Category Biology/Biotechnology

Scientists have developed a way to turn the body’s own immune cells into cancer-fighting agents—without removing them from the body—by using red blood cells to deliver genetic instructions. Current CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) therapies typically involve collecting a patient’s T cells, genetically modifying them in the laboratory, and then reinfusing them in a process that can take weeks. The new strategy aims to bypass that step.

In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers at Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine in Hangzhou, China, report that they used engineered erythrocytes, or red blood cells, to carry messenger RNA—mRNA—that reprograms myeloid cells into tumor-targeting cells inside the body.

“Engi...

A new way of using umbilical cord blood for treating blood diseases could make the treatment more accessible to patients who need a stem cell transplant. A Phase II clinical trial of patients undergoing a cord blood transplant plus a stem cell product derived from pooled cord blood units showed that 27 of 28 patients (96%) with leukemias and GVHD survived at least one year and none of the patients experienced severe acute or chronic graft-versus-host disease, which are common complications of stem cell transplantation.

The results have been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“This is the first time transplant patients received cells from what amounts to nine different human beings,” said the study’s principal investigator, Filippo Milano, MD, Ph.D...

A protein long understood to drive inflammation by producing nitric oxide has a second, previously unknown role—it physically binds to another key protein inside cells to directly modulate the immune response. The discovery, published in Nature Metabolism, could open new routes to treating conditions such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, Crohn’s and other inflammatory diseases.

When the immune system detects infection or injury, it triggers inflammation to fight back. That response is essential, but it must be carefully controlled...

Restoring the gut microbiome to its youthful state may hold the key to slowing aging and preventing liver cancer, one of the fastest-growing cancers worldwide, according to a study to be presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW 2026).

Researchers collected fecal samples from eight young mice and transplanted them back into the same mice when they were older, a process called fecal microbiota transplantation, or FMT. The eight controls received sterilized fecal slurry, and a small group of similar young mice provided additional baseline data.

None of the mice with the restored microbiome developed liver cancer by the end of the study, while liver cancer was found in 2 out of 8 aging controls...