Health

Kidney transplantation remains the most effective treatment for end-stage kidney disease, yet a severe shortage of donor organs continues to limit access for millions of patients worldwide. With demand for kidney transplants expected to reach 5 million patients by 2030 and only a fraction of that need currently being met, researchers are exploring innovative approaches to generate transplantable organs.

Skin is our protective barrier from the outside world, and it is highly susceptible to damage. To prevent infection, restore protective skin cells, and reduce scarring, it is essential to quickly and robustly close a wound. A new study, published in Advanced Science, shows that a multi-axis stretchable wound zipper (MSWZ) is effective in closing complex wounds quickly, improving wound healing. The MSWZ uses programmable force that can be personalized via mobile application, enhancing patient comfort and compliance.

Daniel Daneshvar, MD, Ph.D., director of the HealthSpan Lab and Chief of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Mass General Brigham, and Charlotte Luster, of the HealthSpan Lab, are the senior and lead authors of a paper published in Neuroepidemiology, "Brain Cancer Mortality following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): A TBI Model Systems Study."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved bemotrizinol (BEMT) for use in over-the-counter sunscreen products.

Xabi Martinez-Mendia, a researcher at the EHU-University of the Basque Country, has analyzed how adolescent psychotropic drug consumption is linked to gender inequality and economic factors in 32 European countries. Published in the European Journal of Public Health, the results indicate that overall consumption of psychotropic drugs is on the rise in countries with greater gender and economic parity, whereas in countries with lower parity, these drugs are consumed proportionally more by girls, and the gender gap is wider.

The race to complete the human pangenome—which comprises all genetic information across the human species—has been underway since 2022, when the first complete reference human genome sequence was released by the international Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium. Now, a team led by scientists at the Research Organization of Information and Systems has made a significant contribution to a more complete understanding of human genetics with 20 near-complete variant groups located in disease- and immune-related regions from 10 Japanese men.

A new review published in Calcified Tissue International highlights major advances in understanding and preventing bone loss in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), showing that modern antirheumatic therapies can significantly reduce local and generalized bone loss in RA.

Researchers at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, together with Newcastle University's Translational and Clinical Research Institute and the Department of Immunology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, have identified an important driver of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This discovery reshapes understanding of IBD and opens the way to targeted approaches to diagnosis and treatment in a subset of patients. The findings suggest that inflammatory bowel disease is not a single condition, but a group of biologically distinct diseases driven by different underlying mechanisms.

A new study identified protein targets and drug candidates, including opportunities to repurpose existing drugs. Six key proteins were highlighted as potentially providing new insights and supporting future treatment development for progressive multiple sclerosis (MS).

Picky eating is a challenge most parents are familiar with, but for parents of autistic children, severe selective eating can lead to nutritional deficiencies and place tremendous stress on the family. However, a new study from Constructor University Ph.D. candidate Sofya Bajaa has demonstrated a transformative new approach to treating severe selective eating in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Bajaa's newly developed Schmetterling Nutritional Behavior Intervention (NBI) program achieved dramatic improvements in dietary variety and nutritional intake over just 10 weeks.

One of the most detailed maps to date of meningioma—the most common brain tumor in adults—reveals how the tumor's surrounding environment helps drive disease behavior and patient outcomes, according to new research from Mayo Clinic.

Psychiatrists have long treated depression using transcranial magnetic stimulation—noninvasive magnetic pulses that stimulate neurons. Now, new research is allowing them to fine-tune their approach, potentially targeting specific symptoms and opening new possibilities for precision care.

In 2020, Jennifer Doudna won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her work on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology that allows scientists to precisely modify DNA by cutting it at specific locations. Six years later, a new study in Nature by a team led by Doudna has uncovered a powerful new approach to selectively kill cancer cells using a CRISPR enzyme called Cas12a2.

For years, treatment of older patients with acute myeloid leukemia—an aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow—has required injections administered in a clinic for five to seven consecutive days each month, in addition to an oral pill. For these older patients, that clinic cadence can be quite intensive.

Some people taking GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and obesity experience mental health benefits—particularly a decrease in symptoms of depression. In a mouse model study published in Cell Host & Microbe, researchers report that these mental health improvements appear to result from changes in the gut microbiome that lead to an abundance of a microbial strain known to have a favorable effect on neurons related to stress.