WashU joins Third Coast Foundry

Washington University in St. Louis is an inaugural member of Third Coast Foundry, a new initiative designed to strengthen the combined presence of Midwestern universities in the San Francisco Bay Area...

source.washu.edu

​Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Omar M. Yaghi joins Tsinghua University full-time-Tsinghua University

​On the morning of July 3, Tsinghua University held the Appointment Ceremony for Professor Omar M. Yaghi as Chair Professor of Tsinghua University at the Main Building.

tsinghua.edu.cn

Neuroinflammation in Health and Disease | Keystone Symposia

Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Neuroinflammation in Health and Disease, June 2026, in Whistler, with field leaders!

keystonesymposia.org

GPR15-guided CD8+ T regulatory cells control intestinal inflammation - Nature

Nature - GPR15-guided CD8+ T regulatory cells control intestinal inflammation

nature.com

Replaying germinal center evolution on a quantified affinity landscape

Darwinian evolution of immunoglobulin genes within germinal centers (GCs) underlies the progressive increase in antibody affinity following antigen ex…

sciencedirect.com

Clinical trial keeps Stage 4 skin cancer victim alive years after ‘four months to live’

What began as a small, hard-to-see mole on her ankle became a life-threatening battle with Stage 4 melanoma.

san.com

Homing pigeon navigation relies on superparamagnetic macrophages under overcast conditions

Birds use a variety of navigational strategies, including the geomagnetic field, especially when other cues are not available, such as under overcast or nocturnal conditions. Magnetite particles in th...

science.org

The Unaimed Arrow Never Misses

In this assay, Raphael Kopan argues that focused emphasis on disease and translation stifles innovation, and outline the reasons why, in my opinion, d…

sciencedirect.com

commonfund.nih.gov

WashU receives $200M commitment for public health

The largest gift in Washington University in St. Louis history, from the Bursky Family Foundation, will advance the School of Public Health’s vision in a post-pandemic world.

source.washu.edu

Reverse engineering the fatally cross-reactive A3A TCR to decouple potency and specificity

T cell receptor (TCR) affinity enhancement can introduce off-target cross-reactivity with life-threatening consequences, as illustrated by the MAGE-A3-specific A3A TCR, which caused fatal cardiotoxicity through recognition of a Titin-derived peptide. Here, we reconstructed the crossreactivity landscape by reverse-engineering A3A toward its wild-type precursor, generating intermediate variants in which engineered CDR2α residues are systematically reverted to the wild-type sequence. Reverting just two engineered residues yields a receptor, v9, that retains MAGE-A3 cytotoxicity comparable to A3A while eliminating Titin and other acquired cross-reactivities. Structurally, these substitutions reduce CDR2α-MHC contacts and disrupt an intra-TCR CDR2α-CDR3β interaction, propagating conformational changes across CDR3 loops that reshape peptide engagement without altering docking geometry. These results demonstrate that mutations outside the peptide-contacting CDR3 loops can allosterically reconfigure antigen specificity and establish simple stepwise reverse engineering to wild-type as a strategy for correcting TCR cross-reactivity. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) Innovation Fund for Medical Science (CIFMS), China, 2018-I2M-2-002 and 2024-I2M-2-001-1 Cancer Research UK (CRUK) DPhil in Cancer Science Award, C2195/A31310, CANCTA-2024/100004 Wellcome Trust, https://ror.org/029chgv08, 227585/Z/23/Z, 227388/Z/23/Z Cancer Research UK, DRCCIP-Nov23/100004 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, https://ror.org/0439y7842, EP/S024093/1 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, BB/T008784/1 Wellcome Trust Core Award, 203141/Z/16/Z Novo Nordisk Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, NNF23OC0082912 Gates Foundation, INV-055780 CSC-COI MD/PhD High-level Medical Innovative Talent Scholarship, 2024-I2M-2-001-1 ARISE Fellowship - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, 945405

biorxiv.org

grants.nih.gov

10,000 scientists gone: Trump’s cuts create an unprecedented brain drain

Some 10,109 doctoral-trained experts in science and related fields left their jobs last year as President Donald Trump dramatically shrank the

geneticliteracyproject.org

Science | AAAS

science.org

Science | AAAS

science.org