What the scientists are saying…
Personalised jab for skin cancer
Doctors in the UK have begun a phasethree trial of the world’s first “personalised” vaccine against the deadliest form of skin cancer. For the trial, led by a team at University College London Hospital, scores of patients in Britain will have jabs designed to stop their cancer from returning. Based on mRNA technology, the treatment works by priming the patient’s immune system to identify the specific proteins known as neoantigens that are found on their tumour – so that they attack any cells bearing them. To create the custom-made treatment, scientists analyse tissue from the tumour extracted during surgery; the idea is that the jab will lead to any cancer cells left behind after the surgery being wiped out, so that the cancer cannot return. In phase-two trials, those who received the vaccine alongside an immunotherapy drug called Keytruda were half as likely to die or have their cancer return as those given the drug alone. For this final stage of testing, the vaccine will be given to more than 1,000 patients around the world.
Why you should take the stairs
It’s tempting to wait for the lift, but taking the stairs could just save your life, a study has found. Researchers analysed data from nine studies on the topic involving almost 500,000 people aged 35 to 84. They found that participants who reported regularly taking the stairs had fewer heart attacks and strokes than those who did not, and had a 24% lower risk of early death. The data indicated that the health benefits increase in line with the number of stairs climbed. More research is needed to confirm this, said study author Dr Sophie Paddock, of the University of East Anglia, but what the study does show is that even brief bursts of physical activity can be beneficial for heart health. So “whether at work, home, or elsewhere, take the stairs”.
A “bioplastic” that eats itself
One of the properties of plastic that makes it so very useful – its strength – also makes it difficult to break down: a water bottle made from PET, for example, takes about 450 years to decompose. Now, however, scientists have found that it’s possible to greatly speed up that process, by adding plastic-eating bacteria to the production process. A team from the University of California San Diego took spores from a strain of Bacillus subtilis, which has a natural ability to degrade polymers. They selected bacterial spores (a dormant form of bacteria) because of their ability to withstand extreme conditions, and then by repeatedly exposing them to heat, created a strain that was capable of surviving the temperatures required to make plastic. For the next step, they mixed these spores with molten TPU (a soft plastic used in memory foam) and fashioned them into thin strips. This bioplastic turned out to be stronger than normal TPU – and far more degradable. When it was put in sterile compost (without other microbes), the spores started to germinate, and within five months, 90% of the plastic had degraded, says the report in Nature Communications. The team is now trying to scale the process up to industrial levels, and to apply it to other types of commercial plastic.
Orangutan treats own wound
In a first for a wild animal, an orangutan has been filmed applying a plant with known pain-relieving properties to an open wound. The orangutan, which lives in the Gunung Leuser National Park on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, was observed plucking and chewing the leaves of a type of climbing vine not usually eaten by orangutans, but which is widely used by people in Southeast Asia to treat pain and inflammation. The adult male, known as Rakus, then repeatedly used his fingers to apply the juices to the wound on his face, before covering it with the chewed plant. Species of great ape have in the past been seen foraging for medicinal plants and swallowing the leaves; they’ve also been seen rubbing themselves with the paste of a chewed-up plant that humans use to treat joint pain. But none had been seen treating a wound in this way, said study co-author Dr Isabelle Laumer, of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany. Apparently, the treatment did the trick: the wound did not appear to become infected, and within days it had closed over. Rakus, who is thought to be in his 30s, probably sustained the injury in a fight with other males.