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Archaeologists in Egypt unearth section of large Ramses II statue

CAIRO, March 4 (Reuters) — A joint Egyptian-U.S. archaeological mission has uncovered the upper part of a huge statue of King Ramses II during excavations south of the Egyptian city of Minya, Egypt’s tourism and antiquities ministry said on Monday.

The limestone block is about 3.8 metres (12.5 feet) high and depicts a seated Ramses wearing a double crown and a headdress topped with a royal cobra, Bassem Jihad, head of the mission’s Egyptian team, said in a statement.

The upper part of the statue’s back column shows hieroglyphic writings that glorify the king, one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs, he said.

‘Parrot fever’ outbreak in Europe has led to deaths of five people

A deadly outbreak of psittacosis, a bacterial infection also known as parrot fever, has affected people living in several European countries, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

The outbreak was initially noted in 2023 and has continued through the start of this year. The deaths of five people have been reported.

Parrot fever is caused by bacteria in the Chlamydia family that is found in a variety of wild and pet birds and poultry. Infected birds don’t always seem sick, but they shed the bacteria when they breathe or poop.

UChicago Medicine to offer TIL therapy for advanced melanoma

The University of Chicago Medicine is among the first 30 institutions in the country to offer tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy for advanced melanoma, immediately activating as an authorized treatment center after federal regulators approved the treatment on February 16, 2024.

TILs are…


Some patients with advanced melanomas — those that can’t be surgically removed or have spread to other parts of the body — don’t respond to standard treatment options such as immunotherapies and targeted therapies. TIL therapy gives these patients another therapeutic option: a completely personalized treatment made from the patient’s own cells that needs to be administered only once, since the cells remain in the body and keep performing their tumor-attacking duties.

Other cell therapies, such as CAR T-cell therapies, are currently approved only for blood cancers like leukemia. TIL therapy, which showed promising results in clinical trials, is the first FDA-approved cell therapy to treat solid tumors.

UChicago Medicine is helping lead continuing research into TILs even while offering the newly approved therapy to patients. Medical oncologists and scientists at the David and Etta Jonas Center for Cellular Therapy are currently studying TIL therapy for cervical cancer in a clinical trial, with plans to study TILs for even more tumor types in the future.