Author: healthadmin

Even with today’s advanced DNA sequencing technology, the underlying genetic causes of many rare movement disorders remain unknown. German researchers have discovered an important new clue. Scientists identified a deleterious mutation in a gene called CD99L2 as the cause of X-linked spastic ataxia after analyzing 2,811 people with ataxia, hereditary spastic paraplegia, and dystonia. This discovery is nature communicationscan help explain previously unresolved neurological diseases and provide new insights into how certain neurodegenerative diseases develop. Researchers link CD99L2 to rare neurological disease Prior to this study, CD99L2 was primarily recognized for its role in the immune system. The neurological function…

Fentanyl has become one of the most deadly drugs in the United States. Each year, fentanyl and related synthetic opioids cause more deaths than car crashes and gun violence combined. In high doses, these drugs can disrupt normal brain function and suppress signals that control breathing, often leading to fatal overdose. Medications can reverse an overdose, but must be given quickly to be effective. Researchers at Scripps Research are now exploring an entirely different strategy. They developed an experimental vaccine designed to stop fentanyl from reaching the brain in the first place, rather than treating it after an overdose has…

Southampton Solent University students are set to graduate having already secured two jobs in the ambulance service and providing trauma simulation training for the British Armed Forces. Image credit: Southampton Solent University Final year BA (Hons) Prosthetics and Orthotics and Special Effects Design student Katie Upton has spent the past year building a career in one of the industry’s most niche and specialized fields. Her specialty is moulage, which creates realistic simulated wounds and trauma for medical training. Although this is widely used in professional medical education, Katie discovered that it was practiced informally in many ambulance services in the…

Astronomers say a new study confirms that the universe is still expanding at an accelerating rate, resolving a recent challenge to one of the most important discoveries in modern cosmology. The debate began in late 2025, when a group of astronomers published research suggesting that evidence for dark energy, a mysterious phenomenon thought to be driving the accelerated expansion of the universe, was weakening. Their analysis raises the possibility that the expansion of the universe is no longer accelerating. The researchers argued that the standard approach of measuring the expansion of the universe using supernovae, the explosive deaths of stars,…

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) has revolutionized prenatal diagnosis by allowing the detection of many genetic problems in the fetus, but it currently has limitations and therefore misses many genetic causes of abnormalities. But new technology being presented today (Saturday) at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Genetics, called non-invasive fetal sequencing (NIFS), will simultaneously screen for almost 23,000 genes and all the conditions currently captured by NIPT, regardless of the presence or absence of previously detected fetal abnormalities. Christopher Whelan, a senior computational scientist working in the lab of Dr. Michael Tarkowski at the Massachusetts Institute of…

Women with HIV most often die from preventable trauma-related conditions, such as drug use or mental illness, rather than the virus itself. But these leading causes are largely missing from official death records, according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco. This study is the first to compare death certificates with causes of death determined by doctors, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists who knew them. Although HIV was listed as the cause of death in 68% of cases, health care providers found that it was involved in only 15% of cases. Meanwhile, health care providers identified…

Anticancer drugs can shrink rapidly growing tumors. However, sometimes a small number of tumor cells survive. These “persistent” cells seed new tumors and force cancer patients into difficult cycles of testing and treatment. The problem is that persistent cells are rare, making up about 1 in 1,000 tumor cells, and they are difficult to find because they are genetically identical to the tumor. Moreover, their tenacity may be temporary, and by the time scientists can transfer them to petri dishes, the properties that helped them survive may have faded. To find a way to overcome them, researchers at the University…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the immunotherapy pembrolizumab and the HIF-2α inhibitor velzutifan as adjuvant therapy for adult patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) who are at intermediate to high risk of recurrence after nephrectomy, with or without resection of metastatic disease. This approval is based on results from the Phase 3 LITESPARK-022 trial led by Toni Choeiri, MD, director of the Lanc Genitourinary Oncology Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This approval establishes this combination of pembrolizumab and belzutifan as a new adjuvant treatment option for patients with ccRCC who are at high risk…

Malcolm Brenner, an internationally recognized physician-scientist known for his leadership in cell and gene therapy, has been named director of the newly created Houston Methodist Cell and Gene Therapy Center. The center will bring together scientists and clinicians from Houston Methodist’s academic research and clinical care settings to discover and advance new treatments for a wide range of diseases. Its collaborative approach integrates expertise across disciplines and accelerates the translation of promising preclinical discoveries into clinical evaluation. The center will also support the development of both gene and cell therapies designed to address congenital and acquired diseases throughout the body.…

For many people who suffer from depression, the condition means more than just feeling down, it also means a loss of motivation and difficulty finding enjoyment in activities they used to enjoy. A study conducted at Lund University and the Skåne region in Sweden shows that a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease can be used as an add-on therapy to reduce symptoms in some patients with treatment-resistant depression.This research natural medicine. Researchers from Lund University and the Skåne Region Psychiatric Service have identified a potential new treatment for symptoms associated with depression, which involve a reduced ability to feel…