A handheld sensor and innovative technique developed by Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists could one day offer a noninvasive alternative to food diaries and blood tests when monitoring diet and health.

Using a light-based device, researchers demonstrated that diet, biological age, sex and select nutrient deficiencies could be detected through the skin of live animal models with up to 90% accuracy. The findings, published in Analytical Chemistry, signal a breakthrough in noninvasive health monitoring, including the potential for wearable sensors to provide real-time nutritional and metabolic information.

Within-host evolution is often associated with the emergence of novel antimicrobial-resistant bacteria. Intra-host diversity of monoclonal Klebsiella pneumoniae during infections and colonization was revealed. However, the intra-host population structures and their evolution are less well characterized. Professor Qu’s group collected nine K. pneumoniae isolates from a patient enduring a challenging-to-treat K. pneumoniae persistent infection. Genomic analysis revealed that this case was infected by ST (sequence type) 101 and the hypervirulent and initially carbapenem-resistant ST11, both of which persisted for two months. Notably, ST11 underwent rapid evolution and diverged into two subpopulations, as verified by antibiotic susceptibility, growth, and pathogenic testing. The transition of these two subpopulations explained the clinical susceptibility changes. This study underscores the importance of viewing bacterial infections as populations, and highlights the necessity for therapeutic strategies, such as combination antibiotics, which may induce a catastrophic response toward cure.

While many scholars research only one region of the reactor, nuclear and plasma physicist Livia Casali studies both, and her unique approach and the development of new computational tools has delivered a milestone that will help make fusion energy a reality.