Three University of Texas at Arlington faculty members were recognized for their research and creative contributions as part of the faculty research honors. J. Ping Liu, professor of physics, received the University Award for Distinguished Record of Research or Creative Activity. Kyrah Brown, associate professor of kinesiology, and Ben Jones, associate professor of physics, received the University Award for Outstanding Research or Creative Accomplishment.

(New York, April 25, 2025) – A major new effort at Weill Cornell Medicine seeks to catalog the normal human virome, the immense ecosystem of viruses that lives in and on us.

Chimpanzee naive pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can now be grown in cellular cultures, reveals a recent study. They successfully created chimpanzee early embryo models, called ‘blastoids,’ and found that the inhibition of a specific regulatory gene is essential for chimpanzee PSC self-renewal. They also developed a feeder-free culture system, eliminating the need for mouse-derived feeder cells as support. These findings provide valuable insights into primate embryology and could advance stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

In a new study published in Science Bulletin, researchers from West China Hospital of Sichuan University present the largest human T cell reference for 68 subtypes and states, alongside STCAT, an automated annotation tool achieving 28% higher accuracy than existing methods. Their systematic analyses reveal T cell subtype dynamics in cancer and COVID-19, offering a valuable resource for the community. They also develop a TCellAtlas database for browse T cell expression profiles and analyzing customized scRNA-seq data by STCAT tool.

Animals facing distress due to human action or aggression may react in several ways, for example, by fleeing or retaliating. New research showed that sharks may defend themselves – not unlike land-dwelling animals or humans. In French Polynesia, scientists observed a previously undocumented, rapidly delivered but usually non-lethal type of shark bite in response to human aggression. These new insights should be considered by the media to stop systematically blaming sharks, especially if motivated by self-defense, the researchers said.