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The article focuses on a biological computer that diagnoses and treats cancer. In 1999, Ehud Shapiro, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, suggested a design for a computer built out of carefully engineered biological molecules. Two years later Shapiro, together with a team of other scientists from the Weizmann Institute, built it. It was made of DNA. Now, Shapiro and his colleagues have taken their research one step further by showing how such work might be useful. This week they claim, in an online paper in "Nature," that they have programmed a biological computer to diagnose and treat cancer. What the team have built is known as a Turing machine, a notional type of computer first proposed in 1936 by Alan Turing. This British mathematician imagined a general-purpose computer that worked by manipulating a paper tape divided into cells. Shapiro's computer diagnoses an imbalance that indicates the presence of prostate cancer. After diagnosis it releases short strands of DNA designed to kill these cancer cells. Shapiro's team is interested in applications where direct processing of biological information is needed--such as medicine.

The article presents information about China's research and treatments with stem cells. A study by Halla Thorsteinsdottir of the McLaughlin Rotman Centre for global Health has found that China is the fifth largest source of stem cell research papers in the world. The study also found that, even though there are many fraudulent practices in this field in China, there are also many properly conducted clinical trials using stem cells for heart-muscle damage, liver disease, and other conditions.