Pakistan continues to be dealing with a polio outbreak as four fresh cases have emerged, pushing the national tally to 37 this year, according to health officials on October 19, 2024. Health officials said that the regional reference laboratory for polio eradication at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad confirmed wild poliovirus type-1 (WPV1) in two children-one from each Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

In recent cases, a girl has been affected from Pishin, and two boys from Chaman and Noshki of Balochistan, and a girl from Lakki Marwat in KP. These are the first detections of the virus within Noshki and Lakki Marwat this year; isolated cases of poliovirus were previously reported within Chaman and Pishin. The province of Balochistan was the worst hit with 20 cases, Sindh had 10, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had five, and Punjab and Islamabad had one case each.

A gigantic fight against polio has been on going in Pakistan- especially in Balochistan and southern KP-over the last two years. Immunisation campaigns have often been suspended or delayed because of local protests, insecurity, and community boycotts. Consequently, quite a number of children did not get the necessary vaccinations, making existing patches of vulnerability for the virus to flow within those pockets.

Noshki, located near Afghanistan's border, and Lakki Marwat have also recently reported some positive environmental samples that confirm the virus is present here, said a local reference laboratory official. Samples of latest cases are currently under genetic sequencing for checking spread of virus and origin.

As the threat of polio continues to grow, Pakistan has vowed to mount a nationwide campaign against it beginning from October 28. With the zeal to tackle the menace in the most effective manner, over 45 million children under the age of five will be vaccinated across the country.

Today, Afghanistan and Pakistan remain one of the few countries where polio has not yet been eradicated. The WHO said the virus remains a potential serious public health threat in areas with low vaccination coverage and weak surveillance.

India On Alert Against Polio

The country declared itself polio-free since 2014 and has kept the disease on bay almost a decade with very robust vaccination programs; however, two cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus cases reported in recent days from Meghalaya create some amount of doubts over a possible resurgence. Experts observe that in India, despite these detections taking place, strong coverage of vaccination at 90-95% and mandatory surveillance measures keep the risk of this widespread outbreak at bay.

The experts point out, however, that such stable situation in India requires continued surveillance. "Countries like Pakistan and parts of Africa remain at a high risk because vaccination rates in those areas are much lower," Dr. Siddharth, public health expert, said. Vaccination is an indispensable act in order to avoid the spread of this incapacitating disease that manifests most importantly as a nervous system affliction leading to the paralysis of a long period.

With concerted efforts from health authorities, there is hope someday that the scourge of polio will be completely eradicated from the face of the earth and future generations will never suffer from its effects.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed restricting the manufacture and sale of analogue dairy products as “paneer.”

The draft Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Amendment Regulations, 2026, seeks to amend the 2011 regulations to specifically include “paneer made of constituents not derived from milk” among products whose sale would be restricted.

The move aims to prevent consumers from being misled about the nature and composition of such products and comes amid concerns over spurious dairy products.

What Does The Proposed Rule Say?

The proposed amendment seeks to insert a new clause under Regulation 2.1.1 of the existing regulations covering “paneer made of constituents not derived from milk.”

Products made using paneer or cheese analogues would therefore have to be clearly identified to consumers.

“Products already licensed or registered under the ‘Analogue in Dairy Context’ category would be required to discontinue the use of the term ‘Paneer’ in their nomenclature, labelling or marketing,” FSSAI said.

“The proposed amendment is aimed at ensuring that the nomenclature and presentation of food products accurately reflect their nature and composition, thereby enabling consumers to make informed choices,” the food regulator added.

Since this is a draft regulation, FSSAI has invited objections and suggestions from stakeholders and members of the public.

The draft will be considered after 60 days, and the submissions received during this period will be considered before the proposed amendment is finalised.

Who Will Be Affected?

The proposed amendment would affect food business operators, including hotels, restaurants and catering services, that use substitutes for traditional dairy-based paneer or cheese products.

FSSAI said businesses using such products would need to prominently disclose this information at consumer touchpoints, including menu cards and packaging labels, in accordance with the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations.

In August, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh banned the manufacture and sale of non-dairy paneer, commonly referred to as analogue paneer or analogue cottage cheese.

Dairy Paneer Vs Analogue Paneer

Traditional paneer is a fresh, soft, non-melting cheese commonly used in Indian cuisine. It is made by curdling milk with acidic ingredients such as lemon juice, vinegar or citric acid, followed by separation of the curds from the whey. The curds are then drained and pressed to remove excess water.

Analogue paneer, on the other hand, is made using non-dairy ingredients such as vegetable fats or oils and starches instead of milk fat.

Under FSSAI regulations:

• Paneer must be made from milk.
• Products containing non-dairy ingredients cannot be presented as conventional paneer.
• Analogue products must be appropriately identified so consumers are aware of their nature and composition.

How Can Consumers Check The Product?

Consumers can start by checking the product label and menu description.

• Read the label: Look for terms such as “analogue” or “imitation” where applicable.
• Check the ingredients: Look for non-dairy fats, vegetable oils, starches or other substitutes.
• Check the product description: At restaurants and other food-service establishments, consumers can ask whether the paneer being served is dairy-based or an analogue product.

Home tests sometimes promoted online, including iodine or toor dal tests, should not be treated as definitive methods for identifying adulterated paneer. Laboratory testing is required to establish the composition of a food product reliably.

A blood test that could detect for signs of multiple cancers at the same time could soon becoming a reality in the cancer-screening space.

But while the outcome of the trial is promising, we can’t help but wonder if the blood test could actually replace existing cancer screening tests.

New research published in Nature Medicine show that a multicancer early detection (MCED) test identified cancer signals across 17 cancer types, including ovarian, lung, breast and colorectal cancers.

The prospective PATHFINDER 2 study followed 35,878 adults aged 50 and above.

So, could a single blood test eventually mean fewer mammograms, colonoscopies, or other routine screening tests? The answer to that question is multi-faceted.

How Does A Multicancer Blood Test Work?

Unlike a conventional blood test that measures things such as blood sugar or cholesterol, an MCED test looks for biological signals released by cancer cells into the bloodstream.

It means that one blood sample could potentially look for several cancers at once, including cancers for which there is currently no recommended population screening test.

About The New Study

Also read: US Cancer Death Rates Fall For Men, Women: Lung Cancer Progress Drives Decline

In PATHFINDER 2, researchers studied more than 35,000 adults aged 50 and older. The test detected signals across 17 broad cancer types, including cancers of the lung, breast, ovary and colon.

But detecting a cancer signal is not the same as diagnosing cancer.

A positive result has to be followed by diagnostic tests such as imaging, endoscopy or biopsy to determine whether cancer is actually present.

The study also poses a different challenge. If a person receives a negative result, it does not mean they don’t have cancer.

Can It Replace Mammograms Or Colonoscopies?

Also read: Urine & Vaginal Samples May Help Detect Womb Cancer: Lancet Study Suggests Less Invasive Way To Triage Patients

This is something healthcare providers and patients may wonder if MCED test receives a green light.

The manufacturer says the test is intended to complement, not replace, established screening such as mammograms and colonoscopies.

In the large NHS-Galleri randomized trial, adding the blood test to usual care did not reduce the incidence of stage III or IV cancers, the study's primary endpoint.

In performance analyses, sensitivity for all cancers ranged from about 27% to 37% across screening rounds.

That means the test can miss cancers, particularly when they are at an early stage.

Promising But There’s A Catch

The biggest promise of multicancer testing is that it could identify cancers that currently have no routine screening programme, using a relatively simple and non-invasive blood draw.

But the biggest challenge is proving that finding those cancers earlier actually helps people live longer.

A positive result can lead to scans, biopsies and anxiety when cancer is ultimately not found. A negative result could also create false reassurance and risks of delayed treatment.

So does finding cancer this way, early enough and accurately enough, actually change outcomes? That is what will ultimately determine whether multicancer blood tests become a truly valuable screening tool.

AI company Anthropic’s chatbot Claude has discovered a novel enzyme system with properties resembling CRISPR, a gene-editing technology.

The finding comes from Anthropic’s new life sciences research group and laboratory, established earlier this year to use Claude to explore DNA datasets, identify uncharacterized protein families and generate hypotheses for laboratory testing.

Anthropic said Claude autonomously identified an enzyme system associated with an array of DNA repeats, a pattern similar to CRISPR.

“Although we don’t yet know its function, the system that Claude discovered has a set of characteristics that have only ever been found together in a handful of other systems, all of which are programmable and perform operations like cutting, copying, and pasting DNA,” the company said in a blog post.

What Is The Enzyme System?

The system is based on reverse transcriptase (RT), an enzyme that copies RNA into DNA. Anthropic said Claude was the first to identify the combination of features defining the system, which researchers named array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART).

ART was identified in bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, according to a preprint.

“These findings indicate that LLMs can autonomously detect anomalies and drive analyses to initiate biological discoveries,” the researchers said.

“This is an exciting example of how AI agents can contribute to biological discovery. The identification of RNA-repeat arrays associated with reverse transcriptases is genuinely intriguing and merits further investigation. I hope this work encourages more scientists to explore how AI can support their research,” said Feng Zhang, a CRISPR pioneer and professor at MIT and the Broad Institute, after reviewing the preprint.

How Claude Found ART

Anthropic researchers prompted Claude to search a massive DNA database for unusual reverse transcriptases.

After 21 hours of searching by roughly 950 agents using 210 million tokens, one agent identified a repeating DNA sequence next to the gene for an unusual RT.

Further analysis and laboratory testing showed that the pattern marked a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophages. Anthropic said research into ART’s function is ongoing.

What Are The Implications For Gene Editing?

It is too early to know whether ART can become a gene-editing tool, and researchers have not yet established what ART does or whether it can be programmed to make precise changes to DNA.

If future research shows that ART can recognize or manipulate specific genetic sequences, it could potentially offer another system for studying gene editing.

Its properties could also reveal new ways biological systems recognize, copy or modify genetic material, potentially leading to tools with capabilities different from existing CRISPR technologies.

For now, the key finding is that AI helped identify a previously uncharacterized biological system that can now be studied experimentally.

How AI Is Changing Gene-Editing Research

AI is increasingly being used in gene-editing research. In 2025, Stanford Medicine researchers reported CRISPR-GPT, an AI system designed to assist with gene-editing workflows, including generating designs, analyzing data and troubleshooting problems.

While CRISPR-GPT helps researchers use existing gene-editing tools, Claude’s latest discovery involves identifying a previously uncharacterized biological system.

The findings highlight a potential new role for AI in biology: helping researchers discover biological systems that could eventually become new research tools.