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Therapies that target these proteins could help clear toxic plaques in patients with the disease, researchers say.

Jon Cohen and Martin Enserink, veteran reporters for the journal Science, have won the American Society for Microbiology’s 2012 Public Communications Award for their in-depth article on a controversial study that linked a mouse retrovirus, XMRV, to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

In October 2009, a Science report that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) were infected with XMRV attracted a great deal of attention, but subsequent studies could not confirm this finding. Now, a new study in the 22 September edition of ScienceExpress reports that the lab tests used to detect the retrovirus called XMRV in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are unreliable. The study is accompanied by a partial retraction of the original Science paper.

A microchip can capture and take snapshots of rare cancer cells circulating in the blood, which may provide a way to monitor patients after tumor removal and could eventually guide treatment, reports a new study in Science Translational Medicine. These circulating tumor cells, though small in number, might be an important marker that can help doctors quickly spot any changes in cancer progression and determine whether or not a particular treatment is working.