This archive covers technology and innovation breakthroughs that improve lives, protect the environment, and expand human possibility. From medical devices to clean energy tools, the stories here focus on what’s working and who’s making it happen.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, developed at Oxford University, is expected to offer countries a cheaper and more readily available option than the world’s first shot against the parasitic disease.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina have developed an AI model that can predict in real-time whether or not cancerous tissue has been fully removed during breast cancer surgery. The model performed as well as, or better than, human doctors.
Japan’s Toregem Biopharma is slated to begin clinical trials in July of next year after it succeeded growing new teeth in mice five years ago. If successful, the medicine could be available for regulatory approval by 2030.
Researchers from the University of Chicago have created a new vaccine that can effectively treat these debilitating diseases in a way that doesn’t require suppressing the entire immune system and thus prevents a variety of negative side effects.
The breakthrough from researchers at NYU Langone is a promising step toward using non-human donors for organ transplants, a possible answer to an ongoing organ shortage that has plagued the U.S. and other countries for years.
The new vaccine developed by the International Vaccine Institute, Gotovax, and Valneva Sweden is low-cost, lasts longer than alternatives, and is easier and cheaper to deliver around the globe. Cholera kills more than 100,000 people worldwide every year.
The experiment from the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health experiment grew humanized kidneys in pig embryos. It represents a key step toward building an inexhaustible source of organs for transplants.
Liquid hydrogen is a giant pain to handle, but it’s one of the few technologies with a genuine chance of decarbonizing long-range flight.
Phase 1 trials, which will take place at Columbia University in New York City and are expected to start in early 2024, will see participants who are already using these drugs take increasing doses of the vaccines to ensure it’s safe.
Muvalaplin, a new pill from researchers at Monash University, lowered a dangerous genetic form of cholesterol by up to 65% in just two weeks during early trials. The drug targets lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), a stickier cousin of LDL cholesterol that’s been called a “silent killer” because diet, exercise, and statins can’t touch it. Roughly one in five people worldwide carry elevated Lp(a), inherited risk they’ve long been told there’s nothing to do about. That muvalaplin works as a simple oral tablet, not an injection, could make it widely accessible if larger trials succeed. For global heart health, it’s a hopeful sign that even risks written into our DNA may not be the final word.
