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Every biological process is highly dependent on temperature. This applies to the very small, the very large, and every scale in between, from molecules to ecosystems and in every environment. A general theory explaining how life depends on temperature is lacking — until recently. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Jose Ignacio Arroyo, a Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, introduce a simple framework that strictly predicts how temperature affects living things, at all scales. “This is very basic,” says SFI External Professor Pablo Marquet, an ecologist at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile, in Santiago. Marquet, Ph.D. thesis advisor, is also working on the model. “You can apply this to almost any process that is affected by temperature. We hope this will be an important contribution.” Marquet noted that such a theory could help researchers make accurate predictions in a variety of areas, including biologica

A new general theory for temperature dependence in biology developed by the Santa Fe Institute could help researchers make accurate predictions in a variety of fields, including biological responses to climate change, the spread of infectious diseases, and food production. Credits: Dall-E / Katie Mast Every biological process is highly dependent on temperature. This applies to the very small, the very large, and every scale in between, from molecules to ecosystems and in every environment. A general theory explaining how life depends on temperature is lacking—until now. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Jose Ignacio Arroyo, a Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, introduced a simple framework that rigorously predicts how temperature affects living things, at all scales. “It’s very basic,” said SFI External Professor Pablo Marquet, an ecologist at the Pontifica Universidad Cat

Immunotherapy, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, has changed the treatment of advanced cancers. Unlike chemotherapy which kills cancer cells, these drugs help the immune system to find and destroy the cancer cells themselves. Unfortunately, only a subset of patients respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors in the long term; and these treatments can be expensive and with side effects. Researchers have developed a two-step approach using whole-exome sequencing to target genes and pathways that predict whether cancer patients will respond to immunotherapy. Studies published in Nature Communication and conducted by researchers at New York University, Weill Cornell Medicine, and the New York Genome Center, illustrates how using whole-exome sequencing can better predict treatment response than current laboratory tests. “Can we better predict who will benefit from immunotherapy? Scientists have developed a variety of biomarkers that help anticipate immunotherapy treatment responses, b