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Category: biotech/medical – Page 278

Offering a high-resolution spatial atlas of pediatric arthritis

Jun Inamo & team profiles nearly 400,000 cells across 9 patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), revealing disease-specific immune–stromal interactions within the synovium.

1Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Health Artificial Intelligence, and.

2Division of Rheumatology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA.

3Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan.

Arterial Stenosis From Sarcoidosis-Associated Adenopathy and Fibrosing Mediastinitis Leading to Pulmonary Infarction

Sarcoidosis is a systemic, granulomatous disorder commonly affecting the lungs that has the potential to cause numerous thoracic complications. We present a novel case of a 44-year-old woman with pulmonary sarcoidosis who demonstrated a large pulmonary infarction. The disease presentation ultimately was attributed to arterial stenosis resulting from sarcoidosis-associated fibrosing mediastinitis and compressive mediastinal adenopathy. The patient was treated with an extended course of prednisone and subsequently was transitioned to azathioprine with eventual resolution of symptoms, but persistence of imaging findings.

Q&A: What do scientists need to learn next about blocking enzymes to treat disease?

Enzymes are the molecular machines that power life; they build and break down molecules, copy DNA, digest food, and drive virtually every chemical reaction in our cells. For decades, scientists have designed drugs to slow down or block enzymes, stopping infections or the growth of cancer by jamming these tiny machines. But what if tackling some diseases requires the opposite approach?

Speeding enzymes up, it turns out, is much harder than stopping them. Tarun Kapoor is the Pels Family Professor in Rockefeller’s Selma and Lawrence Ruben Laboratory of Chemistry and Cell Biology. Recently, he has shifted the focus of this lab to tackle the tricky question of how to make enzymes work faster.

Already, his lab has developed a chemical compound to speed up an enzyme that works too slowly in people with a rare form of neurodegeneration. The same approach could open new treatment possibilities for many other diseases where other enzymes have lost function, including some cancers and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

CES Reality Check: Are Humanoid Robots Getting Better or Just Flashier?

Here is the key idea of the video in a single sentence: Humanoid robots are rapidly advancing in design, capabilities, and functionality, but despite their impressive developments, they still face significant challenges and limitations that hinder their practical application and widespread adoption.

## Questions to inspire discussion.

Manis Glove Technology.

🖐️ Q: How does the Manis glove achieve accurate hand tracking? A: The glove tracks 25 degrees of freedom using inverse kinematics based on 6DOF per fingertip (position and orientation), enabling accurate motion capture even when fingertips are obscured.

🔌 Q: What hardware enables the Manis glove’s position tracking? A: The system uses transmitters at the base and receivers in fingertips to determine precise fingertip position relative to the transmitter, with simple calibration allowing different hand sizes as long as sensors stay in place.

📳 Q: How does the Manis glove provide haptic feedback? A: Haptic feedback at the PIP joints vibrates upon contact, enabling virtual world interaction and realistic surface contact simulation for teleoperation and clinical evaluations.

Continue reading “CES Reality Check: Are Humanoid Robots Getting Better or Just Flashier?” | >

Abstract: This study has broad implications across multiple neurological conditions

Jian Hu & team use mouse models to show peroxisomes license myelin debris degradation in myeloid cells, which enables debris clearance and remyelination after myelin damage:

The figure shows TEM micrographs of phagocytes in which PEX5 loss (bottom panel) aggregates lipid droplets and crystal accumulation.

1Department of Cancer Biology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

2University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, Texas, USA.

3University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

T cells gain superior memory through new reprogramming method, boosting cancer-fighting abilities

Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have identified a new way to reprogram T cells, which are infection and tumor-fighting white blood cells, so that they have a superior memory, thereby making them more effective in killing cancer cells.

The finding, published January 12, 2026, in Nature Immunology, amplifies a known strategy of blocking the cellular activity of PARP, an enzyme that detects DNA abnormalities in cells and repairs them.

“This opens the door to a new area of research in understanding how our immune system works, and as importantly, it opens the way for the development of new strategies for the treatment of cancer,” says Samir N. Khleif, MD, director of The Center for Advanced Immunotherapy Research and the director of Loop Immuno-Oncology Research Laboratory at Georgetown’s Lombardi.

Astonishing new study suggests Alzheimers can be fully reversed

The devastating illness deteriorates your brain’s ability to think, remember things and can even alter your behaviour.

While some studies have discovered that engaging in a pretty gross habit or reaching a daily step count can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), for over a century, scientists have considered it an irreversible illness. This is why research has focused on preventing or slowing its progression, rather than recovery.

However, a new study challenges this long-held belief by testing whether brains already severely afflicted with advanced AD could recover.

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