A new policy review published in The Lancet Oncology and led by Ian Tannock and Madeline Pe, together with an international team of oncologists, statisticians, patients and patient-reported outcomes (PRO) experts from Common Sense Oncology (CSO) and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), emphasises the critical role of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) data in the evaluation of treatments for people with advanced cancer. This publication highlights the importance of having standardised responder criteria when evaluating HRQoL in clinical trials to improve patient care and clinical decision-making.

Engineers at Duke University have developed a wireless patch that can non-invasively measure skin and tissue stiffness at depths of up to a couple of inches. Already smaller than a smartwatch, the device could be a gateway into a wide array of medical applications such as the monitoring of wound healing, chronic conditions like skin cancer, fluid management during resuscitation efforts and muscle rehabilitation.

Even as policymakers have made it much easier to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid addiction, most pharmacies still aren’t carrying the treatment.

Rice University biosciences professor Matthew Bennett has received a $1.99 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead research on engineered bacterial consortia that could form the basis of biological computing systems. The four-year project will also involve co-principal investigators Kirstin Matthews, Caroline Ajo-Franklin and Anastasios Kyrillidis from Rice along with Krešimir Josić from the University of Houston. The research team aims to develop platforms that integrate microbial sensing and communication with electronic networks, paving the way for computing systems constructed from living cells instead of traditional silicon-based hardware.

A synthetic cell that can be activated by a magnetic field to release a medicine whilst deep in the body has been created by chemists at UCL (University College London) and the University of Oxford.