In its latest retreat from India's crowded online retail market, Walmart-backed fintech giant PhonePe has wound down its Pincode e-commerce app and will shift the business toward B2B services for offline merchants. On Thursday, PhonePe founder and group CEO Sameer Nigam said operating a consumer-facing quick-commerce app had become a distraction from the company's core focus on small retailers. The company instead wants to concentrate on helping stores 'achieve operational efficiency, improved margins and visibility,' he said, citing this as its primary objective. PhonePe launched Pincode in April 2023 as a major push into e-commerce, building it on the Indian government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The hyperlocal app offered groceries, medicines, food, electronics, and home decor from neighborhood shops. It rolled out first in Bengaluru and later expanded to other cities. Within a little over a year of launch, Pincode pulled out of most categories except food. Earlier this year, the app shifted to a quick-commerce model, offering 10-minute deliveries through local kirana shops and retailers in cities such as Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune. The company also expanded the service to 10-minute medicine deliveries in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune in April....

The committee advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy voted on Dec. 5, 2025, to stop recommending that all newborns be routinely vaccinated against the hepatitis B virus ' undoing a 34-year prevention strategy that has nearly eliminated early childhood hepatitis B infections in the United States. Before the U.S. began vaccinating all infants at birth with the hepatitis B vaccine in 1991, around 18,000 children every year contracted the virus before their 10th birthday ' about half of them at birth. About 90% of that subset developed a chronic infection. I am a pediatrician and preventive medicine specialist who studies vaccine delivery and policy. Vaccinating babies for hepatitis B at birth remains one of the clearest, most evidence-based ways to keep American children free of this lifelong, deadly infection. In September 2025, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, an independent panel of experts that advises the CDC, debated changing the recommendation for a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, but ultimately delayed the vote....

Paula Hammond '84, PhD '93, an Institute Professor and MIT's executive vice provost, has been named dean of MIT's School of Engineering, effective Jan. 16. She will succeed Anantha Chandrakasan, the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, who was appointed MIT's provost in July. Hammond, who was head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 2015 to 2023, has also served as MIT's vice provost for faculty. She will be the first woman to hold the role of dean of MIT's School of Engineering. 'From the rigor and creativity of her scientific work to her outstanding record of service to the Institute, Paula Hammond represents the very best of MIT,' says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. 'Wise, thoughtful, down-to-earth, deeply curious, and steeped in MIT's culture and values, Paula will be a highly effective leader for the School of Engineering. I'm delighted she accepted this new challenge.' Hammond, who is also a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, has earned many accolades for her work developing polymers and nanomaterials that can be used for applications including drug delivery, regenerative medicine, noninvasive imaging, and battery technology....

An experimental vaccine protects genetically modified mice against severe allergic reactions for up to a year, according to research1 published today in Science Translational Medicine. Scientists say the findings show that vaccination is a promising approach for preventing allergic reactions. The vaccine targets an antibody called immunoglobulin E (IgE), which is bound to immune cells in the body's tissues and circulates in small amounts in the blood. Immune cells also produce IgE in response to proteins found on potential threats, including viruses, toxic substances and parasites such as worms and blood flukes (Schistosoma haematobium). The antibody tells the body to release histamine, which triggers symptoms such as coughing, wheezing and hives. It can also trigger a potentially fatal reaction called anaphylaxis, a widespread reaction across the body that can cause swelling of the tongue or throat, shock and difficulty breathing. In people with allergies, IgE is produced in response to proteins that do not usually cause harm, such as those found in peanuts, cat dander and other allergens....