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Research in immunotherapy identifies mechanism that helps fight lung cancer and melanoma.

In a breakthrough discovery, scientists from Harvard Medical School along with a team at Bar-Ilan University have uncovered a mechanism in which the immune system is capable of attacking cancer cells. This contributes greatly to research in immunotherapy, particularly in fighting lung cancer and melanoma (skin cancer). The research team was composed of Prof. Nick Hainin of Harvard Medical School and Prof. Erez Levanon of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, along with doctoral student, Ilana Buchumansky and many others.

The study was published two weeks ago in the journal Nature, detailing how scientists have uncovered a mechanism that assists the cell by leaving markers on human virus-like genes thereby preventing them from being recognized as viruses. When this channel is inhibited, the immune system can be utilized to destroy cancerous cells, particularly in the cases of lung cancer and melanoma. The immune system reacts when this path is blocked or shut off, and allows the body to destroy cancer cells at a more effective rate.

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Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceflight system will fly again on Monday (Jan. 21), if all goes according to plan.

Blue Origin, which is led by billionaire Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, had originally aimed to launch the 10th uncrewed New Shepard test flight in mid-December but was thwarted by an issue with the infrastructure at the company’s West Texas test site. That problem has now been resolved.

New Shepard will now launch Monday at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT/9 a.m. CST), Blue Origin representatives said in a statement.

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Salk researchers have mapped the genomes and epigenomes of genetically modified plant lines with the highest resolution ever to reveal exactly what happens at a molecular level when a piece of foreign DNA is inserted. Their findings, published in the journal PLOS Genetics on January 15, 2019, elucidate the routine methods used to modify plants, and offer new ways to more effectively minimize potential off-target effects.

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Blockchain ‘as disruptive as the Web’?

Blockchain is featured as a disrupting technology in the Tech Trends 2019 report published by Big Four audit and consulting firm Deloitte on Jan. 16.

According to one article in the report, “[a]dvanced networking is the unsung hero of our digital future,” and blockchain is cited as a part of it. The report — which mentions blockchain 25 times — notes that blockchain is among the technologies the importance of which is growing rapidly and still on its path towards mass adoption.

The report also cites a International Data Corporation’s (IDC) projection from last year that states worldwide spending on blockchain solutions will reach $9.7 billion in 2021. Another IDC’s prediction sees the spending hitting $11.7 billion in 2022.

Continue reading “Blockchain Featured in Big Four Firm Deloitte’s Annual Tech Trends Report” | >

Using a modular construction kit of tailor-made cell systems, the researchers hope to simulate various properties of biological systems in the future. The idea is that cells react to their environment and learn to act independently.

The first applications are already on the horizon: In the long term, artificial cell assemblies can be deployed as mini-factories to produce specific biomolecules, or as tiny micro-robot sensors that process information and adapt to their environments.

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It’s now possible to image an entire fly brain in just a few days, according to a new study—this might sound like a long time, but is in fact an incredible accomplishment, when you consider that the process would otherwise take weeks.

Brains aren’t easy to study—the human brain, for example, contains over 80 billion cells linked via 7,000 connections each, according to the new study published in Science. Even the far smaller fly brains are an incredible challenge to study comprehensively. The new research combines two microscopy methods to image and examine brains like never before.

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CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?

CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.

Experts point out

Continue reading “Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines” | >