The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an imaging drug known as Cytalux (pafolacianine), which is attracted to ovarian cancer tissue and illuminates it when exposed to fluorescent light, allowing surgeons to more easily find and more precisely remove cancer. 

Virginia Tech researchers discovered that the bacterium that causes Lyme disease has a highly unusual modification in its protective molecular bag – called peptidoglycan, which is common to all bacteria. There occurs an unusual sugar modification that is not known to occur in any organism. One way the bacterium gets this sugar modification is from ticks by absorbing a carbohydrate unique to ticks. The alteration is specific to ticks and allows the bacterium to better move and be more likely to cause disease.

Children with spinal muscular atrophy(SMA) carry specific gene defects which cause progressive muscle wasting and weakness. The disorder results from a genetic defect that causes a deficiency of the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein in specific nerve cells in the spinal cord. Defective nerve cells are unable to transmit nerve impulses they receive from the brain to the muscles. The result is progressive muscle weakness and a lack of motor development, which also affects the muscles used for breathing. This condition usually results in early death when left untreated.