In the News
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May 19, 2026
A new drug nearing regulatory approval, daraxonrasib, is the first to substantially extend the lives of patients with pancreatic cancer. It works by targeting a smooth-surfaced protein inside cells, called KRAS, that researchers often describe as a “greasy ball,” seemingly impervious to assault. “Almost everybody thought that it was going to be impossible to make drugs against KRAS,” said Marina Pasca di Magliano, professor of surgery and cell and developmental biology.
The New York Times -
May 19, 2026
OpenEvidence, an AI-powered medical search tool, is now used by nearly two-thirds of physicians. “I know the right questions to ask OpenEvidence, and then I have to sort of pair whatever response that I get … with my clinical experience and intuition,” said Cornelius James, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and internal medicine. “I don’t feel concerned about patient safety, because for me, I feel enough of that need to check and double check, trust-but-verify mentality.”
NBC News -
May 18, 2026
“Managing a river system is really, really complex,” said Branko Kerkez, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Digital Water Lab. “When it rains, various (dam) operators are trying to do their best to make sure they’re releasing water in a way that works for their communities … It’s almost like trying to work together in an escape room where the lights are completely off. What the data allows you to do is to sort of give everybody a little flashlight to start solving that coordination challenge.”
WEMU Radio -
May 18, 2026
“If you plot AI capabilities over time, the slope of that line is steep and accelerating,” wrote Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, professor of management and organizations. “If you plot the slope of human learning about AI … that line is rising far more slowly, and the gap between those two slopes is widening. As long as it does, the average person trying to stay current isn’t falling behind because of any failure on their part. They’re falling behind because the math says they will.”
Fortune -
May 18, 2026
When people aren’t able to exercise in the exact way they want, they often do nothing instead, said behavioral scientist Michelle Segar of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She calls it the “perfect workout trap,” which can prevent people from getting started or maintaining a fitness routine. “I encourage an ‘all or something’ mindset,” in which any amount or intensity of physical activity is a win, she said.
The New York Times -
May 15, 2026
U-M generated $396 million in research-related spending nationwide last year, including $164 million for Michigan-based businesses. “Research funding doesn’t stay on campus. It ripples through the economy as investigators buy goods and services, build industry partnerships, and hire and train research teams,” said Jason Owen-Smith, executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science. Arthur Lupia, vice president for research and innovation, said, “Research universities like U-M are not only engines of discovery, they are also powerful drivers of economic opportunity across Michigan and beyond.”
MLive -
May 15, 2026
“The time has come that we need to be cautious, we need to verify every voice and any image or any video that we interact with,” said Khalid Malik, director of cybersecurity and professor of computer science at UM-Flint, about AI-generated media. “It’s become a lot more important than five years ago to act like a journalist, find out what the true source of it is, verify.”
WXYZ Detroit -
May 15, 2026
As inflation rates have climbed to their highest levels in three years, U.S. consumers are bracing themselves for “quite a bit of short-term pain,” said economist Joanne Hsu, director of the U-M Surveys of Consumers. “For the next 12 months, consumers are absolutely expecting those gas price increases to pass through to consumer-facing prices overall.”
Marketplace -
May 14, 2026
Sumit Agarwal, assistant professor of internal medicine and public health, and colleagues found a significant decrease in the number of Child Protective Services investigations in Flint after the implementation of Rx Kids, a prenatal and infant direct cash support program. “These results show that providing early economic support to families can make a real difference and should challenge us to rethink how we can proactively support families,” he said.
Michigan Advance -
May 14, 2026
A new study shows a growing number of “fabricated” research citations that do not reference real papers — and tools using generative AI are likely to blame. “Is AI making science more efficient, helping us do better work, or even the same work, but faster, or is it just creating slop?” said Misha Teplitskiy, assistant professor of information. “This is one of the first papers that’s telling us something about the quality of what’s being produced with (large language models), and it’s a signal of slop.”
STAT
