The University of Pittsburgh’s Juan Jose Mendoza Arenas and Pennsylvania State University’s Xiang Yang have received a highly competitive New Initiative Grant from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation to design algorithms and model turbulence using quantum computers. The collaborative, two-year project titled “Small-Scale Turbulence as a Quantum System” seeks to advance understanding of turbulence and the potential of quantum computers to model complex systems. 

TU Delft develops new method for large-scale health monitoring via wastewater

Wastewater contains a hidden wealth of information about the communities that produce it. During the Covid-19 pandemic, sewage monitoring for viral RNA became a key tool for tracking outbreaks. TU Delft researcher Martin Pabst and his team are now expanding this concept with a new method that enables large-scale monitoring of human health and microbial activity through wastewater.

TAMEST (Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology) has announced Maralice Conacci-Sorrell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, as the recipient of the 2026 Mary Beth Maddox Award and Lectureship in cancer research. She was chosen for her pioneering research revealing how cancer cells harness nutrients to drive their growth and for creating targeted strategies to suppress otherwise untreatable cancers.

AI and plants: Using a new AI method, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have rediscovered 51 old pea varieties that are no longer used in agriculture but may prove promising for the production of plant-based foods. The method is a shortcut to finding new resources in the green treasure troves that gene banks' enormous seed collections represent.

Animal models often fail to capture the complexity of human skin diseases. At TU Wien, scientists are using 3D printing to build living skin models that better reflect human biology and immune responses. A newly published paper shows how these bioprinted tissues can support research into inflammatory skin diseases and the development of new treatments.

The University of Texas at San Antonio has received a $7 million gift commitment from longtime philanthropic supporter and former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and his wife Linda Whitacre to advance research, student success and athletics.

The Whitacres have made a transformational $5 million commitment to honor the late William L. Henrich, MD, former president of UT Health San Antonio, whose visionary leadership and unwavering compassion shaped the university for more than a decade.

The gift will advance the institution’s nationally recognized expertise in metabolic health — an area of research and clinical care that includes diabetes, obesity and related conditions that profoundly affect longevity and quality of life. This investment will fuel groundbreaking discovery aimed at confronting the region’s diabetes crisis, where one in six South Texans lives with the disease, and will further strengthen UT Health San Antonio’s role as a leader in improving health outcomes for the communities it serves.

An additional $2 million commitment from the Whitacres will support the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and UTSA Athletics.

Power factor correction (PFC) circuits are ubiquitous in consumer electronics. In a new study, researchers from Chonnam National University present a simple, sensorless control method for boost PFC that eliminates the need for current sensors, thereby reducing cost, noise, and complexity while maintaining high performance. By deriving a new duty cycle equation that only requires voltage measurements and introducing delay compensation, the method demonstrates strong performance in a 1.3 kW prototype across various loads.