A waste‑derived material best known for improving soil health may hold the key to making wastewater treatment dramatically more energy‑efficient, according to a comprehensive new review published in the journal Biochar.

Masonic Medical Research Institute (MMRI) is pleased to announce that Tongbin Wu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical Research and Translational Medicine, has been awarded a four-year, $3.1 million R01 research grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the underlying causes of hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), one of the most severe and life-threatening congenital heart defects.

A nearly $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will allow University of Houston researchers to investigate how mutation rates evolve across species — work that could offer critical insights into cancer progression and antibiotic resistance.

Scripps Research assistant professor Tiantian Liu has received a five-year NIAID DP2 award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to advance basic understanding of immune processes that could aid the design of next-generation immunotherapies. Scripps Research received $552,000 in first-year funding and is expected to receive up to $2.76 million over five years.

In a study published on August 19 in Science Translational Medicine, Columbia Engineering professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her team report the development of a multi-organ chip that mimics how cancer cells spread from vascular flow to distant organs, the first model of cancer metastasis of its kind.

Infrequent exercise is associated with a higher prevalence of common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety among higher-education students in Norway, according to a study published August 19, 2026, in the open access journal PLOS One by Michael Grasdalsmoen from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and colleagues. The findings highlight the potential value of consistent physical activity rather than intense, prolonged exercise sessions.

Hannah Meyer, Saket Navlakha, and colleagues have shown that a process very similar to the “generalization” that occurs in machine-learning models helps the body’s immune system learn to identify self-peptides. Their findings demonstrate how AI could aid in studies of health and disease while pointing to improved immunotherapies with a lower risk of autoimmune complications.

A new analysis shows that, of 1,357 artificial intelligence (AI)-based medical devices authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in patient care, only three had been tested on whether they actually improve patients’ health. Rawan Abulibdeh of the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues present these findings in the open access journal PLOS Digital Health on August 19, 2026.