Life and health sciences made some major leaps in 2023 with the introduction of new medication and drug trials. It was a year of introducing new technology, and announcements and some notable research was published. We started covering news in May 2023 and have published over 38 news reports in the sections Health and Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, Disease Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and many more. These news reports have many constant readers and followers. So this research also made some impact on us in that it provided an opportunity to reach more science researchers.
The first news we published was a drug trial report from the FDA about Pfizer’s pneumococcal vaccines for children. “FDA approves Pfizer’s new pneumococcal vaccines for children and infants on 27th April. The vaccine called Prevenar 20 was made for use against 20 different rates of bacteria. The adult version of the vaccine Prevenar 13 was approved for adults earlier.”, an extract from our report.
The next major event was in May when the WHO declared the conclusion for COVID-19’s emergency phase. “3 years after declaring COVID-19 as a pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) declares the end of COVID-19’s emergency phase. They said COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern. This decision was made by the COVID-19 emergency committee with Dr Tedros, the WHO director-general on the 4th of May”. This was the first major news about COVID-19 in the year 2023. Later that year, COVID-19 was in the news headlines as some of the new fastly spreading variants were discovered.
In the same month, there was another report about the advancement of the mitochondria donation treatment (MDT), that a baby was born from the DNA of 3 people. “The embryo formed is a combination of real parents sperm and egg along with the mitochondria from the donor’s egg. Thus the baby from the embryo contains the DNA from parents as well as a small amount of genetic material from the donor”.
The next major and sensational news report was in August about the FDA approval of the drug for the treatment of postpartum depression. “The first oral drug suggested to treat postpartum depression (PPD) in adults, Zurzuvae (zuranolone), has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. PPD is a significant depressive episode that can start later in pregnancy but usually starts after delivery. Until recently, the only form of therapy for PPD was an IV injection delivered by a medical professional at certain medical facilities”.
September was the month with some announcements, demise, and vaccine trial success. The UK has made an important announcement about their joining the EU’s Horizon research program.
We lost the famous embryologist Ian Wilmut, the creator of the world’s first cloned animal, Dolly the sheep.
M S Swaminathan, the man behind the green revolution in India passed away.
October was started with the Nobel announcements. The award in the section medicine was for the researchers behind the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. This was a giant leap for Biotechnology. Another important news report in October was the development of a bioreactor for the production of cells in cancer treatment by Washington State University.
November begins with new research reports about injection-free diabetes care by insulin-producing cells. “A University of Alberta team has developed a new step to improve the process for creating insulin-producing pancreatic cells from a patient’s own stem cells, bringing the prospect of injection-free treatment closer for people with diabetes”.
Then another sensational news arrives from the UK that their MHRA approved the first in the world CRISPR treatment named Casgevy. “The first CRISPR treatment for diseases was approved by the MHRA, UK on 16th November, 2023. Following a thorough evaluation of its safety, efficacy, and quality, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved a novel medication for patients 12 years of age and older with sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia”.
The same month witnessed two more research reports about drug resistance in malaria and bacteria’s mechanism for recognition of the viral invasion and its immune activation.
November ended with a sensational report from the WHO that a mysterious pneumonia spreading in China, every country seriously looked into it as the new variant of COVID-19 also started spreading rapidly.
December started with the release of a new research report on diabetes research that Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine discovered that the stimulation of nerves in the pancreas causes regeneration of insulin-producing cells. “One hormone that lowers blood glucose levels is insulin. Pancreatic beta cells (β-cells) are the only cells that can produce insulin, and a significant cause of diabetes is a reduction in these cells. A way to enhance pancreatic β-cells has not yet been established, despite the eagerness for medications aiming at doing so”.
One of the most important news in December on biotechnology and health care was the FDA’s approval of the CRISPR gene therapies for the treatment of sickle cell disease. “Casgevy and Lyfgenia, two ground-breaking medications that constitute the first cell-based gene therapies for treating sickle cell disease (SCD) in individuals 12 years of age and older, were authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Moreover, Casgevy, one of these treatments, is the first FDA-approved medication to make use of a revolutionary form of genome editing technique, indicating a significant breakthrough in the area of gene therapy”.
In the same month, there was another sensational research paper from Cambridge was published. It explains why the morning sickness in most of the pregnant women happens. They explain this as “the fetus’s hormone, GDF15, is the cause. It is a protein. However, the amount of the hormone generated by the fetus and the mother’s prior exposure to the hormone before becoming pregnant both influence how ill the mother feels”.
So that is a wrap for the research news of 2023 from BiotechReality.com. Various sources suggest multiple drug and therapy trials in 2024, fingers crossed! We are looking into the publishing of various crispy research. Let’s hope for the upliftment of humanity in 2024 by science!
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Graduated from the University of Kerala with B.Sc. Botany and Biotechnology. M.Sc. Biotechnology from the University of Kerala. Attended certificate course in Artificial Intelligence for Everyone from Deeplearning.AI, Influenza Prevention and Control from World Health Organization. Attended workshops related to Bioinformatics at the University of Kerala. 3 years of experience in website management. Experience in WordPress, Blogger, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console.
