In a controlled hotel-room study with five influenza patients and 11 healthy volunteers, close face-to-face contact did not result in transmission, likely due to limited coughing, rapid mixing and dilution of airborne virus, and possibly age-related protection; the findings underscore ventilation, air movement, and masking as effective defenses against indoor flu spread and could inform infection-control guidelines.
The article showcases a collection of 57 striking and sometimes unsettling medical images and stories that highlight the complexity, resilience, and mysteries of the human body, from rare conditions and remarkable recoveries to advances in medical technology and ongoing scientific questions.
The article introduces SleepFM, a large-scale foundation model trained on over 585,000 hours of sleep data from 65,000+ participants, which captures complex sleep physiology across multiple modalities and demonstrates strong predictive power for a wide range of diseases, outperforming traditional models and showing robust generalization across datasets and time.
Dr Asif Munaf, a former contestant on The Apprentice, is accused of posting antisemitic, racist, and sexist comments on social media, including Holocaust denial and racial slurs, leading to a medical misconduct tribunal. He denies the antisemitic allegations and is also accused of professional misconduct, such as leaving a locum placement without notice and providing a sick note while suspended.
Scientists at Stanford have developed a treatment that inhibits the age-related protein 15-PGDH, leading to the regeneration of knee cartilage and prevention of arthritis in mice, with promising results in human tissue, potentially offering a non-surgical option for joint repair.
Despite political challenges, 2025 saw significant medical advances including a groundbreaking gene edit for a baby, approval of 44 new drugs, progress in cancer treatments, improved vaccines, and innovative biotech research, highlighting biology's pivotal role in this century of medicine.
A redesigned CD40 antibody drug, tested in a small clinical trial, has shown promising results by shrinking or eliminating tumors in some patients with metastatic cancers, with fewer side effects than previous versions, and appears to activate a systemic immune response.
Scientists have discovered that in colorectal cancer, two subtypes of regulatory T cells play opposing roles, with one subtype helping to restrain tumor growth and the other promoting it. This finding could lead to more targeted immunotherapies that selectively eliminate harmful Tregs, improving outcomes for patients.
The article discusses how inactivation of p53 promotes breast cancer metastasis to the brain by upregulating SCD1 and enhancing fatty acid metabolism, highlighting potential molecular targets for therapy.
The article summarizes the major health and science stories of 2025, highlighting political impacts on research, biotech industry shifts, debunking vaccine myths, advancements in cancer and longevity research, and notable figures in the field, all amidst a backdrop of industry upheavals and innovative discoveries.
Eli Lilly's new obesity pill helps patients maintain weight loss after switching from injections like Wegovy and Zepbound, with promising trial results suggesting it could serve as a needle-free long-term treatment option, potentially capturing significant market share in the growing weight loss drug industry.
The study presents a novel approach to counteract immune decline in aging by using mRNA delivered to the liver to produce key immune factors (DLL1, FLT3-L, IL-7), which rejuvenates T cell production, enhances vaccine responses, and improves tumor immunotherapy efficacy in aged mice, without adverse effects or autoimmunity.
A study in mice reveals that fasting enhances breast cancer treatment by affecting hormone signaling pathways and gene expression, potentially improving therapy outcomes and delaying resistance.
The BC-APPS1 study demonstrates that 12 weeks of ulipristal acetate, an anti-progestin, reduces breast epithelial proliferation, luminal progenitor cell activity, and mammographic density in women at increased breast cancer risk, partly by remodeling the extracellular matrix and decreasing tissue stiffness, suggesting potential for breast cancer prevention.
Researchers in Brazil have discovered a molecule in Amazonian scorpion venom that shows promise as a new breast cancer treatment, similar to existing chemotherapy drugs, and are exploring its potential through heterologous expression and further studies. The article also highlights advances in biopharmaceuticals, cancer diagnostics, and immunotherapy from Brazilian research institutions.
