Current advances in microbial-based cancer therapies.

Microbes have an immense metabolic capability and can adapt to a wide variety of environments; as a result, they share complicated relationships with cancer. The goal of microbial-based cancer therapy is to treat patients with cancers that are not easily treatable, by using tumor-specific infectious microorganisms. Nevertheless, a number of difficulties have been encountered as a result of the harmful effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and alternative cancer therapies, such as the toxicity to non-cancerous cells, the inability of medicines to penetrate deep tumor tissue, and the ongoing problem of rising drug resistance in tumor cells. Due to these difficulties, there is now a larger need for designing alternative strategies that are more effective and selective when targeting tumor cells. The fight against cancer has advanced significantly owing to cancer immunotherapy. The researchers have greatly benefited from their understanding of tumor-invading immune cells as well as the immune responses that are specifically targeted against cancer. Application of bacterial and viral cancer therapeutics offers promising potential to be employed as cancer treatments among immunotherapies. As a novel therapeutic strategy, microbial targeting of tumors has been created to address the persisting hurdles of cancer treatment. This review outlines the mechanisms by which both bacteria and viruses target and inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells. Their ongoing clinical trials and possible modifications that can be made in the future have also been addressed in the following sections. These microbial-based cancer medicines have the ability to suppress cancer that builds up and multiplies in the tumor microenvironment and triggers antitumor immune responses, in contrast to other cancer medications.

CRISPR-Cas9 System: A Prospective Pathway toward Combatting Antibiotic Resistance.

Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels throughout the world. To cope with this problem, scientists are working on CRISPR-based research so that antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be killed and attacked almost as quickly as antibiotic-sensitive bacteria. Nuclease activity is found in Cas9, which can be programmed with a specific target sequence. This mechanism will only attack pathogens in the microbiota while preserving commensal bacteria. This article portrays the delivery methods used in the CRISPR-Cas system, which are both viral and non-viral, along with its implications and challenges, such as microbial dysbiosis, off-target effects, and failure to counteract intracellular infections. CRISPR-based systems have a lot of applications, such as correcting mutations, developing diagnostics for infectious diseases, improving crops productions, improving breeding techniques, etc. In the future, CRISPR-based systems will revolutionize the world by curing diseases, improving agriculture, and repairing genetic disorders. Though all the drawbacks of the technology, CRISPR carries great potential; thus, the modification and consideration of some aspects could result in a mind-blowing technique to attain all the applications listed and present a game-changing potential.

Sustainable processing of algal biomass for a comprehensive biorefinery.

Nearly 15 billion metric tons of fossil fuels are consumed each year all over the world resulting in the depletion of non-renewable energy resources day by day therefore in the coming years, the shortage and price hikes of these fuels are inevitable. On the other hand, the global energy demand is projected to rise by almost 28% by 2040 compared to current levels. Thus, there is a dire need for developing the alternatives to meet these energy needs. Biomass is seen as a significant alternative energy source to fossil fuels from this standpoint. The main bottle neck in utilizing the biomass for this purpose is the lack of an efficient conversion or pretreatment technology which prompted scientists to delve into novel stepwise biomass conversion technologies. This review article encompasses various methods for the processing the algal biomass to generate potential biobased products such as algal crude oil, biogas, and fuel alcohols. Among the various techniques of thermochemical conversion of algal biomass, hydrothermal liquefaction and gasification are the most sustainable ones. Furthermore, anaerobic digestion of lignocellulosic biomass is the commercially workable technique providing biogas and biohydrogen. Future generations may find algal biofuels to be low-cost and ecologically benign alternative to fossil fuels. This review is a connotative illustration of the conversion technologies for algal biomass, which includes both thermochemical and biochemical processes. It also highlights the salient features along with the limitations of each of these technologies and bearing in mind the expansion of a superstructure depiction to capture the various biomass feedstocks and employment techniques for the generated bioenergy through various biomass conversion technologies.