A common probiotic bacterium, Bifidobacterium animalis, secretes mannose—a simple sugar—that significantly suppresses melanoma growth in mice by activating the body's own immune defenses. 

Researchers at Umeå University show that the protein METTL3 helps breast cancer cells spread. By regulating the release of molecules, METTL3 makes it easier for tumors to invade surrounding tissue and form metastases. The discovery reveals a previously unknown function of METTL3 and could influence future cancer treatments. The study has been published in Science Advances.

Scientists have developed a hierarchical Transformer-based artificial intelligence model that predicts RNA splice sites across DNA sequences up to 100,000 base pairs long while preserving single-nucleotide resolution. The system captures long-range regulatory interactions that conventional approaches often miss and visualizes the sequence regions influencing its predictions. The approach achieved state-of-the-art performance on multiple benchmark datasets and may support future studies in genetic diseases, cancer, precision medicine, genomic medicine, and therapeutic development.

Although lung cancer is often linked to environmental exposures and acquired mutations, some patients develop multiple independent tumors, suggesting a potential role for inherited genetic susceptibility. While the contribution of germline pathogenic variants (GPVs) in several tumors is studied, their significance in lung cancer remains unknown. Now, researchers have explored the genetic basis of multiple primary lung cancers, offering  insights into novel BRCA2 GPVs which could serve as targets for therapeutic strategies.

Research co-led by IR Sant Pau provides the first detailed map of the lung microenvironment infiltrated by acute myeloid leukemia and shows that inflammation plays a central role in respiratory damage. The study identifies galectin-9 and the IL-33/IL1RL1 axis as mediators of the interaction between leukemia cells and lung tissue and demonstrates in preclinical animal models that blocking these pathways reduces infiltration.The findings, published in Nature Immunology, also show that prednisone treatment rapidly improved oxygenation in a small series of patients with respiratory failure attributed to leukemic infiltration and no evidence of infection.

Researchers have engineered a multifunctional gallium-doped bioactive glass that selectively kills osteosarcoma cells and prevents bacterial infections while promoting bone regeneration. By localized delivery of gallium ions, this innovative biomaterial disrupts iron metabolism in cancer cells, triggering programmed cell death without harming healthy bone tissue. It simultaneously provides a robust defense against hospital-acquired pathogens like Pseudomonas aeruginosa.