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Category: biotech/medical – Page 73

Data-driven surgical supply lists can reduce hospital costs and waste

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with Data Science Alliance, a nonprofit promoting the importance of a responsible science environment, led a study showing that hospitals could save millions of dollars and significantly reduce surgical waste by rethinking supply lists used to prepare operating rooms, without compromising patient safety.

The study, published in the November 26, 2025, online edition of JAMA Surgery, found that preference cards— hospital checklists of tools and supplies for surgeries—often include far more items than are actually needed. Over time, as these lists are copied and reused, unnecessary items accumulate, creating inefficiencies and waste, resulting in operating rooms being stocked with supplies that often go unused.

“In addition to decreasing waste per surgery, optimized surgical preference cards can save significant hours in preparation and cleanup between cases,” said Sean Perez, MD, lead author and surgical resident at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “This means that we have more time to help more patients through life-changing and life-saving operations and procedures.”

Patrick Soon-Shiong: The Overlooked Immune Failure Driving Cancer Mortality

Lymphopenia represents a critical, widely unaddressed problem. Modern oncology regularly intervenes to reverse anemia or neutropenia, because decades of investment created drugs capable of restoring those cell populations. But when the lymphocyte compartment collapses, physicians have had no approved way to rebuild it. As a result, the most important immunologic marker in cancer care has remained largely unacted upon. The decline of the body’s cancer-killing lymphocytes has been observed, documented, and then largely ignored. Oncology is entering a new phase. The field is beginning to recognize that defeating cancer is not merely about targeting malignant cells; it is about ensuring that the immune system remains intact enough to participate in that fight…

…Once the lymphocyte compartment collapses, no drug can compensate.

The warning has been visible for decades, printed in plain text on every CBC panel run for every cancer patient in the country. If clinicians measure it, if regulators recognize it, and if the system supports restoring it, patient survival can change at scale.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, Chairman of Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, Executive Chairman at ImmunityBio, and Executive Chairman of the Los Angeles Times, shared a post on X:

Every cancer patient undergoes a complete blood count. Within that routine report is a measurement that almost never makes its way into clinical conversations, yet it carries independent prognostic weight that often exceeds imaging, molecular markers, or tumor stage. That measurement is the absolute lymphocyte count, the readout of the circulating natural killer cells and T cells responsible for controlling malignant growth. When that number drops below 1,000 cells per microliter, the body enters a state of immune failure known as lymphopenia. In that state, the cellular machinery required to restrain cancer is no longer available.

Diamond quantum sensors improve spatial resolution of MRI

This accomplishment breaks the previous record of 48 qubits set by Jülich scientists in 2019 on Japan’s K computer. The new result highlights the extraordinary capabilities of JUPITER and provides a powerful testbed for exploring and validating quantum algorithms.

Simulating quantum computers is essential for advancing future quantum technologies. These simulations let researchers check experimental findings and experiment with new algorithmic approaches long before quantum hardware becomes advanced enough to run them directly. Key examples include the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE), which can analyze molecules and materials, and the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA), used to improve decision-making in fields such as logistics, finance, and artificial intelligence.

Recreating a quantum computer on conventional systems is extremely demanding. As the number of qubits grows, the number of possible quantum states rises at an exponential rate. Each added qubit doubles the amount of computing power and memory required.

Although a typical laptop can still simulate around 30 qubits, reaching 50 qubits requires about 2 petabytes of memory, which is roughly two million gigabytes. ‘Only the world’s largest supercomputers currently offer that much,’ says Prof. Kristel Michielsen, Director at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. ‘This use case illustrates how closely progress in high-performance computing and quantum research are intertwined today.’

The simulation replicates the intricate quantum physics of a real processor in full detail. Every operation – such as applying a quantum gate – affects more than 2 quadrillion complex numerical values, a ‘2’ with 15 zeros. These values must be synchronized across thousands of computing nodes in order to precisely replicate the functioning of a real quantum processor.

The JUPITER supercomputer set a new milestone by simulating 50 qubits. New memory and compression innovations made this breakthrough possible. A team from the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, working with NVIDIA specialists, has achieved a major milestone in quantum research. For the first time, they successfully simulated a universal quantum computer with 50 qubits, using JUPITER, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, which began operation at Forschungszentrum Jülich in September.

Continue reading “Diamond quantum sensors improve spatial resolution of MRI” | >

First-of-Its-Kind Treatment Boosts Vision in Human Trial, Scientists Report

Taking a photo of a friend? You’ve probably got their face centered and focused. Driving down a highway? Eyes on the road.

But for millions of adults with age-related macular degeneration, that crucial, central field of sight is blurred beyond recognition. Current treatments can only slow its progression or augment vision, but the blur will usually continue to worsen.

A recent clinical trial of a treatment based on stem cell transplants has found the procedure may be able to safely reverse the cumulative damage to the hard-working macula – that part of the retina responsible for all you see directly in front of you.

The fate of pyruvate dictates cell growth by modulating cellular redox potential

This ‘fundamental’ study uncovers how directing pyruvate into mitochondria can shrink cells by shifting their metabolism away from building amino acids and proteins.

This fundamental work demonstrates that compartmentalized cellular metabolism is a dominant input into cell size control in a variety of mammalian cell types and in Drosophila. The authors show that increased pyruvate import into the mitochondria in liver-like cells and in primary hepatocytes drives gluconeogenesis but reduces cellular amino acid production, suppressing protein synthesis. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with a variety of genetic and pharmacologic assays rigorously testing each step of the proposed mechanism. This work will be of interest to cell biologists, physiologists, and researchers interested in cell metabolism, and is significant because stem cells and many cancers exhibit metabolic rewiring of pyruvate metabolism.

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