Off-the-shelf and mass-producible immune cells fight solid human tumors engrafted into mice. The Kobe University development is a significant contribution towards faster and cheaper cancer immunotherapy.

Insects possess abilities to detect chemical signals in their surroundings, inspiring the development of a generation of biohybrid sensing technologies. Researchers at Shinshu University and Chiba University are harnessing the remarkable odor-sensing capabilities of silkworm moth antennae and integrating them with drone platforms. Their latest research focuses on improving the interface between biological sensors and electronic systems, advancing the development of mobile sensing platforms designed to detect airborne chemical signals in complex and challenging environments.

The Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM) and the Japanese Federation of Statistical Science Associations (JFSSA) have named Christian P. Robert, professor at the Université Paris Dauphine-PSL and the University of Warwick, as the recipient of the sixth Akaike Memorial Lecture Award

Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and Hiroshima University have discovered that a small magnetic field switches the layered quantum material CeTe₃ between competing electronic states that appear as striped or checkerboard patterns. Published July 23 in Nature Communications, the work reveals how magnetism can reorganize a quantum material’s entire electronic state.

The stability of ecosystems is affected by biodiversity at every level of the food chain. Scientists recently discovered that herbivore asynchrony stabilized a semi-arid grassland ecosystem by serving as a biological buffer between plant and predator communities.

Discovering the materials needed for cleaner energy technologies has long been a slow process - but AI could change that. Researchers at Tohoku University have developed a closed-loop AI framework that continuously learns from experiments to identify promising energy materials faster and at lower cost. The approach could accelerate the development of next-generation batteries, hydrogen storage and other low-carbon technologies. 

The battle against environmental degradation is complex. Green technologies can be both part of the solution and part of the problem, a recent study has revealed. Researchers from Tohoku University and the National Institute for Environmental Studies have utilized remote sensing and machine learning to reveal the impacts mining for minerals in green technologies has on biodiversity.

Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University discovered that vitiligo may involve more than the immune-mediated destruction of pigment-producing cells. Instead, they found that some melanocytes persist within vitiligo lesions but enter a reversible “dedifferentiated-like state” in which they stop producing pigment but are otherwise still intact. Pharmacological modulation of these pathways in experimental models restored melanocyte characteristics and pigment-related functions, suggesting that reactivating surviving melanocytes, in addition to controlling autoimmune responses, could represent a new therapeutic strategy for vitiligo.

An ancient molecule that existed long before the blood circulation system evolved, has been found to support cancer immunotherapy. Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan found that complement C3 protein acts inside tumors to prevent the accumulation of immunosuppressive cells, but only when produced inside the tumor. C3 circulating in the blood did not affect treatment outcomes. Published in Nature Communications, the findings suggest that artificially recreating this effect can help patients with tumors that do not naturally produce enough of this protein.