ABSTRACT
While DNA's perpetual role in biology and life science is well documented, its burgeoning digital applications are beginning to garner significant interest. As the development of novel technologies requires continuous research, product development, startup creation, and financing, this work provides an overview of each respective area and highlights current trends, challenges, and opportunities. These are supported by numerous interviews with key opinion leaders from across academia, government agencies and the commercial sector, as well as investment data analysis. Our findings illustrate the societal and economic need for technological innovation and disruption in data storage, paving the way for nature's own time-tested, advantageous, and unrivaled solution. We anticipate a significant increase in available investment capital and continuous scientific progress, creating a ripe environment on which DNA data storage-enabling startups can capitalize to bring DNA data storage into daily life.
Subject(s)
Information Storage and Retrieval , Investments , DNA/geneticsABSTRACT
Despite the amenability of early-stage prostate cancer to surgery and radiation therapy, locally advanced and metastatic prostate cancer is clinically problematic. Chemical castration is often used as a first-line therapy for advanced disease, but progression to the castration-resistant prostate cancer phase occurs with dependable frequency, largely through mutations to the androgen receptor (AR), aberrant AR signaling, and AR-independent mechanisms, among other causes. Semaphorin 3C (SEMA3C) is a secreted signaling protein that is essential for cardiac and neuronal development and has been shown to be regulated by the AR, to drive epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and stem features in prostate cells, to activate receptor tyrosine kinases, and to promote cancer progression. Given that SEMA3C is linked to several key aspects of prostate cancer progression, we set out to explore SEMA3C inhibition by small molecules as a prospective cancer therapy. A homology-based SEMA3C protein structure was created, and its interaction with the neuropilin (NRP)-1 receptor was modeled to guide the development of the corresponding disrupting compounds. Experimental screening of 146 in silicoâidentified molecules from the National Cancer Institute library led to the discovery of four promising candidates that effectively bind to SEMA3C, inhibit its association with NRP1, and attenuate prostate cancer growth. These findings provide proof of concept for the feasibility of inhibiting SEMA3C with small molecules as a therapeutic approach for prostate cancer.