Author: healthadmin
Dr. Donald Cohn has been developing gene therapies for rare immune diseases in children for more than 30 years. This week, his role in clinical trials culminated in the first-ever U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for severe leukocyte adhesion deficiency-I, a genetic disease characterized by recurrent infections and often early death. This rare childhood disease affects approximately 1 in 1 million children worldwide. Mutations in the ITGB2 gene disrupt the normal function of CD11 and CD18, two proteins that work together to help white blood cells reach and respond to infections. When this process is disrupted, children are susceptible…
Damon Runyon scientists and industry partners gathered on Tuesday, March 24, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the 2026 Cancer Care Advancement Research Symposium hosted by Amgen. Accelerated Cancer Cures (ACC) is a multi-million dollar collaborative project aimed at supporting a new generation of clinical researchers who translate the latest scientific discoveries into new diagnostics and treatments for patients. Founded in 2011 and led by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the initiative includes scientists from the nation’s top universities and research institutions, as well as participants from AbbVie, Amgen, ARIAD, Celgene, Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, Gilead, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, and…
Understanding gene expression within the body has been a boon for 21st century biology and therapeutics, but most discoveries using these techniques have focused only on one small region of one organ or tissue. At the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME), Assoc. Professor Nicolas Chevrier’s group has developed a new system for understanding how disease affects molecules, cells, tissues, and organs throughout the body. This is a major goal of both scientists and doctors. This interdisciplinary research was led by Maggie Clevenger, a staff scientist in the lab, and included several industry and academic collaborators.…
A team led by Dr. Kuan-lin Huang has been selected as the recipient of the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative’s $1 million Alzheimer’s Insight AI Award, announced on March 20. Dr. Huang is an associate professor of genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The award recognizes the development of Biomni-AD, an advanced AI-powered “collaborative scientist” designed to significantly reduce the time needed to generate scientific insights from complex biomedical data. The Mount Sinai team worked with partners at Stanford University on the winning project. Originally conceived as a single $1 million prize, the contest…
WASHINGTON – Food and Drug Administration officials briefed senators on the agency’s plans for 2026 food policy, according to people familiar with the meeting. The agency plans to focus on infant formula safety, updating food labels, defining ultra-processed foods, expanding inspections of food processing plants and strengthening seafood safety programs, according to a document shared with lawmakers and obtained by STAT. The meeting comes as the administration’s health agenda shifts from vaccine policy to food issues. Food reform is more popular than the vaccine agenda in recent polls, drawing the attention of administration officials looking to strengthen their message ahead…
Adding TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) to outpatient physical therapy reduced exercise-based pain and fatigue in patients with fibromyalgia, and the effects lasted for at least six months, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Iowa Health Care. The study, led by Dr. Kathleen Sulka PT, is the first real-world clinical trial of TENS for fibromyalgia. The findings were published March 27 in the journal JAMA network openshowing that TENS is a safe, effective, inexpensive, and readily available treatment for fibromyalgia, a chronic disease that causes pain, tenderness, and fatigue throughout the body. It…
Species around the world are becoming extinct at an accelerating rate due to climate change, habitat destruction, and the impact of invasive species. Many little-known groups, including marine worms, are particularly at risk, and some are facing extinction before scientists can identify them. To address this gap, researchers from the University of Göttingen, the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity and Change (LIB), and the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research are launching a major effort to document Europe’s “marine annelids” (segmented sea worms) and make the data openly available. The initiative aims to accelerate the discovery of new species…
Researchers have for the first time directly compared the physical and psychological effects of the psychoactive drug MDMA and its chemical cousin MDMA in human volunteers. Results show that MDA provides a longer-lasting treatment experience with more visual distortions and side effects. These results suggest that MDA may be less suitable than standard MDMA for therapeutic applications. The study was published in the journal neuropsychopharmacology. MDMA is a widely known synthetic compound that promotes strong emotions such as empathy, trust, and interpersonal relationships. To reliably induce these emotional states, medical professionals are studying this substance as a psychotherapeutic drug for…
One of the biggest challenges in cancer treatment is that the same treatment can be very effective for some patients and not at all effective for others. New research published in nature communicationsA research team led by Dr. Louise Fetz from the MRC Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) is taking a closer look at why this happens. The researchers focused on PARP inhibitors, a type of targeted cancer drug, and used advanced imaging tools to track how PARP inhibitors move through ovarian tumor samples. Their findings indicate that these drugs can accumulate within lysosomes, small structures within cells that act…
Recent research published in psychological report found that people who procrastinate frequently can set meaningful personal goals and imagine achieving them just as vividly as non-procrastinators. However, people who procrastinate frequently tend to have greater anxiety about failing, especially when it comes to short-term goals. These findings suggest that procrastination is less about the inability to imagine the future and more about managing the negative emotions associated with pursuing a goal. Procrastination is generally considered a failure of self-regulation. This occurs when you delay an important task even though you know that delay will have negative consequences. Past research has…