Researchers have identified an elusive gene responsible for Gray Platelet Syndrome, an extremely rare blood disorder in which only about 50 known cases have been reported. As a result, it is hoped that future cases will be easier to diagnose with a DNA test.

One of the latest attempts to boost the body's defenses against cancer is called adoptive cell transfer, in which patients receive a therapeutic injection of their own immune cells. This therapy, currently tested in early clinical trials for melanoma and neuroblastoma, has its limitations: Removing immune cells from a patient and growing them outside the body for future re-injection is extremely expensive and not always technically feasible.

An artificial lung built by Cleveland researchers has reached efficiencies akin to the genuine organ, using air – not pure oxygen as current man-made lungs require - for the source of the essential element.

A new strategy to quantify the levels of titanium in the blood of patients fitted with titanium orthopaedic implants is presented in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, a Springer journal. Yoana Nuevo-Ordóñez and colleagues of the Sanz-Medel research group from the University of Oviedo in Spain have developed a highly sensitive method to determine the levels of titanium in human blood, establishing a baseline for natural levels of titanium in untreated individuals as well as measuring levels in patients with surgical implants.

Researchers who have been working for nearly a decade to piece together the process by which an enzyme repairs sun-damaged DNA have finally witnessed the entire process in full detail in the laboratory.