How a virtual cervix can save lives

Researchers have discovered eight new genes associated with schizophrenia, in the largest exome-sequencing study of the disorder ever conducted. The breakthrough, made by scientists at the Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) at Cardiff University, provides new information and improves the understanding and future treatment development for schizophrenia.

When you see something—a tree in your backyard, say, or the toy your toddler hands you—that visual information travels from your retinas to your brain. And like a train stopping at stations along its route, the information pauses at particular regions of the brain where it's processed and sent along to its next location.

A new study, led by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), identified tiny pieces of messenger RNA that are missing in pediatric high-grade glioma tumors but not in normal brain tissues. Preclinical research indicates that these missing RNA fragments can make difficult-to-treat tumors more responsive to immunotherapy. The findings were recently published in the journal Cell Reports.

A review published in the journal JAMA highlights innovative strategies to slow the biological aging process, an emerging approach with significant potential to prevent or delay multiple chronic diseases at once, one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine today.

When bones break and there is extreme tissue loss—such as after a car accident or a battlefield injury—current treatments don't often lead to effective healing. But certain stem cells from skeletal muscles can improve recovery by producing all the types of cells needed to heal bones, according to a study co-led by scientists at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that affects millions worldwide and can have a devastating impact on patients' lives. Yet, about one in three patients respond poorly to existing treatments.

Using longitudinal qualitative methods, the study looked at the care pathways for women who are dependent on drugs perinatally. The paper focuses on women's experiences of care prenatally, and highlights their anxiety concerning social work referrals and the potential loss of their babies to the care system.

Small, preclinical studies on breast tissue suggest the pill mifepristone shows promise for reducing the risk of breast cancer, however the use of mifepristone for medical abortion has created barriers for developing it for other purposes. This finding is highlighted in a Viewpoint published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynecology, & Women's Health.

A first of its kind study, led by researchers at Imperial College London, UCL and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), looked at suicide trends in England from 2002 to 2022 combined with the influence of local socio-environmental factors on risk.

Preterm babies with very low birth weight who received a probiotic alongside antibiotics had fewer multidrug resistant bacteria and a more typical gut microbiome, a new study shows.

Neurons in the gut produce a molecule that plays a pivotal role in shaping the gut's immune response during and after inflammation, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The findings suggest that targeting these neurons and the molecules they produce could open the door to new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease and other disorders driven by gut inflammation.

University of Manchester scientists have mapped the mutations in the tiny protein chains that cause a subtype of muscular dystrophy. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study provides a major insight into the muscular dystrophy subtype known collectively as Collagen VI-related dystrophy—or COL6-RD for short.

Patients in a Phase I/II clinical trial conducted by UMass Chan Medical School of a dual vector gene therapy for GM2 gangliosidosis, which includes Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases, exhibited a biochemical correction of the disease with minimal adverse reactions.

Hospitals, clinics, universities and other health-focused organizations routinely collect data on everything from spinal scans to sleep study results—but much of that valuable intelligence stays tucked away in-house.

A fading sense of smell can be one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease even before cognitive impairments manifest. Research by scientists at DZNE and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) sheds new light on this phenomenon, pointing to a significant role for the brain's immune response, which seems to fatally attack neuronal fibers crucial for the perception of odors.

A Medical University of South Carolina team reports in Frontiers in Immunology that it has engineered a new type of genetically modified immune cell that can precisely target and neutralize antibody-producing cells complicit in organ rejection.

New research from the Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney has uncovered a new biological pathway that may help explain why people with type 2 diabetes are more prone to developing dangerous blood clots, potentially paving the way for future treatments that reduce their cardiovascular risk.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have built a cancer therapy that makes bacteria and viruses work as a team. In a study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the Synthetic Biological Systems Lab shows how their system hides a virus inside a tumor-seeking bacterium, smuggles it past the immune system, and unleashes it inside cancerous tumors.