☤ Medicine Press Releases

UCLA Health will host its first-ever Brain Health Summit on March 20-21, bringing together leading scientists, policymakers, philanthropists and community advocates from across the country to address one of the most pressing and underfunded challenges in public health. Disorders affecting the brain and nervous system — from neurological, neurodevelopmental, and mental health conditions — impact more than 180 million Americans and are the leading cause of disability in the country, according to a 2025 study published in JAMA Neurology. Yet federal neuroscience research funding has seen significant 2023, leaving scientists, ...

Melbourne, Australia [18 March 2026] – For 15 years, the Gilead Australia Medical Fellowships have supported Australian led clinical research focused on generating evidence to support improved patient outcomes in real world healthcare settings. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than $4 million* to Australian led research initiatives,  focusing on strengthening models of care, addressing unmet medical needs, and reducing barriers to diagnosis and treatment across communities throughout Australia. The Fellowships support research projects across priority disease areas including HIV, chronic viral hepatitis, ...

The combined Mediterranean and blood pressure lowering diet (MIND) may slow the structural changes related to brain ageing, finds research published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.    This diet is associated with less tissue loss over time, especially grey matter—the brain’s information processing hub, with a key role in memory, learning, and decision-making—and less ventricular enlargement, which reflects brain atrophy, where tissue loss is accompanied ...

Detection of a bowel cancer marker (CDH1) in wastewater may offer a new community level early warning system for the disease, suggests a proof of concept study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.   Wastewater surveillance could complement traditional screening methods and could help target areas for cost-effective, practical community screening, particularly amid rising rates of the disease among young people, say the researchers.   In the USA alone, there are an estimated 154,000+ new cases of bowel cancer every year, making this the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of ...

A new study has found that biochar made from agricultural waste such as chestnut shells and vine prunings could help deliver beneficial compounds more effectively in animal feed, offering a promising alternative to antibiotics in livestock production. The research, published in Biochar, explores how biochar can act as a carrier for lysozyme, a natural antimicrobial enzyme commonly found in egg whites. Scientists developed a simple and environmentally friendly method to attach lysozyme onto biochar particles and tested how well the system works under conditions ...

A two-drug combination frequently used in anti-aging research causes brain damage in mice, University of Connecticut researchers report in the March 16 issue of PNAS. The findings should make doctors cautious about prescribing the drug combo prophylactically, but also suggest new ways to understand multiple sclerosis. “When you administer this cocktail to an animal, young or old, the myelin is damaged, which makes it disappear. Even worse in the young animals” than in the aged ones, says UConn School of Medicine immunologist ...

Exercise science assistant professor Elizabeth Adams is using her expertise in healthy dietary patterns among children and families to lead a five-year study focused on improving nutrition through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). With support from a $3.2 million National Institutes of Health grant, Adams is working to increase SNAP recipients’ use of fruit and vegetable incentive programs to improve long-term wellness and reduce health care costs. Across the United States, more than 34 million individuals (nine million of them children) experience food insecurity, ...

First study linking fructose metabolism by brain immune cells to glioblastoma growth Blocking a key fructose transporter activated tumor-killing immune cells in mice Findings suggest a promising new drug target to improve brain cancer treatments CHICAGO --- Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that specialized immune cells within the glioblastoma tumor metabolize fructose to suppress immune responses and promote tumor growth, reports a study published on March 17 in the Proceedings of the National ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Shoulder replacement is the third most common joint-replacement surgery in the U.S. and is likely to become more common as the population ages, according to Penn State researchers. Though most patients go home on the same day as their surgery, those with greater health risks or serious injuries are admitted to the hospital for shoulder replacement. Patients who experience complications like infection or sepsis sometimes need to be readmitted to the hospital for treatment at a later date.   In a study published in the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery ...

Research Highlights: Excess fat stored around the waist (belly weight or visceral fat), indicated by measuring waist size, was more strongly associated with heart failure risk than body mass index (BMI). Systemic inflammation played a key role in the relationship between extra weight stored around the waist, or central obesity, and heart failure. About one-quarter to one-third of the link between abdominal fat and heart failure appeared to be explained by inflammation. The mediating role of inflammation in the association between central obesity and heart failure suggests that reducing inflammation ...

Research Highlights: Adults with prediabetes by their early 30s who had high fasting glucose levels, in addition to other risk factors such as obesity, high cholesterol or high blood pressure, had the highest risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Individuals who had high fasting glucose levels (100-125 mg/dL) and who met the criteria for treatment with a GLP-1RA medication were more likely to progress from prediabetes to Type 2 diabetes within five years. Using blood test results and risk factors to identify which young adults with prediabetes had the highest risk of progressing to Type 2 diabetes may help accelerate treatment ...

March 17, 2026-- Postpartum uninsurance declined among Black women in non-expansion states during the COVID-19 continuous Medicaid coverage policy, but racial gaps persisted, according to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The research is the first to explicitly examine how the policy affected racial equity in postpartum insurance coverage while also considering states’ Medicaid expansion status under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The study is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Extending ...

Every year, millions of people are diagnosed with cancer globally; however, current treatments are limited by disease complexity. A study published March 17th in the open-access journal in PLOS Biology by Tianyu Jiang at Shandong University, Qingdao, China and colleagues suggests that Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN) may be engineered with anticancer agents to treat cancerous tumors in mice. Bacteria inhabit and interact with the human body, playing a major role in both health and disease. However, the therapeutic efficacy of engineered bacteria-based cancer therapies has ...

In a study involving data from thousands of people, the risk of a new coronary heart disease diagnosis was statistically associated with bloodstream levels of nine specific molecules that are produced by gut microbes. Danxia Yu of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, U.S., and colleagues present these findings on March 17th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. The human digestive tract naturally contains a large population of microbes. Different people have different proportions of different species of gut microbes, which produce different molecules during their normal, metabolic ...

WASHINGTON — Scientists at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center have uncovered a new dual function for a well-known cancer-related protein called ezrin. This finding could potentially open the door to new treatments for osteosarcoma, the most common bone cancer in children and young adults, as well as other cancers that are ezrin-dependent. The finding appeared March 17, 2026, in the journal Science Signaling. For decades researchers believed that ezrin was only active in its open form at the cell membrane. ...

Scientists at HSE University have identified a molecular mechanism underlying aggressive breast cancer. They found that the signals supporting tumour growth originate not from the tumour itself but from its microenvironment. The researchers also demonstrated that reduced levels of the IGFBP6 protein in the tumour microenvironment lead to the accumulation of macrophages—immune cells associated with a higher risk of cancer recurrence. These findings already make it possible to assess patient risk more accurately and may, in the future, enable the development of drugs that target cells of the ...

In a single experiment, scientists can decipher the entire genomes of many patient samples, animal models or cultured cells. To fully realize the potential to study biology at this unprecedented scale, researchers must be equipped to analyze the titanic troves of data generated by these new methods. Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of California Los Angeles published findings March 17, 2026, in Cell Reports Methods discussing building and testing a new computational tool for tackling massive and complex sequencing datasets. The new resource, ...

Diseases historically absent from the United States have been showing up in Florida, Texas, California and other U.S. states in recent years. To understand why, look to Peru. That’s where researchers from Stanford and other institutions analyzed the connection between a cyclone and a massive outbreak of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease that can cause fever, rash, and life-threatening symptoms like hemorrhage and shock. Their findings, published March 17 in One Earth, reveal that warmer, wetter weather linked to climate change is making disease epidemics more likely. "Health impacts of climate change aren't something we're waiting for,” ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- When patients undergo general anesthesia, doctors can choose among several drugs. Although each of these drugs acts on neurons in different ways, they all lead to the same result: a disruption of the brain’s balance between stability and excitability, according to a new MIT study. This disruption causes neural activity to become increasingly unstable, until the brain loses consciousness, the researchers found. The discovery of this common mechanism could make it easier to develop new technologies for monitoring patients while ...

About The Study: In this mixed-methods cohort study of Australian women who inject drugs, violence against women was pervasive and severe, yet rates of seeking health care remained low likely due to intersecting structural and social barriers. Recognition of the burden of violence is a critical first step in ensuring tailored responses to violence that meet the needs of marginalized women. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ashleigh Cara Stewart, PhD, email ashleigh.stewart@burnet.edu.au. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.2096) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of individuals living with hypertension, maintaining a healthy lifestyle was associated with lower risk of major cardiometabolic diseases independent of antihypertensive medication use, underscoring the value of adopting multiple healthy lifestyle behaviors. A healthy lifestyle was defined as eating a high-quality diet, not smoking, engaging in moderate-to-vigorous-intensity physical activity, no more than moderate alcohol consumption, and having a healthy body mass index. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Qi Sun, MD, ScD, email qisun@hsph.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerulonephritis worldwide. For decades, the “gut-kidney axis” hypothesis has suggested that the disease begins not in the kidneys, but in the gut mucosa, where an abnormal immune response produces pathogenic galactose-deficient IgA1 (Gd–IgA1). However, current treatments mostly focus on suppressing inflammation in the kidney, failing to stop the production of harmful antibodies at their source. The precise cellular mechanisms within the gut of IgAN patients have remained a black box due to the challenges of obtaining and analyzing intestinal tissue.   In ...

We have identified a macrophage population “Mrep” that plays an essential role in muscle repair. However, in Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), Mrep functions as a pathogenic cell that triggers heterotopic ossification. These research findings would contribute not only to muscle regeneration therapy but also to the development of novel therapeutic approaches for FOP. Musculoskeletal disorders are a primary cause of disability worldwide, especially in aging societies like Japan. As individuals age, reductions in muscle mass ...

CLEVELAND—Finding an effective treatment for osteosarcoma, the most common type of bone cancer in children and young adults, has puzzled medical researchers for 40 years. Now, a new study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals show some promising results. The study, published in BMC Medicine, found that a specially engineered immune-cell treatment, called OSM CAR-T, successfully attacks osteosarcoma tumors in mouse models. Osteosarcoma mainly strikes children, teenagers and young adults ...

Amyloid beta and tau proteins compete for the same binding sites on microtubules in neurons, suggesting that displacement of tau by amyloid beta, rather than aggregation of either protein, may be the primary driver of Alzheimer's disease pathology. Ryan R. Julian and colleagues used fluorescence polarization to measure the binding affinities of fluorescently labeled amyloid beta 1-40 and 1-42 to both individual tubulin proteins and microtubules. The authors found binding affinities comparable to those reported for tau. Sequence homology analysis across three alignment algorithms confirmed structural similarity between amyloid beta and the microtubule-binding domains of tau. Competitive ...