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Impossible Quantum States, Kidney Drugs & Stem Cell Insulin | Ep. 1
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Scientists created quantum matter that cannot exist in nature — and that's just one of six breakthrough stories in today's briefing. From a constipation drug slowing kidney disease to lab-grown insulin cells reversing diabetes in mice, this episode covers the week's most consequential science.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A team at Cal Poly just created forms of quantum matter that cannot exist in nature. Not rare, not hard to find.
Staying with unexpected results, a one-hundred-and-fifty patient trial found that lubiprostone, a drug most doctors prescribe for constipation, appears to slow the progression of chronic kidney disease. That's a meaningful finding for a condition that affects hundreds of millions of people globally and has limited treatment options.
The approach to gum disease prevention got a quiet overhaul this week. Rather than targeting bacteria with antimicrobials, which kills indiscriminately and contributes to resistance, scientists disrupted bacterial communication in the mouth instead.
Swedish researchers created insulin-producing cells from human stem cells that respond to glucose the way functional beta cells should. In mice, these cells reversed diabetes.
A UK trial tracking patients with a specific colorectal cancer subtype found that nine weeks of pembrolizumab before surgery kept patients cancer-free for nearly three years. Immunotherapy before surgery, not after, is the meaningful structural choice there.
One quieter finding worth noting: coral reef microbes. Specialized microbial partners found in certain coral species carry molecular structures that don't appear in terrestrial organisms.
Pulling back across today's briefing, the thread worth holding is this: the most interesting science right now isn't always about new materials or new molecules. It's about new methods of control.
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