Science and Health News

By introducing a particular strain of bacteria into the digestive tracts of mice with melanoma, researchers at the University of Chicago were able to boost the ability of the animal's immune systems to attack tumor cells. The gains were comparable to treatment with anti-cancer drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti-PD-L1 antibodies.

A graphene-based quantum-point-contact transistor with a nanopore enables the sensing of double- and single-stranded DNA.

We’ve all seen pic­tures of pre­ma­ture babies in neonatal care units: tiny beings, some weighing just a bit over a pound, with plastic tubes snaking through their nose or mouth, or dis­ap­pearing into veins or other parts of the body. Those tubes, or “catheters,” are how the babies get the nec­es­sary oxygen, nutri­ents, fluid, and med­ica­tions to stay alive. In the United States alone, nearly 500,000 pre­ma­ture babies are born each year.

Academics at Loughborough University hope to boost early detection rates of cancer in developing countries with their portable lab-in-a-briefcase that can operate even at high temperatures.

A single blood test could reveal whether an otherwise healthy person is unusually likely to die of pneumonia or sepsis within the next 14 years.

Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer now have access to the new FDA approved drug, Onivyde, that produced significant overall survival rates in an international clinical study conducted in part by researchers at HonorHealth Research Institute and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

Mice lacking certain immune cells become overweight, even on a normal diet We tend to think of the immune system as guarding us against bacteria, viruses and assorted foreign invaders, but this system has some other surprising roles. Weizmann Institute researchers have now identified a small subtype of immune cells that appears to prevent metabolic syndrome: obesity, high blood pressure, and high levels of blood sugar and cholesterol.

A banana a day may not keep the doctor away, but a substance originally found in bananas and carefully edited by scientists could someday fight off a wide range of viruses, new research suggests. And the process used to create the virus-fighting form may help scientists develop even more drugs, by harnessing the "sugar code" that our cells use to communicate. That code gets hijacked by viruses and other invaders.