Monoclonal antibodies directed against tumor antigens have proven effective for treating some forms of cancer. Despite the increasing use of monoclonal antibody therapy, it is not clear how these antibodies drive tumor removal.

In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Marjolein van Egmond and colleagues at the VU University Medical Center found that macrophage populations mediate tumor cell removal following monoclonal antibody treatment by actively phagocytosing tumor cells.

As scientists try to forecast the effects of climate change, one of the missing pieces of the puzzle is what will happen to the carbon in the soil and the microbes too.

Scientists studying grasslands in Oklahoma have discovered that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius in the air temperature above the soil creates significant changes to the microbial ecosystem underground. Compared to a control group with no warming, plants in the warmer plots grew faster and higher, which put more carbon into the soil as the plants senesce. The microbial ecosystem responded by altering its DNA to enhance the ability to handle the excess carbon.

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford have found a new way to boost the survival of pediatric patients whose hearts stop while they are hospitalized.

The researchers developed a broader approach to resuscitation training to include everyone who responds to a pediatric "code" event, the emergency call broadcast through the hospital when a patient's heart stops.

Before the new training was implemented, about 40 percent of the hospital's "code" patients survived their cardiac arrest, a figure comparable to the national average for children's hospitals. After training, survival jumped to 60 percent.

The discovery of what is essentially a 3D version of graphene – the 2D sheets of carbon through which electrons race at many times the speed at which they move through silicon - could lead to much faster transistors and far more compact hard drives.

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered that sodium bismuthate can exist as a form of quantum matter called a three-dimensional topological Dirac semi-metal (3DTDS).

This is the first experimental confirmation of 3D Dirac fermions in the interior or bulk of a material, a novel state that was only recently proposed by theorists. 

Schistosoma mansoni and its close relatives are parasitic flatworms that affect millions worldwide and kill an estimated 250,000 people a year. A study published on January 16 in PLOS Pathogens identifies a new part of the molecular pathway that controls parasite movement. And because coordinated movement is essential for the schistosome life cycle in its human host, this protein is a promising new drug target.

SAN ANTONIO (Dec. 19, 2013) — Elevated levels of an amino acid, tyrosine, alter development and longevity in animals and may contribute to the development of diabetes in people, new research from the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio indicates. This line of study could potentially lead to a novel way to prevent or treat the disease. The research is reported this week [Dec. 19] in PLOS Genetics, a journal of the Public Library of Science.

Evidence of a direct effect in diabetes