Cells have a mailing system of sorts. They can release tiny molecular balls, called extracellular vesicles (EVs), that contain biological matter or messages and attach to other cells to share whatever they contain. In cancer, EVs often depart from tumor cells to seed the cancer elsewhere in the body, leading to metastasis. However, how the EVs connected to recipient cells to deliver their payload has remained a mystery — until now. A team of researchers based in Japan has revealed the molecular mechanisms underpinning the process for small EVs (sEVs), which they said could have implications for developing better cancer treatments.

Ferroptosis, a form of programmed cell death mediated by iron, has been a focus for its potential in cancer therapies. Now, researchers have discovered that lysosomal lipid peroxidation plays a critical role in the execution of ferroptosis. They also showed that this leads to iron leakage from the lysosome, further promoting ferroptosis. Additionally, administration of chloroquine—a drug that promotes lysosomal membrane damage—facilitates ferroptosis in cancer cells that are less sensitive to the process.

The University of Jena, Germany has won the renowned “Dance your PhD” competition in the category Biology with its video “Plant Vaccination”. The video visualizes the  thesis of Jena doctoral candidate Priya Reddy with dancers and original choreography. It can be viewed on the University's central YouTube channel.

Tumor-treating fields (TTFields) therapy and chemoradiation therapy (CRT) may have significant anti-tumor efficacy in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma (ndGBM). This retrospective study provides insights on the clinical outcomes of using concurrent TTFields with or without CRT to treat patients with ndGBM in China. The researchers report that concurrent CRT and TTFields offer a safe treatment strategy for ndGBM, but the potential benefits need to be further evaluated using large-scale clinical trials.

Estrogens are known for their role in reproduction, but a new study from Fujita Health University, Japan, reveals that neuroestrogens—estrogens produced in the brain—play a key role in appetite regulation. These brain-made hormones enhance the expression of a hunger-suppressing receptor in the hypothalamus and improve leptin sensitivity. The findings highlight a new biological pathway that could lead to innovative strategies for managing obesity and eating disorders.

A team of biologists and robotic engineers have developed a virtual reality system for fish to decipher how they school. They uncovered the natural ‘control law’ that is used by zebrafish to coordinate behaviour with others, a behavioural algorithm that has been tuned over millennia to facilitate effective collective motion. Since such collective behaviour could be highly advantageous for technological solutions, such as in the control of autonomous vehicles, the scientists then tested its performance with groups of robotic cars, drones and watercraft. They found that the rules of interaction that have evolved in fish are highly effective for robotic control, demonstrating their potential for the control of fleets of robots in the future. The research, published in Science Robotics, was led by scientists at the Cluster of Excellence Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB), Germany, in collaboration with researchers at Eötvös University in Hungary and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.

Researchers led by the University of Cincinnati’s Anna Kruyer and the University of Houston’s Demetrio Labate have published research in the journal Science Advances applying object recognition technology to track changes in brain cell structure and provide new insights into how the brain responds to heroin use, withdrawal and relapse.