Medical researchers have discovered a new type of mechanism causing cancer susceptibility, showing that tiny changes in some anti-cancer genes can act as magnets to attract modifying "biochemical tags", effectively switching them off and predisposing families to an increased risk of the disease.

Researchers from VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and Ghent University have shown that a defective gene can contribute to the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, an often-crippling inflammation of the joints that afflicts about 1% of the world's population. Until now, the underlying molecular mechanism of the disease was largely unclear. In the study, published in Nature Genetics, the researchers demonstrate that a cell-specific defect in the expression of the A20 gene (TNFAIP3) can contribute to the development of rheumatoid arthritis in mice, thereby identifying A20 as a possible target for the generation of new drugs.

Tiny particles made of polymers hold great promise for targeted delivery of drugs and as structural scaffolds for building artificial tissues. However, current production methods for such microparticles yield a limited array of shapes and can only be made with certain materials, restricting their usefulness.