A new targeted alpha therapy is showing promise for patients whose thyroid cancer no longer responds to radioactive iodine, the standard beta-emitting treatment. In a first-in-human study, investigators found that a single dose of the alpha-emitting radionuclide ²¹¹At (astatine) was both well-tolerated and effective, achieving disease control without molecularly targeted drugs. The findings were published in the December issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

A major academic medical center achieved the effect of adding 63 beds, giving more patients access to advanced care, by creating a data-driven command center for bed use and procedures to find ways to safely reduce length of stay and more.

Wastewater from washing machines is considered a major source of microplastics – tiny plastic particles that are suspected of harming human and animal health. Researchers at the University of Bonn now have developed a filter to curb this problem. Their filter was inspired by the gill arch system in fish. In initial tests, the now patent-pending filter was able to remove over 99 percent of plastic fibers from washing machine wastewater. The results now have been published in the journal npj Emerging Contaminants. 

Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) hydrogel undergoes significant but precise changes in size between 20 and 40 °C, making it an excellent candidate for use in variable-size deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) array devices. Researchers from Science Tokyo have built a tunable DLD cell-sorting platform and verified its ability to sort cancer cells of defined sizes from blood samples. This platform could offer high-resolution size-based cell sorting for a wide variety of biomedical applications

As we age, the muscles we rely on for daily activities tend to become less reliable. With enough decline, even normal movements such as getting out of bed become risky. Low muscle mass in the elderly—known as sarcopenia—is a major concern for maintaining the quality of life in an aging population.

A new study from scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys shows how a protein in the jelly-like substance between muscle cells promotes a thriving community of functional muscle stem cells needed for efficient muscle regeneration. The researchers also found that levels of this protein decrease with age, leading to a decline in muscle stem cells and muscle repair. Restoring appropriate amounts of this protein may be a therapeutic strategy for age-related muscle loss.

The SECURED project aims at generating libraries and machine learning tools to foster innovation in the fight against blood cancers while preserving the highest privacy standards for sensitive patient data. Dr Eduard Porta, head of the Cancer Immunogenomics team at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute is part of this Horizon Europe-funded collaboration that will bring the most sophisticated technologies into the real world.