A team at the Texas A&M Health Institute of Biosciences and Technology has developed an artificial intelligence-designed molecular switch that uses caffeine to rapidly separate engineered proteins inside living cells and trigger cellular responses on demand. The platform, called CODS, short for caffeine-operated dissociation system, could help scientists build safer and more controllable gene and cell therapies.

New funding from CPRIT will help Rice advance cancer research on several fronts, from strengthening a core genetic engineering facility that serves researchers across Texas to supporting new studies in cancer immunotherapy, next-generation radiation therapy and ovarian cancer.

A project led by University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture researchers will help reduce the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer by designing corn plants that better use nitrogen already in the soil.

Scott Lenaghan, associate professor of food science, and Neal Stewart, professor of plant sciences, secured $2.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Their project, “SyN-Fix: Synthetic Biology to Improve Nitrogen Cycling in the Maize Rhizosphere,” is one of nine awarded to develop technologies that reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use in corn and sorghum farming, which are key crops for U.S. ethanol production.

As health systems explore AI tools for vaccine communication, a new Penn-led randomized controlled trial offers a cautionary finding: Brief chatbot conversations can make vaccine-hesitant parents more willing to vaccinate their children against HPV, but they did not outperform standard public health materials. The effects of the written materials also persisted, while those of the chatbots faded. The researchers say the next step is to test AI as part of broader support systems that help families move from intention to action.

New York University has launched the NYU Earth Systems Institute, a multidisciplinary hub that will deploy AI and computational tools to better predict environmental changes and to advance means to better prepare and respond to these global phenomena.

Funded by the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, a new €15.3 million project coordinated by Institut Pasteur brings together seven partners across four continents to advance clinical trials and prepare for the manufacturing of a chikungunya vaccine in Africa. 

Institut Pasteur is launching ACT-CHIK (Accelerating Clinical Trials for CHIKungunya Vaccine in Africa), a major four-year research project funded by the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon Europe program. With €15.3 million in EU funding, ACT-CHIK will advance the clinical development of MV-CHIK — a measles-virus-based chikungunya vaccine originally developed at Institut Pasteur — through a large-scale Phase Ib/III clinical trial in four African countries, while preparing for technology transfer to an African vaccine manufacturer.

A major security vulnerability that allows attackers to easily fake their identity in smartphone text conversations has been fixed in the United States thanks to a team of computer scientists at the University of California San Diego. The vulnerability affected both Android and Apple smartphones as well as all major wireless carriers, including Verizon, T-Mobile and Google Fi, and smaller independent operators such as Mint Mobile.