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A study of more than 21,000 average risk patients at 186 sites across the U.S., led by Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine research scientist Thomas Imperiale, M.D., has found that the next-generation multi-target stool DNA colorectal cancer screening test detects 94% of colorectal cancers. This test has the best performance for detection of both colorectal cancer and advanced precancerous polyps of any noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test.

The study results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“We found that the next-generation stool DNA test had a good balance of sensitivity—detecting disease—and specificity—low false positive results. Compared to the fecal immunochemical test (FIT), the next gen test had superior sensitivity for both colorectal cancer and advanced pre-cancerous polys, especially the subgroup of advanced polyps containing high grade dysplasia,” said Dr. Imperiale, first author of the study.

Anthropic releases Claude 3 Haiku Claude 3 Haiku is three times faster than its peers for the vast majority of workloads, processing 21K tokens (~30 pages) per second for prompts under 32K tokens.

Anthropic releases Claude 3 Haiku.

Claude 3 Haiku is three times faster than its peers for the vast majority of workloads, processing 21K tokens (~30 pages) per second for prompts under 32K tokens.


Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

A blood test for colon cancer performed well in a study published Wednesday, offering a new kind of screening for a leading cause of cancer deaths.

The test looks for DNA fragments shed by tumor cells and precancerous growths. It’s already for sale in the U.S. for $895, but has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and most insurers do not cover it. The maker of the test, Guardant Health, anticipates an FDA decision this year.

In the study, the test caught 83% of the cancers but very few of the precancerous growths found by colonoscopy, the gold standard for colon cancer screening. Besides spotting tumors, colonoscopies can prevent the disease by removing precancerous growths called polyps.

A newly developed “GPS nanoparticle” injected intravenously can home in on cancer cells to deliver a genetic punch to the protein implicated in tumor growth and spread, according to researchers from Penn State. They tested their approach in human cell lines and in mice to effectively knock down a cancer-causing gene, reporting that the technique may potentially offer a more precise and effective treatment for notoriously hard-to-treat basal-like breast cancers.

An international team of researchers has succeeded in “filming” the activation of an important receptor. They froze the involved molecules at different points in time and photographed them under the electron microscope. They were then able to place these still images in sequence. This sequence shows step by step which spatial changes the receptor undergoes when it is activated.