Editor’s Note: Siddhartha Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine whose first book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, won a Pulitzer Prize.

Genetically modified microbes release “nanobodies” that alert the immune system to cancer in mice, Columbia University medical researchers report.

Columbia researchers have found a way to detect “covert consciousness” that could aid the recovery of people with severe brain injuries.

“We’ve gone from not knowing anything about the condition to knowing they really are sick,” said Armin Alaedini, an immunologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University.