New smart surfaces, known as metasurfaces, can shape and utilize light to activate cells in the body, offering a gentle and wireless approach to treating health conditions. By manipulating light for medicine and biomedical devices, they enable treatments for vision, hearing, heart, and neurological disorders. Combined with virtual reality and advanced controls, these tools could help doctors design non-invasive and personalized treatments for a wide range of medical needs.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), together with international collaborators, examined whether methylene blue could mitigate brain injury during severe malaria, and whether a practical set of blood biomarkers could help clinicians identify cerebral malaria early and track how patients respond to treatment.