A new approach can program these cells inside the body and shows promise against diseases caused by dysfunctional T cells, including lymphoma and autoimmune hepatitis.

MIT engineers have developed a new way to program natural killer (NK) immune cells to target cancerous T cells or T cells that have become autoreactive, leading to diseases such as lymphoma and autoimmune hepatitis. Using their new technique, the researchers can reprogram NK cells to target diseased T cells without ever removing the NK cells from the patient’s body. Instead, they use lipid nanoparticles to deliver messenger RNA directly to NK cells. These mRNA molecules encode proteins that allow the NK cells to seek and destroy the dysfunctional T cells. Known as CAR NK cells, these cells could be deployed against a variety of diseases. The MIT team’s new approach could bypass one of the major obstacles to using these cells, which is the time and expense of manufacturing them outside the body.

“The manufacturing challenges with CAR NK cells are significant. The idea here is you can deliver a nanoparticle that will modify your own NK cells with a CAR construct and teach them to attack tumor cells,” says Daniel Anderson, PhD, a professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

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“Fungal giant” with one of the tallest fruiting bodies known represents new family which arose soon after extinction of the dinosaurs

Deep in the forests of Yunnan, China, scientists have discovered a “fungal giant” that challenges our understanding of how large fungi can become. The newly described species, Dianjunus rex, produces vertical fruiting bodies up to 50 cm high and weighing up to 2.2 kg – the largest known within the phylum Ascomycota. “This remarkable species represents a new fungal family, Dianjunaceae, and provides a rare window into the evolution of extreme fungal body forms,” said Dr. Indunil C. Senanayake, PhD, an associate professor at the Germplasm Bank of Wild Species of the Kunming Institute of Botany in China and corresponding author of the new study, published September 28, 2026 in Frontiers in Fungal Biology. The open-access article is titled “Unearthing a Fungal Giant: Dianjunaceae fam. nov., a Novel Paleocene Lineage of Xylariales Harboring Dianjunus rex gen. et sp. Nov.” “The discovery illustrates how much fungus biodiversity remains to be discovered in East Asian forests.”

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An analysis of nearly half a million cells from dozens of patients’ tumors revealshow cancer cells continuously reshape their genetic makeup over time, enabling them to evade treatmentfor one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, the study focused on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), an often difficult-to-treat disease known to kill nearly 85 percent of people within five years of diagnosis. While more than half a dozen genes have been implicated in the complex disease, the analysis of single tumor cells provided new insights into how subpopulations of pancreatic cancer cells reconfigure their DNA within tumors over time. The team’s analysis revealed a diverse set of clones, or clusters of tumor cells that have a similar genetic makeup. These clones showed striking differences in behavior, with some evolving to resist therapy and others acquiring the ability to spread rapidly. The findings suggest that ongoing reshaping of the cancer cells’ DNA fuels both treatment resistance and metastasis.

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On October 13, 2026, Glycotest, Inc. announced that it has executed a license agreement with the Zucker Institute for Innovation Commercialization (ZI), the commercialization entity advancing technologies originated from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), for intellectual property relating to Glycotest’s blood test for staging liver fibrosis. The licensed IP supports the expansion of Glycotest’s proprietary LRAGG biomarker into multi-biomarker panels with the potential for greater clinical performance and extended patent protection. LRAGG refers to a proprietary, non-invasive blood-based liver biomarker utilized in medical diagnostic testing.

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A northern gannet scans the sea for fish from 100 feet in the air. Upon seeing a school, it pitches its body into a nosedive, somehow breaking the surface at 70 miles per hour without breaking its neck. This daring maneuver seems to defy the laws of nature, but it’s standard hunting behavior for plunge-diving seabirds. A University of Washington study published October 12, 2026 in the Anatomical Record shows that gannets and boobies have unique morphological adaptations that allow them to survive impact. Several of their neck vertebrae are joined by an additional contact surface that helps stabilize the cervical column. The overall shape of the vertebrae is also stockier than other birds. The open-access article is titled “Morphological Adaptations of Cervical Vertebrae in Plunge-Diving Sulids.” “We wanted to figure out what makes gannets so special, so good at diving and looking at their biology helped us understand how they can survive these impacts,” said senior author Bart Boom, a postdoctoral scholar at the UW’s Friday Harbor Labs.

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A study led by researchers at NYU Langone Health/Grossman School of Medicine identified shared molecular patterns in human milk that link maternal nutrition, mammary gland biology, and infant growth. Researchers analyzed thousands of molecular measurements from human milk collected across three geographically and nutritionally diverse populations of mothers. They identified shared patterns in milk composition associated with both maternal nutritional status and infant growth, and asked whether these patterns could also provide insight into the mammary gland functional state. Published online October 8, 2026 in the journal Science, the study examined this state, which involves three interconnected aspects of mammary gland function: milk synthesis and secretion, epithelial barrier and tissue remodeling, and immune and repair activity. Milk synthesis and secretion describe how mammary cells produce the components of milk and release them into milk; barrier and tissue-remodeling functions regulate what passes between the bloodstream and milk while reshaping the milk-producing tissue; and immune and repair activity helps protect the gland and restore tissue after stress or injury. The open-access article is titled “Shared Patterns of Human Milk Composition Link Mammary Gland Function to Infant Growth.”

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Partnership with RISE will expand access to genomic testing for families with unresolved rare genetic conditions and build evidence for the clinical use of nanopore sequencing.

On September 29, 2026 it was announced that Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc (LSE: ONT) has joined RISE, Genetic Alliance’s global rare disease genomics program, to help more families with unresolved genetic conditions gain access to genomic testing and support. The partnership was formally signed in Singapore on Monday, September 28, following Oxford Nanopore’s Health Summit, which brought together healthcare, genomics, and patient advocacy leaders to explore how genomic advances can move from research into routine clinical care. The Summit’s theme was “Crossing the Chasm: From Genomic Insight to Clinical Impact.“ Rare diseases affect more than 300 million people worldwide1 and remain one of the largest areas of unmet need in global health. For many families, access to genomic testing is limited by geography or resources, while others remain without an answer after existing tests have been exhausted.

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Wireless millirobots could one day replace open-heart surgery and ineffective drug therapy

Johns Hopkins University engineers have created robots the size of a pencil tip intended to travel through the body to deliver medicine to infections inside a beating heart. The bots, designed to replace risky open-heart surgery and ineffective IV-drug therapy to treat life-threatening heart infections, could also be used to less invasively and more precisely treat other hard-to-reach diseases including cancer.

“With just a little pinprick, you insert a micro robot and do a procedure without infection or blood loss. And you don’t need to have a surgeon operating it to get the drugs robustly, safely, and efficiently to the right place,” said senior author Axel Krieger, PhD, a medical roboticist known for creating robots that perform surgery without human help. “There’s a lot of areas beyond heart infections where this kind of targeted drug therapy and these kinds of steerable robots could play a major role. It’s really the frontier of surgical robotics.”

The work was published September 28, 2026 in Advanced Material Technologies. The article is titled “Wireless Modular Millirobots with Magnetic Actuation for Targeted Cardiac Drug Delivery.”

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High-speed video has revealed how a honey bee’s detached stinger uses a unique double-piston mechanism to keep pumping venom into its target.

Australian scientists have used high-speed video to uncover the unique mechanism that allows a honey bee’s stinger to continue to pump venom into its target even after it has separated from the bee’s body. A new study, published October 12, 2026 in the journal PNAS, reveals for the first time that the tiny 2 millimeter stinger of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) works as a sophisticated double-piston micro-pump. The article is titled “The Honey Bee Stinger: An Unusual Pump with Collapsible Double Pistons.” “We’ve known since as early as 1910 that the venom sac of a honey bee stinger empties into a chamber with little pumping elements called valves, but until now we didn’t know exactly how they work,” explained lead author Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel, PhD, of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

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Nutrient hotspots affect the ecosystem long after bones vanish  

Elephants shape the African savanna. They consume huge amounts of forage, dig for water, topple trees, and undoubtedly affect all the animals around them. So, what happens to their outsized presence after these iconic animals pass away? That’s the question posed by an international team of researchers who studied the sites of elephant carcasses in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The scientists documented soil chemistry, microbiology, biodiversity, and animal grazing around elephant remains. They discovered that decomposition creates nutrient hotspots that can persist on the landscape for years, possibly decades. This flush of nutrients fuels microbial activity and plant vigor, which attracts herbivores to the site long after the visual signs of the elephant have disappeared. Ironically, this same cascade that energizes plants and soil microbes actually reduces their diversity.

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