Living human cells will launch aboard a European research rocket next month as South Australian researchers use space to investigate cancer in a radically different environment.

When bacteria invade the urinary tract, the body has its own arsenal for fighting back. Among those weapons is an unlikely tool: copper.

Researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) are investigating how the body uses the essential trace mineral to fight urinary tract infections (UTIs), how bacteria manage to survive that attack and whether those discoveries could eventually lead to new ways of treating infections that are increasingly difficult to control with antibiotics.

The Clinical Athlete Framework applies performance science principles to the physical and cognitive demands of clinical practice, helping future nurses develop the strength, endurance and resilience needed to succeed in one of healthcare’s most demanding professions.

Seven years ago, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators announced they had found the X cell, a novel immune cell that plays a key role in the development of Type 1 diabetes. Today the team is taking its research further, leveraging years of federally supported discovery to explore how the X cell can be turned into an immune therapy that might one day reverse the progression of Type 1 diabetes shortly after diagnosis. Their latest findings, published by the Journal of Immunology in April, show that an antibody developed based on the X cell was able to target and eliminate immune cells involved in the autoimmune response. The work, while still in preclinical models, represents longstanding research partially supported by the National Institutes of Health.