The wild successes of drugs like Eylea and Lucentis sometimes overshadow the fact that there still isn’t a cure for age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among the elderly, especially the earlier-stage disease known as dry AMD. While around three dozen genes tied to the disease have been identified — giving rise to experimental gene therapies — some scientists believe a closer look is needed to figure out where exactly these genetic alterations are taking place.

Cannabidiol (CBD), the cannabinoid compound found in the cannabis plant, has been tried and tested in patients with rare forms of epilepsy, inspiring the approval of GW Pharma’s $GWPH landmark plant-derived Epidiolex. Its resurgence in research — and its ubiquitous presence in oils, creams, and gummy bears — is on the basis that it is not addictive, like its intoxicating cousin THC, and retains the therapeutic potential for a plant that was once touted as a cure-all in India. Researchers at King’s College London have been studying the effect of CBD on psychosis, and on Monday signaled they are prepping to begin a large-scale Phase II trial in patients with Parkinson’s-related psychosis, characterized by hallucinations and delusions.

The Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to William Kaelin, Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg Semenza for a discovery on how cells respond to oxygen that could have a wide-ranging impact on treatments for anemia and cancer, among other ailments.

The researchers earned Nobel status for their identification of the HIF, or hypoxia-inducing factor, protein that controls how the body responds and adapts to oxygen levels, and a host of related discoveries. The findings have yet to produce actionable therapies, but HIF has been shown to impact tumor production — helping cancer cells compensate for an oxygen-low environment — and red blood cells.

An explosion started a fire at a Russian research center that houses smallpox and Ebola, blowing out glass windows and inflicting third-degree burns on one worker, although state-run media said that there is no danger to the general population.

The State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, also known as the Vector Institute, is one of only two places in the world that still houses the smallpox virus, after the WHO declared the disease eradicated in 1980. The other is — somewhat controversially — the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.

Versant is once again stepping off the beaten track in biotech to see if they can blaze a trail of their own in a field that has looked too thorny to many investors for years.

The venture group and their partners at Apple Tree are bringing their latest creation out of stealth mode today. Born in Versant’s Inception Sciences’ Chinook Therapeutics is betting that its preclinical take on kidney disease can get an early lead among the companies starting up in the field.

AC Immune, the Swiss biotech known for its tau approach to Alzheimer’s, is shining light on another misfolding protein believed to be responsible for other neurodegenerative diseases in a new research pact with the University of Pennsylvania.

The transactive response (TAR) DNA binding protein, or TDP-43 in short, is found in most human tissues but its misfolded form was identified in 2006 as a common pathologic substance linking frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Researchers have since suggested that when in the wrong shape, the protein activates the “cell autophagy gene” ATG7, which prompts neurons to decompose.

Back in 2016, Adrian Hayday and his colleagues at King’s College London — together with some collaborators in Germany and Estonia — made a splash in the immunology world with a paper, published in Cell, suggesting that patients with a particular genetic defect produce more autoantibodies than previously known. These self-generated antibodies, they proposed, offered therapeutic potential for autoimmune diseases, most prominently Type 1 diabetes.