Penn-led researchers have turned a deadly fungus into a potent cancer-fighting compound. After isolating a new class of molecules from Aspergillus flavus, a toxic crop fungus linked to deaths in the excavations of ancient tombs, the researchers modified the chemicals and tested them against leukemia cells. The result? A promising cancer-killing compound that rivals FDA-approved drugs and opens up new frontiers in the discovery of more fungal medicines. “Fungi gave us penicillin,” says Sherry Gao, ...

As artificial intelligence reshapes workplaces worldwide, a new study provides early evidence suggesting AI exposure has not, thus far, caused widespread harm to workers' mental health or job satisfaction. In fact, the data reveals that AI may even be linked to modest improvements in worker physical health, particularly among employees with less than a college degree. But the authors caution: It is way too soon to draw definitive conclusions. The paper, “Artificial Intelligence and the Wellbeing of Workers,” published June 23 in Nature: Scientific Reports, uses two decades of longitudinal data from the ...

The use of this test in clinical practice would allow for the avoidance of side effects and the implementation of more effective treatment. "We've found a way to practice precision medicine with standard chemotherapy," says Geoff Macintyre, a researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO). The research has been published in the journal Nature Genetics The test will now be validated in a hospital setting, thanks to a new project funded by the Spanish Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service. Chemotherapy seeks to destroy tumor cells and has been a standard treatment ...

Cancer Research UK-funded scientists at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and Cambridge-based startup Tailor Bio, have created a test which can successfully predict whether cancer will resist common forms of chemotherapy treatment. It works by looking at changes to the order, structure and number of copies of DNA within the cancer - known as chromosomal instability (CIN) signatures. These signatures are found by reading the full DNA sequence of the tumour and looking for patterns in how the chromosomes are disrupted when compared to normal cells The ...

Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S. — much longer than scientists estimated.  A new study, published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, analyzed water quality in more than 500 watersheds across the Western U.S., and is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire quality. The research was led by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science ...

The chemical reaction to produce hydrogen from water is several times more effective when using a combination of new materials in three layers, according to researchers at Linköping University in Sweden. Hydrogen produced from water is a promising renewable energy source – especially if the hydrogen is produced using sunlight. The production of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the EU as of 2035. Electric motors are expected to become increasingly common in vehicles – but they are not suitable for all types of transport. “Passenger cars can have a battery, but heavy trucks, ships or aircraft cannot use ...

Researchers have discovered that the most aggressive melanomas, the deadliest form of skin cancer, overactivate two key processes in mitochondria, the components of cells that provide energy. Blocking these pathways with currently available drugs effectively killed melanoma cells. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. By mapping the proteins expressed in 151 tumor and normal skin samples, investigators found that the most aggressive melanomas hyper-activate the ...

A single pellet of recycled plastic can contain over 80 different chemicals. A new study with researchers from University of Gothenburg and Leipzig shows that recycled polyethylene plastic can leach chemicals into water causing impacts in the hormone systems and lipid metabolism of zebrafish larvae. The plastic pollution crisis has reached global levels, threatening both planetary and human health, and recycling is proposed as one of the solutions to the plastics pollution crisis. However, as plastics contain thousands of chemical additives and other substances that can be toxic, and these are almost ...

Giving birth to a child after 40 is becoming more and more common – but it can entail an increased risk to the child. A new study based on data from over 300,000 births in Sweden shows that children of older mothers are more often born prematurely or with complications, especially when the mother is 45 years of age or older. In large parts of the world, women are having children later and later in life. In Sweden, 4.8% of mothers were 40 years of age or older in 2022. Previous research has shown that older mothers differ from younger mothers in several respects such as having a higher BMI, a higher proportion having utilised assisted ...

Many doctors abandon a potentially life-saving medical scanning technology soon after training, because systemic barriers prevent it from becoming part of their routine practice, a study has found. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) enables doctors to perform rapid bedside scans using a portable device. This can quickly reveal life-threatening problems – including heart failure, fluid in the lungs, or internal bleeding – that can often be treated if identified in time. Although thousands of doctors in the UK are now trained to use POCUS, research, including the new study, shows that many do not continue to use it in practice after completing ...

(Helsinki, Finland, Monday, 23 June 2025) Insulin resistance detected by routine triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index can flag people with early Alzheimer’s who are four times more likely to present rapid cognitive decline, according to new research presented at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress 2025.1 Neurologists at the University of Brescia reviewed records for 315 non-diabetic patients with cognitive deficits, including 200 with biologically confirmed Alzheimer’s disease. All subjects underwent an assessment of insulin resistance using the TyG index and a clinical follow-up of 3 years. When patients ...

Highlights: Resistance to colistin, a potent antibiotic, is on the rise. In 2016, researchers discovered that colistin resistance could be transferred laterally among microbes. Researchers have isolated genes that confer colistin resistance from imported seafood purchased from markets in Atlanta, Ga. The findings suggest imported seafood could promote the spread of transmissible colistin resistance.  Los Angeles, Calif.—Colistin is a potent, last-resort antibiotic, used only to treat people ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new way of telling “aged” human cells apart from younger ones using electric fields. While key markers have been found for these “senescent” cells, current methods require biochemical “labels” which are difficult to apply and affect the cells themselves, making them difficult to study. The new method is label-free and less damaging. The team aims to diversify the method, extending it to other cell types.   Ageing starts at the cellular level. As we get older, aged or “senescent” cells accumulate in our body. Not only have ...

(Helsinki, Finland, Saturday, 21 June 2025) A diabetes medication that lowers brain fluid pressure has cut monthly migraine days by more than half, according to a new study presented today at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress 2025.1 Researchers at the Headache Centre of the University of Naples “Federico II” gave the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist liraglutide to 26 adults with obesity and chronic migraine (defined as ≥15 headache days per month). Patients reported an average of 11 fewer headache days per month, while disability scores on the Migraine Disability Assessment Test ...

(Helsinki, Finland, Saturday, 21 June 2025) New research, presented today at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress 2025, has uncovered a powerful link between nighttime heart rhythm and future health conditions, even in people with no obvious sleep problems.1 The study, which was conducted at the Department of Neurology, Inselspital, the University Hospital of Bern, analysed 4,170 individuals over an observation period of 13,217 person-years, found that heart rate variability (HRV) during sleep can serve ...

Scientists and engineers study the atomic interactions that happen on the surface of materials to develop more energy efficient batteries, capacitors, and other devices. But accurately simulating these fundamental interactions requires immense computing power to fully capture the geometrical and chemical intricacies involved, and current methods are just scratching the surface. “Currently it’s prohibitive and there’s no supercomputer in the world that can do an analysis like that,” says Siddharth Deshpande, an assistant professor in the University of Rochester’s Department of Chemical Engineering. “We need clever ways to manage ...

June 18, 2025 - The highly anticipated 2024 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) were officially released today, marking a significant achievement for Current Molecular Pharmacology (CMP). The journal's 2024 Impact Factor has increased to 2.9, with a five-year Impact Factor of 3.1, successfully advancing to the Q2 zone in the PHARMACOLOGY & PHARMACY category. This accomplishment signifies a notable enhancement in CMP's academic influence and recognition. CMP is dedicated to publishing the latest advancements ...

For many patients, radioactive iodine treatment after thyroid cancer surgery means side effects like nausea and time in hospital isolated from loved ones. But new clinical trial results from researchers at UCL mean hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide could now safely be spared this treatment. Globally, around 820,000 people are diagnosed with thyroid cancer each year. Compared to most cancers, it affects a high proportion of younger people who are more likely to be parents to young children. It is also three times more common in women than men. The Iodine or Not (IoN) clinical ...

NEW YORK, NY (June 20, 2025)—A new laboratory method developed by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons may now help physicians more quickly diagnose patients with suspected genetic disorders of the immune system, many who have been trapped in diagnostic limbo for years.  The researchers, who published their findings June 20 in Cell, applied the method to one rare inborn error of immunity called activated-PI3Kδ syndrome (APDS) and found dozens of additional genetic variations that could cause the syndrome. “Our findings give physicians a resource that can help them rapidly diagnose and treat ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – June 20, 2025) The relationship between genetic variants and the risk of late-onset cardiomyopathy remains poorly understood in survivors of childhood cancer despite being otherwise well established. Scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have helped address this gap, assessing whether variant trends seen in the general population also apply to late-onset cardiomyopathy in five-year survivors of childhood cancer. The work revealed that, as in the general population, common variants in TTNand BAG3 are associated with reduced late-onset cardiomyopathy ...

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) has released phenotypic and genetic data from the Autism Inpatient Collection (AIC), a cohort of more than 1,500 youth participants ages 4 to 20 years old who were hospitalized in one of six child psychiatry units in the United States. The AIC, supported by SFARI and the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, aimed to engage these individuals, many of whom meet recently proposed criteria for ‘profound autism’ (autism characterized by intellectual disability or minimal language that requires high ...

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute today report the identification of a novel combination therapy approach to treat pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Standard treatment is often ineffective against AML, a cancer that commonly relapses with poor prognosis, particularly when the disease is fueled by fusion proteins involving NUP98. The researchers documented how these fusions drive disease, discovering a protein complex required to express cancer-promoting genes. When they targeted the complex alone or in combination with another anticancer drug, survival significantly ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Climbing the social ladder isn’t simply a matter of popularity. Rather, people in positions of influence are particularly adept at forming “maps” of their social connections, which they navigate to become prominent in their social network, new research shows.  It’s like having a “social superpower,” according to study author Oriel FeldmanHall, an associate professor of cognitive and psychological sciences at Brown University who is affiliated with the University’s Carney Institute for Brain Science.  “People vary ...

A new study reveals that when we experience short-term (acute) pain, the brain has a built-in way to dial down pain signals — like pressing the brakes — to keep them from going into overdrive. But in long-term (chronic) pain, this braking system fails, and the pain signals just keep firing. This discovery helps explain why some pain goes away while other pain lingers, and it opens the door to new treatments that could stop pain from becoming chronic in the first place. Why does some pain go away ...

The Earth is rapidly warming — but did you know? Similar climate upheavals over 300 million years ago once triggered massive fluctuations in marine life. Recently, a research team led by Prof. Shuzhong Shen of Nanjing University published a major finding in Science Advances, revealing for the first time — through high-precision big data — that during the Late Paleozoic (approximately 340 to 250 million years ago), global cooling promoted rapid evolution and diversification of marine life, while abrupt warming, especially that induced by volcanic eruptions, led to mass extinctions. The focus of the study is an ancient group of single-celled marine organisms ...