In recent years, monoclonal antibodies have become one of the tools with the greatest potential to combat the appearance of tumours and the generation of metastases. But transforming them into effective drugs is not easy anywhere in the world. The use of organoids (microscopic organs) could speed up the development process. This is precisely what researchers at Barcelona Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), under the direction of Eduard Batlle, and the Dutch company Merus NV have verified. After eight years' research, they have succeeded in producing an antibody that acts specifically on cancer stem cells and limits tumour growth and the formation of metastases. The study, which is based on the generation of an extensive biobank of organoids, was published on Monday in the journal Nature Cancer.

Statistically, there are few cases and most of them are mild. However, adverse effects associated with inflammation of the heart muscle, such as myocarditis or pericarditis, seem to have a tendency to increase as the covid vaccination campaign progresses, especially from the second dose onwards. The specific causes of this phenomenon are currently unknown, and the statistics do not indicate that it is a major public health problem, especially when compared with the millions of doses administered worldwide. However, an article published in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), the journal of the powerful U.S. medical association, notes that more cases of myocarditis and pericarditis are being detected than "expected" in young adults. The data "do not call into question" the benefits of mass vaccination, although they do provide "a point of concern," according to the study's authors.

Palmitic acid, one of the usual suspects in unhealthy diets, has just received a new witness that further undermines its presumption of innocence. If for some years it has been accused of being responsible for increasing cholesterol levels or having a negative impact on the onset of heart disease, now it is time to assess its role in cancer. And as it was suspected four years ago, it has been found that this acid, one of the major components of palm oil, triggers a mechanism that promotes the activity of metastatic cells and, therefore, the risk of generating distant tumors. In the same way, it induces a memory effect that makes its behaviour more aggressive. The research, led by ICREA researcher Salvador Aznar-Benitah, at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona, was published last Wednesday in the journal Nature.

This is not Krakatoa. This is not even Mount Teide, Mount Etna or Mount Vesuvius. At Cumbre Vieja, on the island of La Palma, what we have is a volcanic edifice in the making, about which there is still more uncertainty than certainty. However, if we take into account the geological history of the island, what science says and what the models predict, it is hardly possible to speak of such a catastrophic outcome as those that have been circulating these last few days on social networks, most of them without any scientific basis. There will not be a giant tsunami that will reach New York nor a toxic cloud that will cause a nuclear winter on the European continent. The catastrophists will have to wait for another event.

Three weeks from now, if everything goes according to plan, Cumbre Vieja, on the island of La Palma, will be a new geographical feature that will barely exceed a hundred metres in height. It will be the product of the eruption that started last Sunday at around 3.18 p.m GMT and which will most probably continue to expel pyroclastic material and gases for between 1 and 2 months. As the eruption loses intensity, the lava will end up sealing the vents and the crater of the volcanic cone which will appear. We will have to wait a couple of years for the earthquakes to stop completely, and it will not be until then that the ground temperature will be back to normal and wild vegetation will begin to naturally repopulate what the rivers of lava have turned into devastation and desolation. This is the geological rhythm that repeats itself in the Canary Islands, which are of volcanic origin and where the third largest volcano in the world, the Teide, stands.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had recently declared that SARS-CoV-2 was the virus causing a worldwide pandemic (March 11, 2020) when several teams of researchers warned that it was already circulating at least a year earlier. This is the case of the Barcelona sewage study, which placed the origin at least in March 2019; the high impact of covid-19 in lung cancer patients which placed it in September 2019 in Italy, or a late 2019 study in the United States which stated that the coronavirus was already "widely disseminated" long before it was formally detected. A final study, from France, placed its origin in November 2019 but with a single case. All four papers were trying to find whether the virus had spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan or, instead, had emerged in different parts of the world. With the passage of time, none of the four papers holds up.

It is only 15 months since the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection was declared a global pandemic. Although in science this period of time is usually considered very short, basic research has advanced fast enough to initiate a global vaccination campaign, advance in the knowledge of candidates for new drugs to fight the disease and identify risk factors that help determine which patients will evolve worse and, therefore, need more intense medical attention. Manel Esteller, Icrea researcher and director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), and Aurora Pujol, also an Icrea professor and head of the Neurometabolic Diseases Group at the Bellvitge biomedical campus, have added to the already known list the first epigenetic markers associated with the severity of the disease. The results of their research have been published today in EBiomedicine, The Lancet's sister publication for laboratory findings.

Machines, although it may be hard to believe, are subject to moral and ethical principles. And the more sophisticated they are, which implies more degrees of freedom and more autonomy, the higher the ethical component. This is the case of robots and artificial intelligence. To a large extent, whether these principles are respected depends on their programming, that is, on the algorithms that are created so that the machines perform the function for which they are designed. In other words, human intervention in their conception. The study of these ethical rules and principles, which goes far beyond what Isaac Asimov defined in 1950 as the fact that in no way could a robot harm a human, is called roboethics. A discipline that is growing with each passing day and that has algorithm programming at its core.

Officially, the first wave of covid-19 caused around 28,000 deaths across Spain. Could they have been avoided? A study led by the team of Àlex Arenas, ICREA professor of mathematics and computer engineering at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, reveals that decreeing total lockdown just a week earlier would have limited mortality to only 5,000 cases. On the other hand, if it had been decreed a week later, the total number of deaths could have shot up to 120,000. The time factor, Arenas says, "is key" when the only measures that can be applied to contain the pandemic are non-pharmacological and the incidence follows an exponential growth curve. In other words, lockdown came too late.

Antivirals, anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants. And oxygen administered in a variety of ways. And, of course, medical and nursing staff, as well as cleaning and other professionals. The formula is the same today as it was in March 2020, when the first wave of the pandemic began. However, there have been substantial changes that have drastically reduced mortality in ICUs and that make specialists look at the future with moderate optimism until the vaccine takes effect. The main one is the greater knowledge of the disease and its complications. The second is the improvement of care circuits. And the third, but no less important, is the availability of the necessary medical equipment.