Los Angeles, CA – September 24, 2026 -  A research team led by Dr. Yangzhi Zhu, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), has developed a soft, reusable smart contact lens as part of its broader Ocular Library for the Analysis of Tear Biomarkers (OCULAB), a tear bioelectronics platform for noninvasive, longitudinal biochemical monitoring through the ocular surface and tear film.

The University of Vermont will coordinate a $19 million, five-year National Science Foundation project to design and test a national observatory for exploring life’s smallest structures in three dimensions. Working with UC San Diego, researchers will combine advanced electron microscopy, artificial intelligence and powerful computing to expand access to imaging capabilities currently concentrated in specialized laboratories. Pilot studies will investigate how learning changes brain wiring, how vision varies across species, how a parasite crosses the blood-brain barrier, and how single-celled organisms are organized. The project will lay the groundwork for a shared national resource serving researchers across biology and medicine.

Two members of NCCN’s Global Policy team are presenting original research abstracts on National Cancer Control Plans and Tailoring Guidelines for Regional Realities as part of the three-day World Cancer Congress in Hong Kong.

As autonomous AI agents evolve from conversational assistants into true scientific collaborators, the pharmaceutical industry is entering the next chapter of its AI transformation, one in which discovery workflows are not merely assisted by AI, but orchestrated by it. To help accelerate the advent of Pharmaceutical Superintelligence, Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), a clinical-stage generative AI-driven drug discovery company, today announced that the Pharma.AI Webinar 2026 Q3 Fall Updates will take place on September 30, from 10 EST. Registration and event details are available at: https://insilico.zoom.us/webinar/register/2417878444165/WN_gLMYTGF2RYW3EoupiucfTA#/registration

With billions of dollars in federal biomedical research support in question, universities should look to build collaborations with industry, which today provides only about 3 to 8 percent of research funding for the 243 universities ranked as the best in the U.S. for translational science by the Cure Innovation Index. A new Cure analysis finds universities engage industry through four distinct pathways: scientific collaboration, industry-sponsored clinical research, small-business partnerships, and entrepreneurial training. On the first two, the expected pattern holds and top-ranked universities lead. On the second two, it reverses and lower-ranked universities outperform the top-ranked.

While gut bacteria clearly influence host health, determining whether they or their metabolic byproducts alone contribute to longevity remains challenging. A recent study using gnotobiotic flies colonized with genetically engineered Escherichia coli demonstrated that bacterial polyamines directly extend host lifespan. By clearly separating metabolite effects from bacterial presence, these findings highlight gut-derived polyamines as a tangible, promising target for future life-extending strategies for healthy longevity.