When SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, began spreading worldwide in 2020, many research teams immediately set to work developing a vaccine against it. Building on decades of previous work on mRNA technology and on other viral vaccines, including HIV, they achieved their goal within the year. The most widely used mRNA vaccine design contains the genetic instructions for the body to make the spike protein that the virus uses to enter cells. The resulting immune response protects against infection and, more importantly, disease and death. However, developing a vaccine for HIV has proven much more difficult.

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS, President Lee Ho Seong) has successfully localized core Radar Stealth technologies through indigenous development, without reliance on foreign technologies. This achievement is a significant milestone, laying the foundation for the establishment of stealth weapon systems in Korea, which have long been difficult to import due to their classification as national strategic military assets.

Despite improvements in medical and surgical management strategies, brain abscess continues to cause disability and mortality in affected individuals. The long-term predictors of survival in individuals with brain abscess are not well understood. Researchers have now addressed this knowledge gap using a retrospective cohort study based on patients from Thailand. They have identified key predictors of long-term survival in patients and created a dynamic nomogram that can aid individualized prognostication for each patient.

Creating stable isolated spins is crucial for quantum-spin applications, like quantum bits or qubits, sensors, and single-atom catalysts. Currently, most approaches include engineering isolated spins on noble metal surfaces, whose abundant conduction electrons can also disturb their spin state. In a new study, researchers successfully demonstrated for the first time isolated spins on an insulating magnesium oxide film, laid over a ferromagnetic iron substrate, suggesting a new pathway towards realizing qubits using conventional thin-film techniques.