Current diabetes drugs often rely on GLP-1 receptor agonists, mimicking the hormone’s effect to stimulate insulin. The discovery by Duke University School of Medicine that pancreatic alpha cells produce bioactive GLP-1 suggests that harnessing or boosting this local hormone production might be a powerful and more natural approach to improving blood sugar control.

University of Texas at Dallas researchers have developed a micro imaging device that could be used with an endoscope to spot cancers at an earlier stage.

The technology uses LED lighting and hyperspectral imaging to capture near-infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths in addition to the visible light that a conventional camera registers. The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science researchers published a study describing their compact prototype in the May/June issue of the Journal of Medical Imaging.