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A study in mice and human tissue shows that the antioxidant glutathione feeds cancer cells
Glutathione is considered an antioxidant due to its ability to repair cellular damage. The body produces it naturally, but it is also sold as an antioxidant supplement. A study in mice and human tissue, published in Nature, shows that cancer cells can break it down and use it as fuel—particularly the cysteine it contains—promoting tumour growth and survival. “Depriving tumours of extracellular glutathione or inhibiting its breakdown is potentially a viable therapeutic strategy for cancer patients,” the authors state.
Yeast βglucan supplementation supports immunometabolic antitumor responses and reverses obesityinduced dysfunction via trained hematopoiesis
Obesity is associated with profound immune dysregulation, driving chronic inflammation while compromising host defense against tumors. While trained immunity can enhance innate effector functions, it has thus far required parenteral administration of microbial ligands. Here, we show that incorporating a yeast-derived β-glucan supplement in mouse diets induces trained immunity via reprogramming of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. This dietary intervention leads to sustained production of metabolically enhanced monocytes and macrophages that rescue anti-tumor immunity in high-fat diet-induced obese mice, and corrects immune dysfunction sustained after weight loss. Our work reveals that yeast β-glucans act as functional “immuno-nutrients,” which remodel innate immunity and identifies the mucosal/bone-marrow axis as a target for dietary manipulations to restore immune resilience without impacting metabolism.
Keywords: CP: immunology; beta-glucan; dietary supplementation; hematopoiesis; immunometabolism; innate immunity; macrophage; monocyte; obesity; trained immunity; tumor immunity.
Copyright © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Newly discovered microprotein linked to type 2 diabetes, shows promise as a precision treatment
A previously unknown microprotein hidden within the human mitochondrial genome may help explain certain forms of type 2 diabetes and could point toward a new precision medicine approach to treating it, according to a new USC study.
Obesity and type 2 diabetes are among the fastest-growing threats to human health, yet their genetic underpinnings remain only partly understood. While most disease-gene research focuses on the larger set of DNA found in the nucleus within cells, the much smaller genome found in mitochondria—cells’ energy factories—is now known to encode a family of microproteins with wide-ranging biological effects.
The new study adds a striking example to that list, said Pinchas Cohen, the study’s senior author, USC Distinguished Professor and dean of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. The findings were published in the journal Theranostics.
Obstructive sleep apnea in people with epilepsy: Modifying risk
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common but underdiagnosed and undertreated sleep disorder among people with epilepsy (PWE). In PWE, this sleep disorder is often managed as a comorbid condition rather than a contributor to epilepsy outcomes. For many years, OSA has been associated with higher seizure burden and interictal epileptiform discharges. Emerging evidence links OSA to late onset epilepsy (LOE) and increased risk markers for sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). This evidence also suggests that treating OSA with continuous positive airway pressure may improve seizure control. This critical review of the literature posits that OSA should be viewed as a modifiable risk factor for PWE. We apply the Bradford Hill criteria for causation as a framework to appraise the evidence connecting OSA with seizure severity, incident LOE, and SUDEP risk.
Oil droplets remodel themselves, swallow their surroundings like living cells
NYU researchers have made microscopic oil droplets in water do something usually reserved for living cells: change shape in complex, controllable ways and even engulf their surroundings.
The findings, published in Nature Communications, show that some of life’s signature behaviors—like morphing into complex shapes and capturing material—can emerge from physics and chemistry alone, without genes, proteins or active cellular machinery.
One of life’s defining features is morphogenesis—the ability of cells and tissues to reshape themselves, form compartments and engulf material from their surroundings. These remarkable transformations normally rely on a sophisticated molecular toolkit.
Human study links reduced inflammation to later myopia onset
University of Oklahoma College of Medicine researcher Jody Summers, Ph.D., has long hypothesized that inflammation plays a role in the development of myopia, or nearsightedness, in which close-up vision is clear but distance vision is blurry. Her laboratory experiments have been convincing, and now she has preliminary human data to support the theory.
Summers, a professor of cell biology, and R. Michael Siatkowski, M.D., MBA, professor and chair of the Dean McGee Department of Ophthalmology at the OU College of Medicine, reviewed the medical records of nearly 200 patients age 22 or younger who received eye exams at OU Health Dean McGee Eye Institute. About half were healthy, while the rest had juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and were being treated with anti-inflammatory drugs. They were having exams because JIA, an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation, can affect the eyes.
The research was presented at the 2026 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 3–7, 2026.
A digitally controlled silicon quantum processing unit
A silicon quantum processing unit executes high-fidelity multiqubit circuits, with all time-varying control signals generated by a digitally programmed cryogenic complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor controller and delivered to the low-noise, exchange-only qubit device through a high-density superconducting ribbon cable.