New Breakthrough to Help Immune Systems in the Fight against Cancer

Cancer cell

New research has identified potential treatment that could improve the human immune system’s ability to search out and destroy cancer cells within the body. Scientists have identified a way to restrict the activity of a group of cells which regulate the immune system, which in turn can unleash other immune cells to attack tumours in cancer patients.

“A patient’s immune system is more than able to detect and remove cancer cells and immunotherapy has recently emerged as a novel therapy for many different types of cancers.” Explained Nullin Divecha, Professor of Cell Signalling at the University of Southampton who led the study...

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Under Pressure, ‘Squishy’ Compound reacts in remarkable ways

As a compound of manganese sulfide is compressed in a diamond anvil cell, it undergoes dramatic transitions. In this illustration, the interaction between the manganese (Mn) atomic ions (purple circles) and disulfur (S2) molecular ions (figure 8s) increases from left to right until the overlap is significant enough to make the system metallic. (Illustration courtesy of Dean Smith, Argonne National Lab)

Remarkable things happen when a “squishy” compound of manganese and sulfide (MnS2) is compressed in a diamond anvil, say researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).

“This is a new type of charge transfer mechanism, and so from a science community point of view this is very, very exciting...

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Supernova’s ‘Fizzled’ Gamma-ray Burst

On Aug. 26, 2020, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a pulse of high-energy radiation that had been racing toward Earth for nearly half the present age of the universe. Lasting only about a second, it turned out to be one for the record books — the shortest gamma-ray burst (GRB) caused by the death of a massive star ever seen.

GRBs are the most powerful events in the universe, detectable across billions of light-years. Astronomers classify them as long or short based on whether the event lasts for more or less than two seconds. They observe long bursts in association with the demise of massive stars, while short bursts have been linked to a different scenario.

“We already knew some GRBs from massive stars could register as short GRBs, but we thought this was due to ...

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New Organ-on-a-Chip finds crucial interaction between Blood, Ovarian Cancer Tumors

Abhishek Jain and his team at Texas A&M are collaborating with researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University to develop and test their new microdevice, the ovarian tumor microenvironment-chip.
Texas A&M Engineering

In the evolving field of cancer biology and treatment, innovations in organ-on-a-chip microdevices allow researchers to discover more about the disease outside the human body. These organs-on-chips serve as a model of the state an actual cancer patient is in, thus allowing an opportunity to finding the correct treatment before administering it to the patient. At Texas A&M University, researchers are pushing these devices to new levels that could change the way clinicians approach cancer treatment, particularly ovarian cancer.

The team has recently submitted ...

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