Vitamin D supplements protect against acute respiratory infections including colds and flu, according to a study led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). The study provides the most robust evidence yet that vitamin D has benefits beyond bone and muscle health, and could have major implications for public health policy, including the fortification of foods with vitamin D to tackle high levels of deficiency in the UK.

Medical researchers and IBM (NYSE: IBM) are asking the public's help in finding prospective treatments for childhood cancers, the top worldwide cause of death by disease for children. Scientists are searching for chemical drug candidates that can affect the key molecules and proteins that control cancer cells in several common childhood cancers. However, finding drug candidates is an expensive and slow process.

Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) present a new method that should enable controlled drug delivery into the bloodstream using DNA computers. In the journal Nature Communications the team, led by biomedical engineer Maarten Merkx, describes how it has developed the first DNA computer capable of detecting several antibodies in the blood and performing subsequent calculations based on this input.

Scientists at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have mapped a vast spider web of interactions between proteins in lung cancer cells, as part of an effort to reach what was considered "undruggable." This approach revealed new ways to target cells carrying mutations in cancer-causing genes.

Fresh insights into how immune cells are regulated could signal a new approach to tackling infections. Researchers have found that oxygen levels in the body can profoundly change the way immune cells behave. Scientists say the findings pave the way for new therapies that target the immune response to infection, with the potential to boost existing antibiotic treatments.

By hijacking a cancer cell's own metabolism, researchers have found a way to tag and target elusive cancers with small-molecule sugars. This opens treatment pathways for cancers that are not responsive to conventional targeted antibodies, such as triple-negative breast cancer.

There's a multi-billion-dollar industry devoted to products that fight signs of aging, but moisturizers only go skin deep. Aging occurs deeper - at a cellular level - and scientists have found that eating less can slow this cellular process. Recent research published in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics offers one glimpse into how cutting calories impacts aging inside a cell. The researchers found that when ribosomes - the cell's protein makers - slow down, the aging process slows too.