In this seminar, Rossella Tupler (University of Modena) shows how a careful genetic characterization of a hereditary disease (Facioscapolohumeral muscular dystrophy, FSHD) can give insights into its molecular pathogenesis

In this seminar, Francesco Di Virgilio (University of Ferrara) has provided an overview and shown data addressing the functional interactions of purinergic receptors, Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns (DAMP) and the inflammasomes, with implications for the molecular pathogenesis of periodic fever

The growth and dissemination of tumor cells is determined by various alterations in genes encoding for proteins involved in the control of cell growth, proliferation, differentiation and cell death. In this contest, a key role is played by the pathway of PI3K/AKT/mTOR and alterations of the components of this pathway are involved in the pathogenesis of many human tumors (1).

Science is almost exclusively concerned with the “accessible unknown”; that is, what can be investigated using the current knowledge as a starting point. In other words, scientists only address — and talk about — questions they have a chance to answer using available tools and knowledge. If a subject is too far from what we know at a given time, we assign it to the realm of the distant future, science fiction, or metaphysics.

In the intestine and, particularly, in enterocytes, nutrients are modulators of various cellular functions and may be involved in tissue immune response and inflammation (1). Dietary proteins are often incompletely digested by the intestinal proteases and residual peptides can have biological effects (2).