Tiny Bombs in Your Blood – The Complement System

The glow of glowing fish comes from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. The GFP gene from Aequorea victoria was transferred to a zebrafish, where it is expressed in the muscle cells of the zebrafish. Interestingly creating glowing fish for pets wasn't the original purpose of the experiment. Instead these glowing fish were designed to sense toxins in the environment.

The immune system is constantly on the lookout for threats, but cancer isn’t always easy to spot. Some cancer cells can fly under the radar. Now, advanced sequencing technologies are enabling scientists to investigate the unique genetics of both cancers and immune responses in individual patients. This means researchers can develop treatments that boost the immune system and help the body win its battle against cancer.

A team of researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and several other collaborating institutions have created a fast, ultrasensitive, multiplexed diagnostic TB test, that could be used in low-resource settings.