Sepsis is deadly because it varies so greatly between different patients, and within individual patients over time, making it hard to diagnose and treat effectively. But scientists writing in Frontiers in Science explain how we can tackle the challenge by understanding sepsis as the result of multiple types of immune dysregulation. Using systems immunology to understand its mechanisms and target treatments, the researchers argue that we can tackle a major under-recognized cause of deaths worldwide, prevent deaths from future pandemic diseases, and treat survivors’ lingering symptoms.

Researchers from Zhejiang University and HKUST (Guangzhou) have introduced ProtET, an innovative AI-powered multi-modal protein editing model published in Health Data Science. ProtET leverages advanced transformer-structured encoders and a hierarchical training paradigm to align protein sequences with natural language instructions, enabling precise and controllable protein editing.

The model was trained on over 67 million protein-biotext pairs from Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL databases and demonstrated significant improvements across key benchmarks, including 16.9% enhanced protein stability, optimized enzyme catalytic activity, and improved antibody-antigen binding affinity. ProtET’s zero-shot capabilities successfully designed SARS-CoV antibodies with stable 3D structures, highlighting its real-world biomedical applications.

This research represents a major advancement in AI-driven protein engineering, offering a scalable and interactive tool for scientific discovery, synthetic biology, and therapeutic development.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have achieved a major breakthrough in drug delivery: they have successfully transported lipid nanoparticles encapsulating messenger RNA (mRNA) to the immune system of the small and large intestines — bypassing the liver upon systemic administration. By simply altering the composition of the nanoparticles, the researchers demonstrated that mRNA-based drugs can be directed straight to target cells, avoiding the liver.

In a study on public psychology with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from Osaka University found no significant differences among regions of Japan regarding either risk perception or infection-prevention behaviors during the “state of emergency,” suggesting spillover effects between targeted and non-targeted regions. However, risk perception diminished after restrictions were lifted, and both risk perception and hygienic behaviors saw further reductions after the downgrading of the legal status of COVID-19 to that of a common seasonal flu.

Kyushu University economists have published new data on the economic, social, and environmental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Japan's inbound tourism industry for the year 2020. The results showed a pandemic-induced loss of 33 million tourists, resulting in 3.44 trillion yen of value-added loses, and a decline in employment for 868,976 people. The data also revealed environmental benefits, with an emission reduction of 11.6 megatons of CO₂.