A single IV treatment retrains immune cells to fight autoimmune diseases in early trial

Scientists use single injection to retrain immune cells to fight auto-immune diseases from within
In 16 patients with hard-to-treat neurological autoimmune disorders, a single infusion of JY231 generated CAR T cells inside the body. Credit: Pexels.

CAR T-cell therapy is an immune-reprogramming procedure that turns a patient’s own immune cells into cancer-fighting specialists. The entire process is complex, but researchers have now found a faster way to achieve similar effects using a single intravenous (IV) drip of a harmless engineered virus.

In the standard process, clinicians extract T cells from the patient’s blood, then re-engineer them in the lab, arming each one with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)—engineered proteins designed to recognize specific markers on cancer cells...

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Long AI conversations reveal misinformation vulnerabilities across seven leading chatbots

chatbots
Credit: Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels

The results are in: Which AI model is the most fallible? Persuadable? Correctible? University of Arizona researchers assessed seven different generative AI large language models, or LLMs, for these three qualities during lengthy conversations. Their work, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, reveals intrinsic limitations that might go undetected during one-off interactions.

Among the seven LLMs tested—ChatGPT (GPT-3.5, GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini), Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 1.5 Pro, Llama-3-70B and DeepSeek-R1—they found that:

ChatGPT 3.5 was most vulnerable to reaffirming misinformation during a conversation containing repeated false statements; Claude 3.5 Sonnet was the least.
All seven were more susceptible to misinformation on obscure top...

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The DESI legacy imaging survey releases the largest 2D map of the universe

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has released the largest 2D map of the Universe. Credit: NSF NOIRLab

In 2012, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) was commissioned to measure the effect of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the expansion of the cosmos. Since then, the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys have obtained optical images of tens of millions of galaxies and quasars, including through NOIRLab’s Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO). In recent news, the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team made its 11th data release (DR 11), constituting the largest-ever 2D map of the universe.

The 5.6-trillion-pixel map contains nearly 4 billion celestial objects, including stars, galaxies, black holes and asteroids...

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Study identifies key driver of inflammation, opening door to potential new treatments

Lung inflammation
Credit: Anna Shvets from Pexels

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have uncovered a critical biological mechanism that helps explain how inflammation is triggered and sustained in a wide range of diseases—highlighting a promising avenue for future therapeutic development.

The study, published in PLOS One, identified human resistin as a central driver of immune system activation. Researchers found that this protein plays a key role in turning on a powerful inflammatory pathway known as the NLRP3 inflammasome, which has been linked to numerous health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and autoimmune disorders.

“Chronic inflammation plays a role in everything from heart disease to autoimmune disorders, yet the underlying triggers have remained unclear,” said...

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