Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) play essential roles in maintaining gut health and are associated with IBD. This study is to elucidate the effect of angiogenin (ANG), an intestine-secreted AMP, on gut microbiota and its relevance with IBD.

Gut microbiota and diet are known to contribute to human metabolism. We investigated whether the metagenomic gut microbiota composition and function changes over pregnancy are related to gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and can be modified by dietary supplements, fish oil and/or probiotics.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive malignancy with a 5-year survival of less than 5%. Transcriptomic analysis has identified two clinically relevant molecular subtypes of PDAC: classical and basal-like. The classical subtype is characterised by a more favourable prognosis and better response to chemotherapy than the basal-like subtype. The classical subtype also expresses higher levels of lineage specifiers that regulate endodermal differentiation, including the nuclear receptor hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 α (HNF4α). The objective of this study is to evaluate the role of HNF4α, SIX4 and SIX1 in regulating the growth and molecular subtype of PDAC.

Adaptive immune resistance mediated by the cytokine interferon gamma (IFNG) still constitutes a major problem in cancer immunotherapy. We develop strategies for overcoming IFNG-mediated adaptive immune resistance in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cancer (PDAC).

Although mass eradication of Helicobacter pylori has been proposed as a means to eliminate gastric cancer, its long-term effects remain unclear.

Treatment cessation in chronic HBV infection may be durable in certain patient subgroups before hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seroclearance. The role of serum HBV RNA in determining treatment cessation suitability has not been well-investigated.

Following the success of immune checkpoint blockers (ICBs) in different cancer types, a large number of studies are currently investigating ICBs in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), alone or in combination with other treatments. Both nivolumab and pembrolizumab, as well as the combination of nivolumab plus ipilimumab have been granted accelerated approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration for sorafenib-pretreated patients. While nivolumab and pembrolizumab both failed to meet their primary endpoints in phase III trials, the combination of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab eventually improved overall and progression-free survival compared with sorafenib in a front-line phase III trial, and thus, will become the new standard of care in this setting. Despite this breakthrough, there are patient populations with certain underlying conditions that may not be ideal candidates for this new treatment either due to safety concerns or potential lack of efficacy. In this review, we discuss the safety of ICBs in patients with pre-existing autoimmune disease, IBD or a history of solid organ transplantation. Moreover, we summarise emerging preclinical and clinical data suggesting that ICBs may be less efficacious in patients with underlying non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or HCCs with activated Wnt/β-catenin signalling.

There is a lack of robust data on significant gastrointestinal bleeding in older people using aspirin. We calculated the incidence, risk factors and absolute risk using data from a large randomised, controlled trial.