Reframe Daily: Antibody enables chemo-free bone-marrow transplants—plus 4 more July 22 breakthroughs

Reframe Daily is where Christin Chong (neuroscience PhD, chaplain, healthtech strategy consultant) curates optimistic and credible healthtech news so you don’t have to.

Today in one sentence: A kinder antibody let kids with a rare blood disease get safe bone-marrow transplants without harsh chemo; researchers found a missing fat-helper that could calm itchy psoriasis; tiny RNA tags that spark seizures were spotted, opening a path to new epilepsy drugs; a bone-strength hormone was shown to push stem cells to build stronger bones; and a smart gut-bug test can predict which undernourished children will bounce back fastest with peanut-butter rescue food.

Today’s Reframe community chatter: welcomed new members, mouth-taping for better sleep, logging our life-in-weeks, relevancy of brain age scores…join our fun chats here! → https://forms.gle/tN3oabFTsDF21VnS8

Good news: Children with the rare blood-cell disorder Fanconi anemia might soon get life-saving bone-marrow transplants without the harsh chemo or radiation that usually comes first. Doctors used one infusion of an anti-CD117 antibody to “clear space” for donor cells, and every patient engrafted with far fewer side-effects. 

Irradiation- and busulfan-free stem-cell transplantation in Fanconi anemia using an anti-CD117 antibody: a phase 1b trial

Market readiness: 🙂🙂🙂 (early human trial shows success; needs larger phase 2/3 studies before FDA review)

Good news: Scientists found that when the fat-processing enzyme DGAT2 is low, skin cells kick off the runaway inflammation that causes psoriasis. Turning DGAT2 back on—or mimicking its effects—could give doctors a brand-new way to calm the itchy disease. 

DGAT2 reduction and lipid dysregulation drive psoriasis development in keratinocyte-specific SPRY1-deficient mice

Market readiness: 🙂 (discovery work in mice and patient samples; drug design and first-in-human safety studies are next)

Good news: A study showed that tiny RNA tags called m⁶A make brain cells over-excitable in temporal-lobe epilepsy. Blocking this “mis-tagging” pathway could lead to precision anti-seizure treatments instead of blanket medications. 

N⁶-methyladenosine dysregulation contributes to network excitability in temporal-lobe epilepsy

Market readiness: 🙂 (basic mechanistic insight; therapeutic compounds still need to be developed)

Good news: Researchers discovered how everyday parathyroid hormone (already used for osteoporosis) flips off the Hippo pathway in bone-building stem cells, pushing them to grow new bone faster. The finding could turbo-charge future anabolic bone therapies. 

PTH counteracts Hippo signaling via Src-dependent YAP stabilization to enhance bone-marrow stromal-cell differentiation

Market readiness: 🙂🙂 (tested in cells and animals with an FDA-approved hormone; needs human trials for this new use)

Good news: Using gut-microbe profiles, inflammation markers, and machine learning, scientists can now predict which malnourished children will bounce back the best from peanut-butter-like rescue foods—letting clinics tailor help sooner and save more lives. 

Host-microbiome determinants of ready-to-use supplemental food efficacy in acute childhood malnutrition

Market readiness: 🙂🙂 (small human study shows predictive power; larger trials and regulatory clearance needed before clinic use)

Thank you for taking the time to take care of yourself and your loved ones.