This innovation, called ALA-CART, helps the immune system better recognize and destroy resistant cancers. The new design not only improves treatment success but also promises fewer side effects.
A Powerful Upgrade to CAR-T Therapy
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have developed an enhanced version of CAR-T cell therapy designed to improve effectiveness and longevity, particularly against cancer cells that were previously difficult to detect and eliminate.
Sunburns and aging skin are obvious effects of exposure to harmful UV rays, tobacco smoke and other carcinogens. But the effects aren’t just skin deep. Inside the body, DNA is literally being torn apart.
Understanding how the body heals and protects itself from DNA damage is vital for treating genetic disorders and life-threatening diseases such as cancer. But despite numerous studies and medical advances, much about the molecular mechanisms of DNA repair remains a mystery.
For the past several years, researchers at Georgia State University have tapped into the Summit supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to study an elaborate molecular pathway called nucleotide excision repair (NER). NER relies on an array of highly dynamic protein complexes to cut out (excise) damaged DNA with surgical precision.
Over the past two years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued Travel Health Advisories focused on measles outbreaks.
These advisories highlight where there is an active health risk when people visit the highlighted countries.
On February 21, 2025, the CDC reissued a Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions, alert for 57 countries. This CDC list does not integrate the Region of the Americas, with numerous countries reporting 537 measles outbreaks this year.
A new analysis reveals complex linkages among the United Nations’ (UN’s) 17 Sustainable Development Goals—which include such objectives as gender equality and quality education—and finds that no country is on track to meet all 17 goals by the target year of 2030.
Alberto García-Rodríguez of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One.
In 2015, UN member countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals with the aim of achieving “peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” However, setbacks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and armed conflict have slowed progress, and more research is needed to clarify the underlying obstacles so they can be effectively addressed.
For the first time, it has been confirmed that individual neurons represent the concepts we learn, regardless of the context in which they are encountered, challenging previous beliefs.
A study led by Dr. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, head of the Neural Mechanisms of Perception and Memory Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, has provided the first direct evidence of how neurons in the human brain store memories independently of the context in which they are acquired.
Published in Cell Reports.
Sustaining growth in storage and computational needs is increasingly challenging. For over a decade, exponentially more information has been produced year after year while data storage solutions are pressed to keep up. Soon, current solutions will be unable to match new information in need of storage. Computing is on a similar trajectory, with new needs emerging in search and other domains that require more efficient systems. Innovative methods are necessary to ensure the ability to address future demands, and DNA provides an opportunity at the molecular level for ultra-dense, durable, and sustainable solutions in these areas.
In this webinar, join Microsoft researcher Karin Strauss in exploring the role of biotechnology and synthetic DNA in reaching this goal. Although we have yet to achieve scalable, general-purpose molecular computation, there are areas of IT in which a molecular approach shows growing promise. These areas include storage as well as computation.
Learn how molecules, specifically synthetic DNA, can store digital data and perform certain types of special-purpose computation, like large-scale similarity search, by leveraging tools already developed by the biotechnology industry. Starting with some background on DNA and its storage potential, you’ll explore the advantages of using DNA for this application. Then, you’ll get a closer look at an end-to-end system, including encoding, synthesizing, reading, and decoding DNA. We’ll also look at an affordable full-stack digital microfluidics platform for wet lab preparations and conclude with a discussion of future hybrid systems.
Together, you’ll explore:
■ The intersection between technology and science of DNA data storage and computation.
■ The many advantages for using DNA to store data compared with other methods.
■ A detailed walkthrough of an end-to-end DNA storage system and its stages.
■ How DNA can be used for image similarity search.
A study conducted by researchers from the University of São Paulo sheds light on new discoveries about the mechanisms of oxidative phosphorylation in ATP production. Recent findings highlight the involvement of sodium in mitochondrial respiration.
In an article published in Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Alicia Kowaltowski, a full professor at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Chemistry (IQ-USP) in Brazil, calls for a “rewriting” of textbooks regarding the location of the electron transport chain in mitochondria and the role of sodium in mitochondrial respiration.
Kowaltowski is also a member of the Research Center for Redox Processes in Biomedicine (Redoxoma), a Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Center (RIDC) funded by FAPESP and based at IQ-USP.
Four minutes. Imagine what you can accomplish in four minutes. Make coffee? Read half an article? Send a few text messages?
For most of us, four minutes pass in a heartbeat. Yet during those same four minutes, a quantum computer recently performed calculations that would have kept a conventional supercomputer busy for 2.6 billion years.
Scientists achieved something magical—compressing billions of years of computation into minutes. Such power shifts our understanding of what’s possible. Quantum computing won’t just change how we process information; it will transform medicine, climate science, materials design, and countless other fields we rely on daily.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
First appeared on The Cool Down.
A component found in all fungi may provide a shield that prevents flu-related lung damage, according to a new Canadian study.
The preclinical trial uncovered how beta-glucan—which is found in all mushrooms, and also yeast, oats, and barley—can ‘reprogram’ immune cells to prevent lung inflammation.
A team of scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, demonstrated that administering the compound to mice before their exposure to influenza, reduced lung damage, improve lung function and lowered the risk of illness and death.