Category: 7. Science

Scientists studying a hard-to-treat form of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have found that a type of treatment — immunotherapy — may help change the environment where cancer cells live, possibly helping the immune system respond more effectively.

In a new study published in July in Science Advances, a team of researchers, including scientists with Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C., examined bone marrow samples from adult patients with relapsed or refractory AML, a serious and often aggressive form of the disease that is difficult to treat and associated with poor outcomes.

In these patients, the cancer had either returned or failed to respond to earlier treatment. 

The subjects in the study were treated with two drugs: pembrolizumab, which helps the immune system attack cancer cells, and decitabine, which affects how certain genes are switched on or off. 

While the treatment didn’t work for everyone, some patients showed signs that immune cells were mobilizing in the bone marrow — and researchers wanted to understand why.

To explore this, a large team of scientists from multiple institutions used high-powered tools to examine the patients’ bone marrow, including an analytical technique called single-cell spatial transcriptomics to understand where and how genes were active in the bone marrow. 

This method, combined with advanced computer analysis, can examine individual cells in a biopsy sample and identify which RNA molecules are present in each cell, while keeping track of exactly where each cell is located. 

This gave researchers a much clearer picture of how the immune system was responding to treatment and how it was interacting with leukemia cells. With this approach, the team found that certain immune cells moved closer to leukemia cells after treatment for some patients. 

This change in cellular neighborhoods could reflect an immune system trying to fight back. The researchers also noticed changes in how cells were communicating — possibly a clue about how the treatment affects cancer’s ability to hide from the immune system.

“Our findings show how immunotherapy may shift the types of cells found in the neighborhood around leukemia cells,” said Gege Gui, the study’s first author and a research scientist with the  Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C., who was also a doctoral student with the Johns Hopkins University when the research was conducted. 

“That gives us clues about how the immune system and cancer interact and how we might help patients by advancing our understanding of underlying biological mechanisms.”

Christopher Hourigan, director of the Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C., and one of the senior authors of this work, said this kind of detailed, cell-by-cell analysis can reveal patterns that aren’t visible through traditional methods.

“I am impressed by the potential of the careful work Dr. Gui has done integrating powerful computational approaches with these novel genomic tools,” Hourigan said. “Too often, cancer therapy doesn’t work as well as we would like for patients with AML, but research like this is getting us to a stage where we can start understanding why that may be so that we can hopefully design better treatments in the future.”

Hourigan, professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, is an oncologist and physician-scientist who focuses on research in translational medicine and precision oncology.  Laura Dillon, research associate professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C., also contributed to this work.

The study was a collaborative effort across several major research centers. 

Kasper Hansen of Johns Hopkins University, contributed expertise in statistical genomics and computational analysis of high-throughput genomic data; Chen Zhao, from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, provided insights into tumor immunology and advanced tissue imaging techniques, including spatial transcriptomics.

Original study: DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adw4871

Welcome to the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science (MCCS) Early-Career Spotlight, a monthly feature showcasing NREL’s early-career researchers’ interests, motivations, and achievements. This month, features Hilary Egan, who has been a data scientist at NREL since 2020.

For Hilary Egan, a data scientist at NREL, a career in science was not a straight line but rather one shaped by curiosity, adaptability, and a deep interest in computational problem-solving.

“I was born in Germany to Canadian parents, and we moved around a lot throughout Canada and the United States,” Egan said. “When it came time for college, I landed at Michigan State University, majoring in physics with minors in math and computer science. I dabbled in experimental physics and worked in a laser lab early on, but honestly, I was a little too clumsy for it. I wanted something that connected all my interests.”

That desire to connect the dots led Egan to computational physics, where she found her stride.

“I started working at the high-performance computing center on campus and eventually joined an astronomy lab doing computational research—I absolutely loved it,” she said. That experience inspired her to pursue a Ph.D. in astrophysics and planetary science at the University of Colorado Boulder, with a strong focus on computation.

From Fellowship to National Laboratory Career

Egan’s graduate work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, a pivotal experience that introduced her to the national laboratory system.

“Through the fellowship, I had the opportunity to intern at NREL. I wanted to challenge myself and get outside my comfort zone, and NREL’s mission really resonated with me,” she said. “I was also curious about artificial intelligence (AI), which was just starting to gain momentum. During my internship, I worked on using AI to predict data center loads and align them with renewable energy availability. It was a great experience, and I was lucky to come back to NREL after finishing my Ph.D. I’ve been here ever since.”

Today, Egan applies her expertise in AI and computational science to a wide range of energy challenges.

“My work spans applied AI and computational methods across NREL’s mission space—from enhancing energy efficiency in data centers to using AI to accelerate building retrofits to developing autonomous laboratory systems,” she said.

This year, she is on detail to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, where she is helping coordinate an agencywide AI strategy.

Embracing Growth, in Science and Beyond

What Egan enjoys most about her work is the constant opportunity to learn.

“I love getting to be a bit of a scientific dilettante,” she said. “I wasn’t interested in narrowing my focus to one small corner of science for my entire career. At NREL, I get to explore new areas and work with incredibly smart, passionate people who care deeply about the mission. It’s really inspiring.”

Egan credits strong communication skills as one of the most valuable tools in her professional toolkit.

“To me, scientific communication means understanding your audience, writing clearly, and giving compelling presentations,” she said. “I’ve developed those skills through everything from taking writing-focused liberal arts courses in college to writing science blogs and even doing community theater. Getting feedback from different audiences is key—it teaches you where the message isn’t landing and why.”

Outside the lab, Egan brings the same curiosity and enthusiasm to her free time.

“I’m definitely a serial hobby picker-upper,” she said. “I love climbing, mountain biking, birding, and paddleboarding. I also read constantly, and I’ve spent years playing and coaching competitive ultimate frisbee. Lately, I’ve been sewing and just started pottery classes. I kind of run my free time like a kid at summer camp!”

From astrophysics to AI-driven energy solutions, Egan exemplifies the spirit of scientific exploration and innovation that drives NREL forward.

Learn more about NREL’s computational science and AI research.

Aging and neurodegeneration are both known to disrupt the production of functional proteins in cells – a process called “proteostasis,” or protein homeostasis. Brain cells in particular fall prey to proteostasis disruptions, which are linked to the accumulation of protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases. In a new study published July 30 in Science, Stanford researchers have discovered the cascade of events that leads to declining proteostasis in aging brains.

The findings, based on study of the turquoise killifish, lay the foundation for developing therapies that can combat and prevent neurodegenerative diseases in people – and the gradual decline in mental abilities we will all face one day. 

“We know that many processes become more dysfunctional with aging, but we really don’t understand the fundamental molecular principles of why we age,” said study author Judith Frydman, the Donald Kennedy Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford. “Our new study begins to provide a mechanistic explanation for a phenomenon widely seen during aging, which is increased aggregation and dysfunction in the processes that make proteins.” 

Locating the problem 

The turquoise killifish, Nothobranchius furzeri, is a vibrantly colorful fish that adapted to thrive in the ephemeral freshwater pools of the African savanna. Killifish, the shortest-lived vertebrates bred in captivity, develop many issues as they grow old and provide a great model of accelerated aging. Studying why and how the brain ages would be harder in longer-lived animals, such as mice.

To make their new discovery, the researchers conducted a comprehensive investigation of proteostasis in the brains of aging killifish. The scientists compared young, adult, and old killifish. They looked at various players in protein production, such as amino acid concentrations, levels of transfer RNA, messenger RNA (mRNA), proteins, and more. 

In cells, proteostasis balances protein synthesis and degradation and also prevents protein aggregation – harmful clumps of proteins that can result from errors in protein folding. Proteostasis dysfunction and aggregation are part of a series of molecular and cellular changes classified as aging hallmarks. Proteostasis has received attention as a likely link between brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases tied to protein aggregation, like Alzheimer’s. 

Frydman’s lab explores how cells achieve proteostasis and has previously focused on how aging affects proteostasis in the simple models of aging provided by yeast and roundworms. The new study confirms that aging processes observed in those simple organisms reflect those in more complex vertebrates like killifish – and humans. 

“With aging, problems mysteriously emerge at many levels – at the mechanistic, cellular, and organ level – but one commonality is that all those processes are mediated by proteins,” Frydman said. “This study confirms that during aging, the central machinery that makes proteins starts to have quality problems.” 

Ultimately, the team located the disruption at a specific stage of protein synthesis called translation elongation. In this step, the ribosome enacts its role as the cellular machinery responsible for converting mRNA into proteins by moving along the mRNA and adding amino acids one by one. In the aging fish brains, the researchers documented ribosomes colliding and stalling, which both resulted in reduced levels of proteins and protein aggregation. 

“Our results show that changes in the speed of ribosome movement along the mRNA can have a profound impact on protein homeostasis – and highlight the essential nature of ‘regulated’ translation elongation speed of different mRNAs in the context of aging,” said Jae Ho Lee, co-lead author of the paper who worked on this as a postdoctoral scholar in the Frydman lab. He is now an assistant professor at Stony Brook University. 

The finding helped to illuminate another aging mystery. One of the hallmarks of aging in all organisms, including humans, is called “protein-transcript decoupling.” In this phenomenon, changes in levels of some mRNA no longer correlate to changes in protein levels in aged individuals. The new study shows that changes in protein synthesis during aging, including ribosomes, can explain the “protein-transcript decoupling.” Since many of the affected proteins are involved in genome maintenance and integrity, these new observations rationalize why these processes decline during aging.

“Showing that the process of protein production loses fidelity with aging provides a kind of underlying rationale for why all these other processes start to malfunction with age,” said Frydman. “And, of course, the key to solving a problem is to understand why it’s gone wrong. Otherwise, you’re just fumbling in the dark.” 

Future aging research 

As a next step, the researchers will explore directly how ribosome dysfunction – which they identified as a key culprit of declining proteostasis – may contribute to age-related neurodegenerative disorders in people. They also want to know whether targeting translation efficiency or ribosome quality control in treatments can restore proteostasis in brain cells and even delay aging-related cognitive decline. 

“This work provides new insights on protein biogenesis, function, and homeostasis in general, as well as a new potential target for intervention for aging-associated diseases,” said Lee. 

Additionally, the research team is probing what leads to cognitive decline as we age and how modulating such processes may shape longevity in a range of different species.

An international study challenges the widely held belief that specialisation with sea anemones alone explains the diversification of clownfish. Using an integrated approach combining field observations, laboratory experiments and modelling, scientists have revealed unexpected ecological strategies, such as the use of muscle strength.

A popular symbol of coral reefs, clownfish (Amphiprionini) have long been studied for their mutualistic relationship with sea anemones. This association provides them with protection from predators thanks to their host’s stinging tentacles. “Until now, it was thought that the adaptive radiation (or ecological diversification) of these fish was mainly dictated by the fact that they live in association with certain species of anemones,” explains Manon Mercader, a postdoctoral marine conservation ecologist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST, Japan). But the study we conducted shows that the reality is more nuanced.”

By studying fourteen species of clownfish, the scientists identified the existence of “eco-morphotypes” – distinct ecological and morphological profiles – independent of host specialisation. For example, some large fish with well-developed muscles expend less energy for swimming and regularly swim away from their anemones. Conversely, smaller species with a slenderer morphology and a more energy-intensive metabolism remain constantly close to their host.

This result overturns the classic model that contrasts “specialists”, clownfish that live in only one or two anemones, with “generalists”, those that can associate with up to ten anemones. “Our analyses show that swimming ability and exploratory behaviour are not related to the number of anemones a species can occupy,” summarises Bruno Frédérich, co-author of the study and researcher at the Laboratory of Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Liège . “Diversification has also occurred along another axis: dependence on the microhabitat, i.e. on the anemone itself.”

The team used a variety of tools to reach these conclusions: observation of behaviour in the wild, swimming speed tests, oxygen consumption measurements, hydrodynamic modelling using 3D micro-scans, and muscle analysis using microtomography. “Thanks to this integrative approach, two main morphotypes can be distinguished: the ‘adventurous’, which are good swimmers capable of covering long distances at low energy cost; and the ‘sedentary’, which need more energy to swim and stay confined to the anemone,” continues Manon Mercader. “A third intermediate type, represented in particular by the species Amphiprion frenatus, may also exist.”

By reconstructing the evolutionary tree of the species studied, the researchers show that these morphotypes appeared independently on several occasions, evidence of evolutionary convergence. This result makes clownfish a textbook case for illustrating adaptive radiation, alongside Darwin’s finches and African cichlids.

“This discovery also has ecological implications,” explains Bruno Frédérich. “The ability or inability to move away from the anemone could influence diet, social dynamics or interactions with the host. It could also play a role in cohabitation between species, a common phenomenon among clownfish.”

For the research team, this work is part of a broader effort to understand the mechanisms that create and maintain biodiversity. In 2018, the same laboratory published a study on the evolution of colour patterns in clownfish. With this new publication, the Amphiprion genus is establishing itself as a model of choice for studying the links between form, function and ecology.

As long as you’re looking at the night sky, August has a ton of cool stuff going on this year. Among those is the full moon, also known as the Sturgeon Moon. It’s the last full moon of the summer, and it’s coming on Aug. 9.

Per The Farmer’s Almanac, the full moon will reach its peak brightness at 3:55 a.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 9. Thus, if you want to see the moon at its brightest, you’ll want to look up the evening of Aug. 8 and on into the next morning. It’s not a big deal if you miss it, as the moon will be over 90% full from Aug. 6 through Aug. 11, so you’ll have plenty of chances to look up and see it.

A lot is going on during this full moon, so if you want to make a night of it, you have other things you can look for. Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Uranus and Neptune will all be in the south and eastern sky, lining up nicely in preparation for the planet parade coming in late August. Venus and Jupiter don’t make an appearance until much later in the evening, but they’ll be visible with the naked eye. The other three will require some sort of magnification. 

The Perseids meteor shower is also active, so you may spy a shooting star or two, depending on how dark it is outside. The Perseids come from the Perseus constellation. On the morning of Aug. 9, it’ll be in the eastern sky alongside Venus and Jupiter, so everything will be in the same general area.

Why is it called the Sturgeon Moon?

The Sturgeon Moon is named after the humble sturgeon fish. According to The Farmer’s Almanac, sturgeon were a staple food for Native Americans in the Great Lakes region, and the fish used to be a lot more abundant during mid- to late summer. Of all the bony fish, the sturgeon is the most primitive, dating back to the Cretaceous period over 120 million years ago. Thus, scholars often refer to the fish as a living fossil. It’s also a long-lived fish, with an average lifespan of 50 to 60 years. Females of the species can get as old as 150 years. 

Other names for August’s full moon include the Corn Moon, Ricing Moon, Black Cherries Moon and Mountain Shadows Moon. It’s also been called a Harvest Moon, splitting the name with September’s full moon.

Bottom dwellers have never been more spectacular.

In a tiny, high-tech submersible sunk deeper than the height of Mount Everest, scientists have discovered a flourishing ecosystem some 30,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

The Chinese-led research team found spiky, bright marine worms darting through fields of crimson tubes, itself another kind of worm, poking out of the Earth’s crust like flowers.

There were dense beds of clams, each up to 9 inches long, and snow-like microbial mats creating an ethereal undersea dusting, some dozens of feet wide.

“This is the first time chemosynthesis-based communities have been directly observed at extreme depths,” Dominic Papineau, senior research scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told NBC News.

Papineau, who was among the authors of the research published Wednesday in the journal Nature, added that “many hadal animals from these trenches are spectacular in their forms and colors,” and because they survive by hosting microbes that metabolize methane, rather than through photosynthesis.

At 19,000 to 30,000 feet, hadal trenches are the ocean’s deepest zones that occur at the edge of one tectonic plate as it slides under another. “Long-standing theories suggest that chemosynthesis-based communities are widespread in hadal trenches, but few such communities have been discovered,” Papineau said.

Kareen Schnabel, a marine ecologist at Earth Sciences New Zealand, who was not involved in the study, said the team had discovered something “really rather unusual.”

“There were signs of really abundant, large life-forms and animals in these particularly deep areas,” she said.

“Because it is such high pressure in these incredible depths, you wouldn’t necessarily expect them to live in these places,” she said of the creatures.

“The depths probed here, coupled with the thriving communities discovered and distribution ranges observed, significantly expand the known habitat, depth and biogeographical distributions for a great many species,” the researchers wrote.

The sun’s rays don’t reach these depths, so the creatures rely on chemosynthesis — the process of converting chemicals into food — rather than photosynthesis.

“These communities are sustained by hydrogen sulfide-rich and methane-rich fluids that are transported along faults traversing deep sediment layers in trenches,” the researchers said.

They also face constant crushing pressure of up to 98 megapascals (MPa), a unit of pressure, which is more than six times the force of an alligator’s bite.

The dives for this latest research were conducted in July and August last year by an international team of scientists, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering.

They investigated the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, which is around 1,300 miles long and runs from Hokkaido in Japan to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, and the Aleutian Trench, which extends about 1,800 miles from the Alaska and Kenai peninsulas to Kamchatka.

Schnabel previously conducted deep-sea surveys in the same three-person submersible, called Fendouzhe, that was used for this research.

She described the experience of venturing that far down in a submersible — a type of seacraft that became infamous after one imploded on a 2023 expedition to the Titanic.

“There is some nervousness, of course, as you’re dangling above a 10-kilometer hole in the Earth,” she said of her trip more than 32,000 feet below the Pacific’s surface in 2022 to research a trench north of New Zealand.

“You have a small window that is only 12 centimeters in diameter that you can look out of. You can’t stretch your legs while you’re sitting on a little bench in a small titanium sphere, which is only 1.8 meters wide,” she said, or about 6 feet.

She said that she was shocked by what she saw at the bottom of the trench, through the submersible’s 4.7-inch window.

“When I got to go down, and we actually settled down on the ocean floor to have a look, I was stunned to see how much life and how many animals there were,” she said.

There has been little doubt that life could exist at these depths, but what took the research team by surprise was the sheer abundance of the ecosystem they found.

The discoveries “challenge current models of life at extreme limits” and show that these ecosystems might be more widespread than previously thought, they wrote.

As early humans spread from lush African forests into grasslands, their need for ready sources of energy led them to develop a taste for grassy plants, especially grains and the starchy plant tissue hidden underground.

But a new Dartmouth-led study shows that hominins began feasting on these carbohydrate-rich foods before they had the ideal teeth to do so. The study provides the first evidence from the human fossil record of behavioral drive, wherein behaviors beneficial for survival emerge before the physical adaptations that make it easier, the researchers report in Science.

The authors analyzed fossilized hominin teeth for carbon and oxygen isotopes left behind from eating plants known as graminoids, which includes grasses and sedges. They found that ancient humans gravitated toward consuming these plants far earlier than their teeth evolved to chew them efficiently. 

It was not until 700,000 years later that evolution finally caught up in the form of longer molars like those that let modern humans easily chew tough plant fibers.

The findings suggest that the success of early humans stemmed from their ability to adapt to new environments despite their physical limitations, says Luke Fannin, Guarini ’25, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth and lead author of the study.

“We can definitively say that hominins were quite flexible when it came to behavior, and this was their advantage,” Fannin says. “As anthropologists, we talk about behavioral and morphological change as evolving in lockstep. But we found that behavior could be a force of evolution in its own right, with major repercussions for the morphological and dietary trajectory of hominins.”

Nathaniel Dominy, the Charles Hansen Professor of Anthropology and senior author of the study, says isotope analysis overcomes the enduring challenge of identifying the factors that caused the emergence of new behaviors—behavior doesn’t fossilize. 

“Anthropologists often assume behaviors on the basis of morphological traits, but these traits can take a long time—a half-million years or more––to appear in the fossil record,” Dominy says. 

“But these chemical signatures are an unmistakable remnant of grass-eating that is independent of morphology. They show a significant lag between this novel feeding behavior and the need for longer molar teeth to meet the physical challenge of chewing and digesting tough plant tissues,” he says.

The team analyzed the teeth of various hominin species, beginning with the distant human relative Australopithecus afarensis, to track how the consumption of different parts of graminoids progressed over millennia. For comparison, they also analyzed the fossilized teeth of two extinct primate species that lived around the same time—giant terrestrial baboon-like monkeys called theropiths and small leaf-eating monkeys called colobines.

All three species veered away from fruits, flowers, and insects toward grasses and sedges between 3.4 million to 4.8 million years ago, the researchers report. This was despite lacking the teeth and digestive systems optimal for eating these tougher plants.

Hominins and the two primates exhibited similar plant diets until 2.3 million years ago when carbon and oxygen isotopes in hominin teeth changed abruptly, the study found. This plummet in both isotope ratios suggests that the human ancestor at the time, Homo rudolfensis, cut back on grasses and consumed more oxygen-depleted water.

The researchers lay out three possible explanations for this spike, including that these hominins drank far more water than other primates and savanna animals, or that they suddenly adopted a hippopotamus-like lifestyle of being submerged in water all day and eating at night.

The explanation most consistent with what’s known about early human behavior, they report, is that later hominins gained regular access to underground plant organs known as tubers, bulbs, and corms. Oxygen-depleted water also is found in these bulging appendages that many graminoids use for storing large amounts of carbohydrates safely away from plant-eating animals.

The transition from grasses to these high-energy plant tissues would make sense for a species growing in population and physical size, Fannin says. These underground caches were plentiful, less risky than hunting, and provided more nutrients for early humans’ expanding brains. Having already adopted stone tools, ancient humans could dig up tubers, bulbs, and corms while facing little competition from other animals.

“We propose that this shift to underground foods was a signal moment in our evolution,” Fannin says. “It created a glut of carbs that were perennial—our ancestors could access them at any time of year to feed themselves and other people.”

Measurements of hominin teeth showed that while they became consistently smaller—shrinking about 5% every 1,000 years—molars grew longer, the researchers report. Hominins’ dietary shift toward graminoids outpaced that physical change for most of their history.

But the study found that the ratio flipped about 2 million years ago with Homo habilis and Homo ergaster, whose teeth exhibited a spurt of change in shape and size more suited to eating cooked tissues, such as roasted tubers.

Graminoids are ubiquitous across many ecosystems. Wherever they were, hominins would have been able to maximize the nutrients derived from these plants as their teeth became more efficient at breaking them down, Dominy says.

“One of the burning questions in anthropology is what did hominins do differently that other primates didn’t do? This work shows that the ability to exploit grass tissues may be our secret sauce,” Dominy says.

“Even now, our global economy turns on a few species of grass—rice, wheat, corn, and barley,” he says. “Our ancestors did something completely unexpected that changed the game for the history of species on Earth.”