers said it approved a share repurchase program authorizing the company to repurchase up to $5 million of its common stock. “The management team believes we are entering a transformative stage for the company,” CEO James Nathanielsz stated, citing recent progress by Propanc’s lead asset PRP, a first-in-class therapy designed to treat and prevent metastatic cancer from solid tumors, toward entering the clinic with a pivotal Phase Ib, first-in-human study in 30–40 advanced cancer patients. He also cited the company’s efforts to publish key scientific data, file patentable discoveries, and form partnerships with contract research organizations (CROs), contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), and suppliers: “The foundation is clearly there, and as a result, we believe we are undervalued significantly.”
  • Tango Therapeutics (Nasdaq: TNGX) shares rocketed 53% from $20.22 to $30.93 June 8 after the developer of precision oncology treatments based on synthetic lethality announced positive initial data from its ongoing Phase I/II trial (NCT06922591) assessing its next-generation, MTA-cooperative PRMT5 inhibitor candidate vopimetostat (TNG456) in combination with Revolution Medicines’ (Nasdaq: RVMD) RAS(ON) inhibitors daraxonrasib (RMC-6236) and zoldonrasib (RMC-9805) in patients with MTAP-deleted and RAS-mutant metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Tango reported that 92% of patients with PDAC in the trial’s vopimetostat plus daraxonrasib arm achieved an objective response, while patients with second and third line PDAC treated with the combination showed a six-month progression-free survival (PFS) rate of 90% (median PFS not yet reached), suggesting durability of clinical benefit. Tango said it plans to finalize the design of a Phase III randomized-controlled trial of the combination approach in front-line pancreatic cancer and disclose vopimetostat lung cancer monotherapy data in the second half of 2026.

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Welcome to Our New IOCDF Advocates

The IOCDF is thrilled to announce our newest cohort of Advocate volunteers! We’re welcoming 13 incredible new Advocates to our program, bringing our total to 64 dedicated volunteers working together to create meaningful change for the OCD and related disorders community.

These passionate individuals join us from bustling cities and quiet rural towns across the United States and around the world. From California to Massachusetts, and from countries including Canada and Ireland, this mix of local and global perspectives ensures we can reach and represent diverse communities everywhere.

The Power of Diverse Voices

Our newest cohort has a wide range of experiences and interests. They are passionate about addressing critical topics including:

  • Access to treatment
  • Diversity, multicultural issues, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion
  • Family issues and family accommodation
  • Young adult mental health and academic challenges
  • Public policy
  • Research advancement
  • Suicide prevention
  • Nutrition, fitness, and anxiety in athletes

This diversity of focus areas ensures that we can better represent and serve the full spectrum of our community’s needs.

Meet the Spring 2026 Advocates:

  • Dayna Altman 
  • Jessica Alvey 
  • Julia Angell 
  • Emily Devlin 
  • Madison Fankhanel 
  • Lily Goller 
  • Austin Kang 
  • Jin Luo 
  • Rose Nadershahi 
  • Kate Roscher 
  • Violet Talsma 
  • Jonathan Teller 
  • Crystal Weideman

You can see the full list of IOCDF advocates at iocdf.org/advocate-program

Your Voice Matters Too

Inspired by our Advocates? You can make a difference! Here are ways to start advocating today:

Fuel Our Mission Through Fundraising

Turn your passion into action by launching a personal fundraiser. Whether for a birthday, a race, or a creative project, you can rally your friends and family to raise critical funds. Every dollar helps build a world where everyone affected by OCD can thrive. Start your fundraiser here or explore all ways to give back here.

Advocate for policy change

Your voice can shape laws that improve access to care and insurance coverage. The IOCDF Public Policy Action Center makes it simple to find the latest bills and contact your elected officials with just a few clicks. True change starts here.

Join an IOCDF Special Interest Group

Connect with people who share your experiences or professional interests. IOCDF Special Interest Groups (SIGs) provide a platform for deeper discussion.

Whether you advocate on the national stage, share your story to fight stigma, or fundraise your way, every action creates a ripple effect of hope and understanding. Your journey, your voice, and your commitment are powerful tools.

Start today and help us build a world where everyone affected by OCD feels supported, seen, and empowered. Join a dedicated community committed to raising awareness.

Welcome again to our new IOCDF Advocates, we’re grateful to have you joining our mission!

The post Welcome to Our New IOCDF Advocates appeared first on International OCD Foundation.

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Collagen Resides Inside Cells in Liquid Condensate-Like Form

A study by scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona has found that collagen, the protein that builds skin, bones, tendons, and organs, exists inside cells as a liquid-like droplet rather than as the long, rigid rod-like structure we might find in textbooks.

The team used techniques including high-resolution live-cell imaging to generate what they say is the first direct observation of how the most abundant protein in the human body, which accounts for around a third of total protein mass, exists naturally inside living cells.

Collagen is built inside a cellular compartment called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The study specifically looked at a precursor form inside cells called procollagen 1 (PC1), which matures into type 1 collagen. Type 1 collagen is the most common type of collagen, consisting of around 90% of the body’s total collagen.

“Inside a cell, collagens are not rigid molecules as one had assumed,” said ICREA research professor Vivek Malhotra, PhD, senior author of the study at the CRG. They are, in fact, very pliable, taking a liquid condensate form much like oil in a drop of water.”

The liquid-like state may serve a protective function. Collagen’s job, once outside the cell, is to assemble into the rigid fibers that hold tissues together. The same process inside the cell would be catastrophic. “This is another way by which cells ensure that collagens probably never become fibrous inside the cell,” said Malhotra. “Because if it were to become fibrous, it would kill the cell.”

The new findings have implications for how the body exports its primary structural building block from production sites inside cells. The researchers suggest cells avoid using conventional receptors or vesicles, which is the route established by work carried out in the 1980s and 1990s and recognized with a Nobel prize in 2013.

Instead, they propose a “liquid extrusion” hypothesis, whereby collagen moves from its site of synthesis to the next compartment of the secretory pathway through capillary action. The new theory has important implications for wound healing, fibrosis, and cancer.

Malhotra and colleagues describe their study and results in a paper in the Journal of Cell Biology titled “Procollagen 1 assembles into phase-separated condensates in the endoplasmic reticulum.”

“Procollagen I (PC1) is assembled into a trimer within the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER),” the authors explained. Under a microscope, purified collagen looks like long, rigid rods of up to 400 nm in length, and this conformation is presumed to represent their assembled state in vivo, the team continued. “However, there is currently no direct experimental evidence demonstrating that PC1 adopts or is maintained in such a rigid, extended conformation within the ER lumen in vivo,” they wrote. Also, the vesicles that transport proteins out from their site of synthesis to the cell’s exterior are only 60 to 90 nanometers in diameter.

Since collagen’s structure was first described more than half a century ago, the field of cell biology has asked how such large molecules can be transported out of cells. The canonical picture of the protein describes collagen only after it has left cells and assembled into the fibers that hold tissues together. The newly reported findings suggest that inside the cell, collagen is not yet assembled into that rod structure.

Using high-resolution live-cell imaging of human hepatic stellate cells—the liver cells that produce collagen and drive scarring in liver fibrosis—the team showed that collagen inside the cell gathers into small droplets that merge, split, and exchange material with their surroundings. These are all signatures of a condensate, compartments of proteins that become so concentrated they disassociate from their surroundings, like droplets of oil in water.

Most of cell biology has focused on condensates in the nucleus and on stress granules in the cytosol, said first author Soumya Bhattacharyya, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Malhotra’s lab. “We’re just beginning to understand condensates inside the endoplasmic reticulum.”

The findings emerged from microscopy images taken by Bhattacharyya in May 2024. Bhattacharyya was using the liver cell system as a tool to study what happens when collagen production is increased in fibrotic cells. “I had no idea what it would lead to. But when we took the samples, what struck me were these bright spherical structures you can’t miss,” recalled Bhattacharyya.

The initial reaction in the laboratory to a finding that challenged cell biology dogma was sceptical. “I thought it must be an artefact,” said Malhotra. In the months that followed, the team had to settle whether the protein clumping they observed inside the endoplasmic reticulum was junk. Cells have an elaborate system for detecting badly folded proteins and either refolding them or marking them for destruction, centered on a chaperone called BiP.

If the collagen droplets were heaps of misfolded protein, the researchers would detect high levels of BiP. The droplets contained, instead, a mixture of helper proteins, including chaperones that specifically recognize properly folded collagen.

Human liver cells showing collagen droplets inside the cell (green clusters), held in place by TANGO1 (magenta), with extracellular collagen fibres visible as the surrounding network. Cell nuclei are stained blue. [Soumya Bhattacharyya / Centre for Genomic Regulation]
Human liver cells showing collagen droplets inside the cell (green clusters), held in place by TANGO1 (magenta), with extracellular collagen fibers visible as the surrounding network. Cell nuclei are stained blue. [Soumya Bhattacharyya/Centre for Genomic Regulation]

The study also clarifies the function of TANGO1, a protein discovered by the Malhotra lab roughly two decades ago and known to be required for collagen export. When the researchers depleted TANGO1, the collagen droplets still formed but were no longer positioned at the ER exit sites (ERES) where cargo leaves the compartment. Collagen secretion dropped accordingly. “PC1 condensates were still formed after TANGO1 knockdown, indicating that TANGO1 is not required for condensate formation per se,” the investigators stated. “However, TANGO1 depletion caused a marked reduction in the association of PC1 condensates with ERES …”

The discovery suggests TANGO1 acts as a mooring point that holds the droplet at the export site rather than as a conventional cargo receptor. The authors propose that collagen then leaves the cell by a physical process called wetting, in which the liquid droplet attaches to and flows through the exit site.

Malhotra offers two possible physical mechanisms for this transfer. “Imagine you have a rubber ball with a nozzle, filled with liquid. You squeeze it, you force the liquid to come out of this little orifice. Is that the mechanism? Or is the liquid rising by capillary forces, just like nutrients flow up against gravity in plants by capillary action?”

The proposed liquid extrusion mechanism remains a model, but the next experiments to obtain direct visualization of the export mechanism are already underway. The team also plans to develop a mouse model, in collaboration with external partners, to confirm the findings in living tissue. If the model is confirmed, the work has implications for several pathological conditions in which excess collagen secretion plays a central role, including liver, lung, and skin fibrosis, as well as for targeting the dense matrix that tumors use to shield themselves from chemotherapy and the immune system.

“One of the major problems in cancer is that the cells secrete so many collagens and other proteins out into the extracellular matrix that they hide in a shell made of these components and become chemo- and immuno-refractory, meaning they are not seen by the chemical therapeutics or by the immune system,” Malhotra said. “People are trying to find ways to break this tissue cement, and our study could help inform those strategies.”

The proposed collagen secretion model suggests that either degrading TANGO1 to prevent cargo from being captured at the exit site or dissolving the condensate itself to prevent the cargo from being properly organized in the first place could be new strategies worth exploring.

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STAT+: FDA approves Sanofi diabetes drug for children with stage 3 diabetes

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved teplizumab, a type 1 diabetes drug developed by Sanofi, for children aged 8 and older with stage 3 diabetes. 

The drug was selected to go through a speedy review program launched last year by former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, but the agency missed its goal date of April 21 to deliver a decision. 

STAT previously reported that Sanofi asked to pull its drug out of the program after former top drug regulator Tracy Beth Høeg disagreed with a staff decision to approve the drug. It’s rare for a center director, and particularly a political appointee like Høeg, to get involved in individual scientific reviews. 

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…