KYOTO, Japan, August 17, 2026 - Senescent cells - cells that have stopped dividing but remain metabolically active - can accumulate with age and contribute to chronic inflammation and tissue dysfunction. A new Mini Review in Geromedicine examines a protein interaction that may help some of these cells survive, highlighting a possible route toward more selective strategies for clearing them.

A therapeutic approach pioneered in Mainz for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) is taking an important step toward clinical application. The team led by Professor Claire Jacob at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is further developing a drug patch that could promote the repair of damaged myelin sheaths. ForTra gGmbH for Research Transfer (ForTra), a subsidiary of the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation, is supporting the project with EUR 1.1 million. The aim is to further develop the patch for production according to pharmaceutical quality standards and subsequently assess its safety and tolerability in an initial clinical trial.

Twin studies place the heritability of schizophrenia near eighty percent, but concordance between monozygotic twins falls well short of fifty percent. What occupies the remaining distance is unresolved. Consuelo Walss-Bass, who directs the Psychiatric Genetics Program and the brain collection at UTHealth Houston, approaches the problem through transcriptomic and epigenetic profiling of donated brain tissue and through induced pluripotent stem cell models derived from families with multiple affected siblings. She also grew up with the question: her mother had schizophrenia, and of five children raised afterward in Torreón, Mexico, one received the same diagnosis. Why My Sister? sets the two accounts alongside each other.

A research group in Japan led by Professor YAMAMOTO Takashi, Deputy Director, Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology / Graduate School of Engineering Science, the University of Osaka, in collaboration with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., has successfully demonstrated a world-record 10-channel multiplexed quantum photonic interface based on an integrated waveguide array, a key technology for optically interconnecting multiple quantum computers.

Conformational changes in proteins are vital to their function yet remain challenging for state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, such as AlphaFold3, to predict. Researchers at the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS), and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI introduced a repulsive force between predicted structures, allowing AlphaFold3 to sample the multiple conformational states that its default settings rarely capture.

Plastic is accidentally on the menu for southern giant petrel chicks. Even small nibbles of it may affect these seabirds' growth, according to a study from the UC Davis and Argentina's CONICET.

New research by SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Margarita Orlova is providing new insight into how bumble bee queens communicate through chemical signals and how those signals change throughout their lives.