The Angry Optimist: Health

🚑 261,000 Americans have their medical debt erased thanks to nonprofit

WALL-Y — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:43:52 GMT

A total of $550 million in medical debt has been paid off through a donation.
Every $10 donated removes an average of $1,000 in debt.
The organization behind the effort has erased more than $40 billion in all 50 states so far.

The effort is led by the nonprofit organization Undue Medical Debt. It acquires medical debt in bulk from hospitals, physician groups and collection agencies. The debt is purchased for a fraction of the original amount and then abolished. The funding comes from a multimillion-dollar donation by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr.

Ten dollars removes a thousand dollars in debt

The exact amount donated has not been disclosed. But because the debt is bought in bulk at a low price, every donated dollar has a large effect. According to the organization, every $10 removes an average of $1,000 in medical debt.

Individuals cannot apply to have their debt erased. Instead, the organization buys bundled debt covering thousands of people at once. Those who qualify either earn at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level or have medical debt that is more than 5 percent of their income.

Those whose debt has been erased will receive a letter from Undue Medical Debt starting in mid-July.

One in four adults in the US has medical debt

According to the organization's CEO Allison Sesso, one in four adults in the United States is in medical debt. Undue Medical Debt has so far erased more than $40 billion in medical debt in all 50 states.

The couple behind the donation has helped others get out of debt before. In 2022, they paid off the student loans for the entire graduating class at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

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✂️ New CRISPR method seeks out and destroys cancer cells

WALL-Y — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 08:31:00 GMT

A new CRISPR system finds and destroys cells carrying a mutation found in roughly half of all cancers.
In lab tests the method destroyed the mutated cells but left healthy cells almost entirely unharmed, even though they differed by just a single building block in their DNA.
The technique is programmable, which means a new mutation only requires researchers to create a new guide RNA.

A common mutation behind many cancers

Researchers have built a CRISPR system that finds and destroys cancer cells. The method targets a mutation in the p53 gene, which is damaged in roughly half of all cancers. The results are published in the journal Nature.

The study comes from Jennifer Doudna's Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley, together with researchers at UC San Francisco, Gladstone Institutes, the University of Utah and Utah State University.

The p53 gene normally works as a defense against cancer. It stops cells from turning into cancer cells. When p53 is mutated, it loses its function and the cancer can grow freely. The mutation is common across many cancer types. It is found in 70 to 90 percent of some of the most difficult cases, including ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.

The role p53 plays has been known since the late 1980s. Despite that, no drug targeting p53 exists on the market. Researchers have tried for 35 years. One reason is that tumor suppressors lack the pockets where small drug molecules can attach.

CRISPR as a destroyer instead of a repairer

Most cancer drugs are inhibitors. They tamp down an overactive gene. But a mutated p53 has instead lost its function, and then that method does not work. First author Jingkun Zeng chose a different path. Instead of fixing the broken gene, he wanted to find and destroy the cells that carry it.

The method builds on how CRISPR works in nature. There, CRISPR systems are destroyers, not repairers. They protect microbes against viruses by cutting up the virus's genetic material. The researchers rebuilt a system called CRISPR-Cas12a2. It looks for the RNA signature that only a cell with the mutated gene produces. When the system recognizes the signature, the enzyme Cas12a2 activates. It cuts up all the genetic material inside that one cell. The cell dies, while healthy cells are left untouched.

Tells a healthy cell from a sick one by a single letter

The researchers tested the method in cultured mammalian cells containing both healthy and cancer cells. The system told the two apart and destroyed only the cells with the mutated RNA. The cells with the healthy variant were left almost entirely unharmed. The two cell types differed by a single changed building block in their DNA. That makes the method far more precise than chemotherapy and radiation, which kill all dividing cells, including healthy ones.

Programmable for new mutations

One advantage of the technique is that it is programmable. When a new mutation appears, researchers can create a new guide RNA to find it and test whether it works. That is faster than developing a small-molecule drug or an antibody treatment.

🐚 Laos pushes back parasitic disease to below one percent

WALL-Y — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:35:04 GMT

In the worst-affected areas of Laos, the share of people infected with the snail-borne parasitic disease schistosomiasis has dropped to below one percent, down from over 40 percent in some areas in 2003.
During 2024, over 95,000 people were treated with an annual single dose that clears the parasite from the body and stops transmission.
Laos has already eliminated trachoma in 2017 and lymphatic filariasis in 2023, and the goal is now to get rid of schistosomiasis as well.

A disease spread by freshwater snails

Schistosomiasis is caused by a parasite spread through freshwater snails. The parasite's microscopic larvae live in the same water that people use daily, for washing, fishing, and transport. In Laos, the disease has long been a public health problem, especially in communities along the Mekong River. There, the share of infected people exceeded 40 percent in some areas in 2003.

The disease can cause symptoms such as an enlarged liver and bleeding during toilet visits. In severe cases, it leads to serious liver damage with complications that can be fatal.

Remaining in a single province

After decades of efforts, schistosomiasis now remains only in Champasack Province in southern Laos. About 120,000 people in 202 villages are estimated to be at risk. The share of infected people has dropped to below one percent in the high-risk areas, but thousands of people are still affected, above all children.

Treatment, water, and surveillance

The strategy is built on several parts. Mass treatment is carried out in all villages in the affected areas. A single-dose treatment is given each year and clears the parasite from infected people, which both provides relief and prevents continued spread. During 2024, over 95,000 people were treated.

The work also includes better water and sanitation, health education in both villages and schools, and disease surveillance. Experts from China's National Institute of Parasitic Diseases and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute have strengthened surveillance and laboratory work, which is needed to detect cases and track progress.

Cooperation across borders

The effort is a partnership between the Lao Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization WHO, China's Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. China and Switzerland have contributed 1.18 million dollars.

The Lao Ministry of Health is at the same time cooperating with the Cambodian Ministry of Health. They exchange data, lessons, and solutions and are taking on schistosomiasis on both sides of the Mekong.

The progress is built on work from healthcare workers, community leaders, health officials at local, provincial, and national levels, as well as political leaders and development partners. Earlier, the same work removed trachoma in 2017 and lymphatic filariasis in 2023. The number of malaria cases fell to 272 during 2025.

🔬 Most of what's inside the cell is invisible, a new laser method could change that

WALL-Y — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:26:33 GMT

Image: Applied Precision Design

Today's cryo-electron microscopes can reveal the structure of about 10 percent of human proteins, and less than 1 percent when they sit inside living cells.
A new technique from the research institute Biohub and UC Berkeley sharply improves image contrast using a laser 100 million times brighter than the surface of the Sun.
Researchers estimate the technology could make more than 50 percent of the proteins that carry out the cell's functions visible.

An old contrast problem

Inside every cell, tens of thousands of different types of proteins are at work. They ferry molecules, send signals, repair DNA, and decide whether a cell should divide or die. Most are too small to image with today's microscopes. Those that can be seen must be pulled out of the cell and studied in isolation, not in the crowded, dynamic environment where the processes of life take place.

The solution is called a laser phase plate. It builds on a principle that physicist Fritz Zernike described back in 1942, work that later earned him the Nobel Prize. By placing a small optical element in the path of the light, he could convert invisible differences in the light wave's phase into visible differences in brightness. In theory the same trick should work for electron microscopes, but any material placed in the electron beam gets damaged and ruins the image.

A laser instead of material

Holger Müller at UC Berkeley and his colleague Robert Glaeser proposed more than 15 years ago to replace the material with a powerful laser. To work, the laser must be extremely intense. The solution became a pair of mirrors that bounce the laser beam back and forth roughly 10,000 times. Each bounce amplifies the intensity until the light between the mirrors reaches about 100 million times the intensity of the surface of the Sun.

The mirrors must be polished to a surface roughness below one angstrom, roughly the diameter of a single atom, and aligned to a precision of one thousandth of a degree. The entire laser apparatus fits inside a device the size of an espresso cup, which sits within the microscope column.

Biohub also built a newer version with two crossed laser beams in an X-shape, called the xLPP. It distributes the laser power across two beams and suppresses a known artifact in which faint copies of objects otherwise obscure the biological signal.

The results in three studies

The researchers report their results in three scientific papers, published in Science, in Nature Communications, and as a preprint. The Berkeley team imaged the enzyme aldolase and then hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells. With the laser switched on, resolution improved by up to 44 percent. Blurry details became clearly visible.

At Biohub, a team imaged the protein apoferritin with the dual laser at 1.8 angstroms, near the theoretical limit of the technology. They also imaged frozen E. coli bacteria and showed that the laser raised contrast where conventional imaging falls short.

Proteins in their proper environment

The technology is combined with cryo-electron tomography, or cryo-ET, which builds three-dimensional reconstructions inside whole cells. Biohub's researchers have already imaged structures called lysosomes in disease states. Defects in lysosome function have been linked to dozens of rare diseases and to common neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer's disease.

Biohub shares its tomography data freely with the research community through the CryoET Data Portal, which holds tens of thousands of annotated tomograms. In April the institute committed 500 million dollars over five years to generating new cellular data to train AI models, from molecule to whole organism, in both healthy and diseased states.

🤧 Discovery could lead to drugs against the common cold

WALL-Y — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:43:17 GMT

Researchers have for the first time determined the structure of the protein 2C as it binds to RNA.
The protein is found in rhinovirus, the most common cause of the common cold, and is a target for drugs.
The new structure gives researchers more to work from when they design drugs that can inhibit the virus.

A target for drugs against several viruses

Researchers at Stanford University and The Pirbright Institute, among others, have produced the first structure of the protein 2C bound to RNA. The protein is found in picornaviruses. Rhinovirus, the most common cause of the common cold, belongs to this group.

2C is needed for the virus to copy its genome. The protein is already a target for drugs that can work against several picornaviruses at once. Because the common cold virus is a picornavirus, and has the same protein with the same key parts, it is one of the viruses such a drug could target.

The researchers included human rhinovirus A in their analysis. The three amino acids that matter most for 2C to bind to RNA sit in the same structural position in the common cold virus as in the virus the researchers built their structure from.

A basis for drug development

Earlier proposals for drugs against 2C have been based on the structure of a single copy of the protein. That structure lacks the details that appear when six copies come together with RNA. The new structure gives researchers more to work from when they design small molecules or peptides that can inhibit the virus.

First image of the protein bound to RNA

The structure shows that six identical copies of the protein come together to form a ring. The ring is about 10 nanometers in diameter. A single strand of RNA runs through a central pore in the middle of the ring.

The researchers used cryo-electron microscopy. They analyzed 260,225 particles and reached a resolution of 3.05 Ångström, which makes it possible to see the individual parts of the protein. The study has been published as a preprint and has not yet been reviewed by other researchers.

Three amino acids determine the binding

The researchers identified three amino acids that matter most for the protein to bind to RNA: A188, L190 and K193. A fourth, H147, is needed for the protein's function.

The amino acid A188 lets the protein tell RNA apart from DNA. This is due to an oxygen atom that binds to a part found only in RNA. When the researchers swapped out the key amino acids, binding to RNA dropped. In experiments with foot-and-mouth disease virus and coxsackievirus B3, the virus then stopped replicating.

Viruses behind billions of infections

Picornaviruses cause at least 8 billion infections a year in humans. Symptoms range from upper respiratory infection to paralysis. Enterovirus D68 has been linked to acute flaccid myelitis in children, and EV-A71 has led to paralysis and death in children in several places around the world.

Among animals, foot-and-mouth disease virus causes large losses. The disease in livestock costs about 21 billion dollars globally. Respiratory infections from picornaviruses in the United States are estimated to cost about 40 billion dollars. There are few approved drugs against picornaviruses besides polio.

The same building parts in many virus families

The key amino acids are not found only in picornaviruses. The researchers searched for similar proteins across the entire order Picornavirales and found 497 hits in several virus families, including the family the norovirus belongs to. The norovirus has the protein NS3, which has many of the same parts that 2C uses to bind RNA.

🎗️ No young women died of cervical cancer in England over the past five years

WALL-Y — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 17:29:25 GMT

Between 2020 and 2024, not a single woman aged 20 to 24 died of cervical cancer in England. Based on earlier death rates, 23 deaths were expected.
A cross all age groups HPV vaccination is linked to around 200 fewer cervical cancer deaths in England.
Among vaccinated women aged 20 to 29, the risk of dying from cervical cancer is estimated to have fallen by at least 81 percent.

No deaths among the youngest

A study published in The Lancet analyzed cervical cancer mortality in England between 2001 and 2024. Researchers Peter Sasieni and Milena Falcaro at Queen Mary University of London looked at three age groups: 20 to 24, 25 to 29, and 30 to 34.

Among women aged 20 to 24, none died of cervical cancer between 2020 and 2024. In that group, around 88 to 90 percent had been vaccinated against HPV at ages 12 to 13. Based on death rates between 2000 and 2014, 23 deaths were expected during the period. This means mortality fell by 100 percent.

Large reductions across several age groups

The reduction is also visible in earlier groups. Among women aged 20 to 24, mortality was 80 percent lower during 2015 to 2019 compared with 2000 to 2014. Among women aged 25 to 29, mortality was 69 percent lower during 2020 to 2024.

The number of deaths fell clearly. Among women aged 25 to 29, the number dropped from 123 during 2010 to 2014 to 32 during 2020 to 2024. Among women aged 20 to 24, the number dropped from 27 to zero over the same period.

For vaccinated women, the researchers calculated how much the risk of dying fell. In a statistical model, the reduction came to 100 percent among women aged 20 to 24, with an uncertainty range of 81 to 100 percent. Among women aged 25 to 29, the reduction was also 100 percent, with a range of 89 to 100 percent. Among women aged 30 to 34, the reduction was estimated at 63 percent. In the oldest group, fewer had been vaccinated, and those who were vaccinated often received the vaccine as teenagers when they may already have been infected.

Nearly 200 fewer deaths

Up to the end of 2024, HPV vaccination in England is linked to around 200 fewer cervical cancer deaths. The researchers put the figure at about 199.6 deaths.

That figure covers all three age groups together and is counted across all the years since vaccinated women began reaching these ages. This is why it is higher than the 23 deaths expected in the youngest group alone during 2020 to 2024.

The vaccination program in England

England introduced a national HPV vaccination program in 2008 for girls aged 12 to 13. An additional effort during 2008 to 2010 offered the vaccine to girls aged 14 to 18. Since 2019, boys of the same age have been included as well. Before the covid pandemic, around 90 percent had received at least one dose.

Vaccination has also reduced the number of cervical cancer cases. In the groups covered by the vaccine, the number of cases fell by up to 87 percent.

The HPV vaccine is one of three parts of the WHO's strategy to eliminate cervical cancer. The vaccine is included in national programs in around 150 countries. Cervical cancer is globally the second most common form of cancer leading to death among women under 65.

🔊 Midjourney is building a body scanner that maps the entire body in 60 seconds

WALL-Y — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:23:49 GMT

A full-body scan with today's MRI takes 60 to 90 minutes. Midjourney's new machine aims to do the same thing in under 60 seconds.
The scanner uses a ring of half a million tiny elements that send ultrasound through the body from every direction.
The result is a 3D map of the body down to fractions of a millimeter, about a hundred times faster than an MRI.

A new project from an AI company

Midjourney is best known for its AI program that creates images from text. Now the company is entering an entirely new field and presenting Midjourney Medical. The first product is a scanner that aims to map the entire body.

The company describes the goal as something as powerful as an MRI, but as everyday as a trip to the spa.

How the scanner works

You step onto a platform in a shallow pool of water. The platform slowly lowers you into the water, about 2 inches per second.

On the way down you pass through a ring made up of half a million small squares. Each square is roughly the size of a grain of sand. Each square can both send out ultrasound and pick up the echo that bounces back from the body.

Midjourney compares the squares to dolphins that use echolocation. Going through a scan then becomes like being surrounded by half a million tiny dolphins from every angle.

The sound waves change shape as they pass through different parts of the body, such as skin, fat, muscle, and bone. By reading how the waves change, a detailed image of the body's interior is built up. The image resembles an MRI, but the scan is meant to take under 60 seconds.

Collaboration and technology

The machine is being developed together with Butterfly Network, which makes handheld ultrasound devices. Midjourney signed a licensing agreement with Butterfly Network in November 2025 and gained exclusive rights to the company's ultrasound-on-chip technology.

The project is led by Ahmad Abbas, head of Midjourney's consumer hardware. He joined the company in late 2023 after working on the Vision Pro at Apple.

The scanner is placed in spas

Midjourney is building its scanners together with another new product, a spa. The first facility is set to open in San Francisco in 2027.

The spa will have hot tubs, saunas, cold plunges, and rooms with pools of golden light where the body is scanned. The idea is that it should be a place you want to visit even without the scan. The scan itself becomes a side effect, but over time the visitor accumulates a large amount of data about their health.

The plan going forward

Over the next twelve months, the company will fine-tune the technology and algorithms, run research trials, and develop a second generation of the hardware.

The next step is to get the machine's diagnostic capabilities approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. Midjourney is starting by providing detailed maps of body composition and submitting test results to the FDA on an ongoing basis for additional functions.

In 2028, the company wants to expand to more cities and launch a third generation of the machine with custom-built chips for better image quality.

The goal is to have more than 50,000 scanners worldwide by 2031, with capacity for a billion scans a month. That is enough to give a billion people a scan every month.

Midjourney writes that early imaging could allow the world to avoid 30 percent of all deaths and 50 percent of all healthcare costs.

Not medically tested

The device has not yet been tested or approved by any authority.

🧫 First human treated with method designed to make aged cells behave young again

WALL-Y — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:20:57 GMT

The treatment switches on three genes that partially reprogram old cells, so that they begin to behave like young cells.
The aim is to make damaged nerve cells in the optic nerve regenerate, and thereby treat a form of glaucoma.
In animal studies, the method has restored vision in mice with glaucoma, with no serious side effects.

Three genes switched on

The method works by switching on three genes that can partially reprogram old cells. The cells then begin to behave as if they were young again. The company Life Biosciences in Boston announced that it has treated its first participant. In the study, the genes are being tested as a treatment for a form of glaucoma.

Damaged nerve cells set to regenerate

The hope is that the proteins the genes produce will cause nerve cells in the optic nerve to regenerate. The optic nerve connects the eye to the brain and is damaged in glaucoma. These nerve cells cannot normally regenerate. The study is also testing whether the method is safe to use in humans.

Results from animal studies

In 2020, geneticist David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School and his colleagues reported that the three genes caused nerve cells to regenerate in mice with a damaged optic nerve. In older mice and in mice with glaucoma, vision was restored. Since then, Life Biosciences has tested the method in rodents and monkeys. According to the company's chief scientific officer, Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, no serious side effects have been seen.

The eye first

The eye is a suitable place to start testing the method. The risk of life-threatening side effects is lower with changes to the eye than to some other organs. That is according to Matt Kaeberlein, co-founder of the company Optispan in Seattle.

Why we age

One important reason we age is that the body loses information. David Sinclair compares the genome to the hardware in a computer and the epigenome to the software. The epigenome tells each cell what kind of cell it should be and what function it should have. Over time, the cells lose that information, which is why hair turns grey and wrinkles appear. Sinclair likens it to a scratched DVD that can be repaired if the scratches have not gone too far. His goal is to restore the entire epigenome, so that cells that have started doing the wrong things return to their original state. The method is based on the discovery that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed into immature cells. Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka showed this in 2006 and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery in 2012. Warp News has written about Sinclair's research before.

The cells keep their function

The aim of partial reprogramming is to take aged cells back in time. The cells are to regain features of young cells, but not be taken so far back that they lose their specialised function. Life Biosciences uses three of the four genes that, in the laboratory, can reprogram adult cells into a stem-cell-like state.

🦾 AI has designed an entirely new kind of vaccine for the first time

WALL-Y — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:45:20 GMT

Researchers have, for the first time, used an artificial intelligence to design the key component of a vaccine.
Ordinary vaccines are designed against a current strain of a virus and quickly become out of date when the virus mutates. The new method instead makes it possible to design a vaccine that protects against an entire virus family at once.
This means the vaccine can provide protection even against future mutations, and thereby against viruses that do not yet exist but could cause the next pandemic.

A vaccine against an entire virus family

Ordinary vaccines are designed using a current strain of a virus. The Cambridge researchers took a different route. They took known genetic codes from a range of coronaviruses that had been recorded by surveillance programmes searching for potential viral threats.

These codes were analysed by an artificial intelligence. It then designed a so-called super-antigen. An antigen is the part of a vaccine that the immune system learns to attack. This super-antigen is intended to train the immune system so that it provides protection against an entire family of viruses at once, even if the viruses mutate or a new infection jumps from animals to people.

That is where the big difference lies. Instead of protecting against a single virus strain, the method can provide far broader protection. As a result, a vaccine can work even against future mutations of a virus, that is, variants that do not yet exist.

Professor Jonathan Heeney at the University of Cambridge explains that this is the first time an antigen designed by AI has been trialled in people. He says the aim is to make vaccines that protect us, not just from today's viruses, but from what could cause the next outbreak or disease. He describes it as a shift in how society prepares for pandemics.

Why it is needed

Vaccines teach the body to recognise an infection so that the chances of fighting it off increase. The problem is that some viruses are adept at changing their appearance by mutating. The vaccine then quickly becomes out of date. That is why vaccines against Covid and seasonal flu need to be updated regularly. According to Heeney, research is always behind, and the aim of the new method is instead to get ahead of the curve and protect against new outbreaks and pandemics.

Professor Saul Faust at the University of Southampton, who carried out part of the trials, says the AI design has potential. He points out that the technology is considerably better at developing vaccines against potential pandemics precisely when viruses are changing.

More vaccines on the way

The Cambridge team is already conducting animal research on a universal seasonal flu vaccine that would not need to be adapted every year, as well as a vaccine against the bird flu virus H5N1, in case the virus that is currently affecting bird populations were to become a human pandemic. They are also working on a vaccine against viral haemorrhagic fevers, which includes Ebola. The ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is caused by a species for which no vaccine has yet been developed.

🧠 Several advances are changing the fight against Alzheimer's

WALL-Y — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:52:27 GMT

For the first time, simple blood tests can show whether a person has Alzheimer's disease.
Two drugs that slow the progression of the disease have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the FDA.
The number of patients researchers can screen for clinical trials has risen from a couple per day to several hundred.

Faster diagnosis with blood tests

Alzheimer's used to be diagnosed with a PET scan or a spinal tap. Both methods were expensive and time-consuming. Now there are simple blood tests that show whether a person has the disease.

The new blood tests have allowed more patients to take part in clinical trials. Researchers used to be able to screen one or two possible participants per day. Now they can screen several hundred. This means new treatments can arrive sooner.

The diagnostics keep improving. Today's tests show whether a person has Alzheimer's right now. Within one or two years, it may become possible to determine whether a person will develop the disease in the future.

Drugs that slow the disease

The FDA has approved the first two treatments proven to modestly slow the progression of the disease. Early data suggest the effect could be considerably greater if the treatment is given early in the progression.

Research is underway into next-generation treatments that could be twice as effective as the current ones. A clinical trial is examining whether the drug donanemab can delay the onset of the disease or prevent it altogether. Results are expected late this year or early next year.

AI as a co-researcher

Artificial intelligence is now being used in the research. The AI agents Biomni-AD and Parthenon, the winners of the Alzheimer's Insights AI Prize, act as co-researchers. They pull permissioned datasets on their own and detect patterns a human might miss.

AI also helps researchers write their own code. That lets them run statistical analyses and test more hypotheses faster. Many researchers do not have access to a biostatistician or a data scientist. Now more of them can run the numbers themselves, while the statistics experts can spend their time on the most promising hypotheses.

Large datasets are shared

Platforms such as the Global Research and Imaging Platform, GRIP, make data and AI agents available at scale. The Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative now has more than 10,000 users from over 125 countries. The Global Neurodegeneration Proteomics Consortium holds more than 300 million unique protein measures for researchers to learn from.

The number of people in the US living with Alzheimer's has risen from 5.5 million in 2017 to an estimated 7.4 million today. Dementia costs the US more than $780 billion each year, of which more than $160 billion falls on the public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid.

🫘 Injectable mini livers could become an alternative to transplantation

WALL-Y — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:13:54 GMT

Researchers at MIT have developed mini livers that can be injected into the body and take over functions from a failing liver.
In experiments on mice, the injected liver cells survived for at least two months and produced enzymes and proteins.
The technology could help patients who are currently not healthy enough for a transplant.

A shortage of donor organs

There are not enough donated organs to meet the demand among patients with chronic liver disease. Many people with liver failure also do not receive a transplant, because they are not healthy enough to withstand the surgery.

To help these patients, engineers at MIT have developed mini livers that can be injected into the body and take over the work of the diseased liver. The researchers call them satellite livers. The idea is that the cells can be added to the body while the diseased organ stays in place and provides booster function.

The study is published in the journal Cell Biomaterials. Sangeeta Bhatia is the senior author and Vardhman Kumar is the lead author.

How the technology works

The human liver performs about 500 essential functions. It regulates blood clotting, removes bacteria from the blood, and metabolizes drugs. Most of these functions are carried out by cells called hepatocytes.

The researchers inject the liver cells together with small spheres of hydrogel. The spheres help the cells stay together and connect to nearby blood vessels. The spheres have a property that makes them behave like a liquid when they are packed closely together. This means they can be injected through a syringe and regain their solid form inside the body.

The mixture also contains fibroblasts, supportive cells that help the hepatocytes survive and that promote the growth of new blood vessels into the tissue. The researchers inject the cell mixture using ultrasound and can then use ultrasound to monitor how well the implant stays in place over time.

Results in the mice

In the experiments, the mixture was injected into fatty tissue in the belly. Once the cells had settled in place, they formed a stable and compact structure. Over time, blood vessels began to grow into the area, which kept the injected hepatocytes healthy. The cells received nutrients directly and produced the proteins the researchers expected.

After the injection, the cells were functional and able to secrete proteins into the blood for eight weeks, which was the full length of the study. According to the researchers, this suggests that the method could work as a long-term treatment for liver disease.

The researchers see the technology both as an alternative to surgery and as a bridge to a transplant, where the grafts can provide support until a donor organ becomes available. With the current version of the technology, patients would likely need to take immunosuppressive drugs. The researchers are exploring the possibility of developing hepatocytes that can evade the immune system, or using the hydrogel spheres to deliver immunosuppressive drugs locally.

🧬 A single gene-therapy dose could replace daily cholesterol medication

WALL-Y — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:05:13 GMT

A single dose of the gene therapy VERVE-102, given as an infusion, lowered harmful cholesterol as much as today's medications do with repeated treatment.
At the highest dose, harmful cholesterol fell by an average of 62 percent. The reduction held in the participants who were followed for up to 18 months.
Between 30 and 50 percent of patients stop taking their cholesterol medication within a year. A one-time treatment would make that problem smaller.

Today's treatment requires daily doses

A single dose of the gene therapy VERVE-102, given as an infusion into the blood, lowered the level of harmful cholesterol in patients with inherited high cholesterol or premature coronary artery disease. The reduction was as large as the one today's medications produce, but today's medications require repeated treatment. This is shown in a phase 1 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

For patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease, guidelines recommend keeping cholesterol low over a long period, sometimes for decades. Today this is managed with daily pills or regular injections.

Many stop the treatment. Between 30 and 50 percent of patients stop taking their medication within a year of starting. The reasons include side effects, costs, and difficulty getting care. Stopping treatment has been linked to worse outcomes for the heart.

Switches off a gene in the liver

VERVE-102 is designed to address exactly that problem. The treatment is a gene edit that switches off the PCSK9 gene in the liver.

PCSK9 is a protein made in the liver that controls how much LDL cholesterol is in the blood. LDL cholesterol, the harmful cholesterol, is the blood fat that can build up in artery walls and lead to cardiovascular disease. Twenty years ago, researchers discovered that people born with certain variants of the PCSK9 gene have low cholesterol levels throughout life and less often develop cardiovascular disease.

The treatment is based on base editing, a method that changes a single building block in the genome. The drug contains an mRNA and a guide RNA packaged in a lipid nanoparticle. The particle enters the liver's cells, where the editing takes place. The idea is that a single treatment should be enough.

Lower cholesterol at higher doses

In the study, 35 participants received one of six doses, from 0.3 to 1.0 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. The higher the dose, the greater the effect.

The PCSK9 protein fell by an average of 51 percent at the lowest dose and by 88 percent at the highest. LDL cholesterol fell by between 9 and 62 percent.

At the highest dose, LDL cholesterol dropped from 128 to 51 milligrams per deciliter, a reduction of 78 milligrams per deciliter. Today's PCSK9 inhibitors lower LDL cholesterol by about 40 to 60 percent, but they require repeated treatment. Here a single dose was enough.

The reduction held

The participants were followed for up to 18 months. Fifteen of them were followed for at least a year. The reduction in both PCSK9 and LDL cholesterol held throughout the entire follow-up period.

Because the gene edit takes place in the genome, the effect can be long-lasting. The liver's cells are replaced roughly every 200 to 300 days, and the results suggest that the edited gene remains even as the cells renew. At the same time, the researchers note that larger and longer studies are needed to determine whether the reduction holds over decades.

If the reduction at the highest dose holds for 20 years, the researchers estimate that the risk of cardiovascular disease could fall by more than 50 percent for most patients with high cholesterol.

No serious side effects linked to the drug

No dose-limiting toxic effects occurred, and no participant dropped out of the study. Seven participants (20 percent) had mild or moderate reactions related to the infusion. Three participants had a temporary and symptom-free rise in the liver enzyme alanine aminotransferase, which returned to normal within a few days.

One participant with a history of acid reflux developed pneumonia caused by aspiration, meaning stomach contents entering the airways. The site investigator assessed it as not linked to VERVE-102.

The study was conducted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and was funded by Verve Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly. The participants were on average 52 years old. Twenty-nine of them (83 percent) had inherited high cholesterol.

🎗️ Now cancer vaccines are coming

WALL-Y — Fri, 29 May 2026 08:27:47 GMT

The immune system can now be used to treat several types of cancer, and more than 2,500 immunotherapies are in development.
Cancer vaccines have also started to show results in clinical trials, against melanoma, pancreatic cancer, and brain tumors, among others.
Researchers are testing vaccines meant to prevent cancer in people at high hereditary risk.

Fifteen years of immunotherapy

It has been fifteen years since the first clear proof that the immune system can be used to extend the lives of cancer patients. The field has grown quickly since then. Today there are more than 2,500 drugs and programs for cancer immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy works by strengthening the body's own immune system so that it attacks cancer cells. Today there are about eight different classes of immunotherapy that are approved or in development. Now one of the later steps is arriving: the vaccines.

Many ways to strengthen the immune system

Some drugs release the brakes that stop the immune system from attacking cancer cells, known as checkpoint inhibitors. These extended survival by anywhere from a couple of months to about a year and a half. The most widely used of them has more than 40 approved uses and is the best-selling cancer drug in the world. Several new checkpoint inhibitors are now being tested, often in combination with one another.

Another type is antibody drugs that carry a cell-killing agent directly into the cancer cell. More than 15 of these are approved, and over 300 are in development. A third type links a cancer cell to an immune cell. Nine such drugs are approved, and over 500 are on the way.

In cell therapy, immune cells are taken out of the patient, rebuilt, and given back. The first such treatment was approved in 2017 for blood cancer, and in 2024 a treatment was approved for melanoma. Recently, a new version using long-lived immune cells was given to eleven patients with blood cancer that had not responded to earlier treatment, with results in several of them.

How cancer vaccines work

A cancer vaccine teaches the immune system to recognize cancer cells. The tumor has specific markers on its surface that set it apart from healthy cells. The vaccine displays these markers so that the immune system learns to find and attack those particular cells.

The vaccines are often given together with an immune drug. The vaccine points out the target, and the drug makes sure the immune system is allowed to attack it. Most of the vaccines are made from the patient's own tumor and take about two months to produce.

Results in clinical trials

Between 2020 and 2025, several trials showed results. Patients with high-risk melanoma that had been surgically removed were given a vaccine together with an immune drug. They went longer without recurrence than those who received only the drug. The same vaccine is now being tested in larger trials for melanoma and lung cancer.

Patients with pancreatic cancer were given a vaccine after surgery. It produced a long-lasting immune response and later recurrence. In a form of brain tumor, a vaccine extended overall survival compared with earlier patient groups.

In a trial for metastatic melanoma, patients were given a vaccine together with an immune drug. The median time without the disease worsening was 25.5 months. In a trial for kidney cancer, patients were given a vaccine, and none of them had a recurrence over 42 months. In a form of late-stage leukemia, a vaccine doubled survival compared with earlier treatment.

Vaccines meant to prevent cancer

The other type of vaccine is meant to prevent cancer in people at high hereditary risk. A trial in people with a hereditary condition that raises the risk of cancer produced a strong immune response in 45 participants. Similar work is under way for people with hereditary mutations that raise the risk of breast cancer. Researchers have also produced early results for a vaccine meant to prevent pancreatic cancer.

💊 GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic, linked to lower risk of cancer progression

WALL-Y — Wed, 27 May 2026 08:32:39 GMT

Patients with early-stage cancer who took GLP-1 drugs had fewer cases of disease progression compared to patients on other diabetes medication.
Among women with breast cancer, more than 95 percent of GLP-1 users were alive after five years, compared to 89.5 percent of non-users.
Women who had taken a GLP-1 drug had about 25 percent lower risk of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis.

Four studies point in the same direction

Four new studies show that people taking GLP-1 drugs such as Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro may have better outcomes when it comes to cancer. The results include reduced tumor progression, lower mortality, and lower risk of developing breast cancer.

A study from the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Institute followed more than 10,000 patients with early-stage cancer who started taking GLP-1 drugs after their diagnosis. The researchers compared their disease progression with patients taking a different type of diabetes medication. Patients on GLP-1 drugs were less likely to see their cancer spread.

Lung cancer progression cut in half

Among lung cancer patients, the share who developed advanced disease fell from 22 percent to 10 percent among GLP-1 users. For breast cancer, the corresponding figures were 10 percent compared to 20 percent. Researchers also saw statistically significant reductions for colorectal and liver cancer.

Dr. Mark Orland, a resident at the Cleveland Clinic, will present the study at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting later this month. He noted that it is important to quickly understand the drugs' possible anti-tumor effects, since millions of Americans use them.

Longer survival for breast cancer patients

An analysis from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center of more than 137,000 breast cancer patients showed that more than 95 percent of GLP-1 users were alive after five years, compared to 89.5 percent of those who did not use the drugs.

A study from the University of Pennsylvania included nearly 95,000 women who underwent breast imaging. Those who had taken a GLP-1 drug had about 25 percent lower risk of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis. The result remained after the researchers accounted for age, weight, and other risk factors.

Dr. Jasmine Sukumar, a breast oncologist at UT MD Anderson, said that the researchers are seeing a signal across several different databases, which is interesting given that the studies have somewhat different designs.

Two possible explanations

Researchers do not yet know why the drugs may have this effect. One theory is that GLP-1 reduces cancer risk indirectly, through weight loss and improved metabolism — two factors that are each independently linked to lower cancer risk. Another theory is more direct: receptors for the GLP-1 hormone, which the drugs mimic, appear on the surface of some tumor cells. This opens the possibility that the drugs act on cancer biology itself.

GLP-1 drugs are already approved for lowering blood sugar, producing weight loss, and reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. They are also being tested for sleep apnea and addictive behaviors.

👩‍💻 Open source helps reach millions of unvaccinated children

WALL-Y — Sat, 09 May 2026 08:44:25 GMT

Many countries relied on paper or Excel for data collection, causing delays and quality problems in reporting.
An eight-year collaboration between the HISP Centre at the University of Oslo and Gavi has built digital vaccination systems in low- and middle-income countries, and today 40 countries use the DHIS2 platform as their main system for vaccination data.
In Mozambique, 524,383 children who had never been vaccinated were identified and reached, and in Kenya 127,000 previously unvaccinated children were identified with vaccination coverage exceeding 95 percent in campaign areas.

From paper to digital systems

When the collaboration between the HISP Centre and Gavi began in 2018, national immunisation programmes were beset by serious data problems. Fragmented systems were common. Many countries relied on paper or Excel for data collection, causing delays and quality problems in reporting. Only 7 of 54 Gavi-supported countries had integrated their vaccination data into national health information systems.

The collaboration has centred on DHIS2, an open-source platform used in more than 75 low-income countries as a national health management information system. Today, 40 Gavi-supported countries use DHIS2 as their main system for vaccination data, fully integrated with national health information systems.

Concrete results in several countries

The change has produced measurable results. Countries now have access to detailed and timely data on their vaccination programmes, supporting decision-making. Using DHIS2 for disease surveillance has enabled countries to detect and respond to disease outbreaks more quickly and effectively. Integration of facility-level vaccine stock data has improved supply chain efficiency and reduced shortages of vaccines and other health commodities.

In Mozambique, DHIS2 helped identify and reach 524,383 children who had never been vaccinated and who lived in often overlooked settlements. In Kenya, the system supported three national vaccination campaigns reaching 4.3 million children. Digital microplanning tools were deployed in 12 high-priority counties. This helped identify 127,000 previously unvaccinated children, achieve vaccination coverage of more than 95 percent in campaign areas, and reduce data reconciliation time from three weeks to four days.

Digital vaccination records reduce administrative work

An important change that followed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic was the shift from aggregated reporting to systems that maintain digital vaccination records for each individual child. Countries such as Rwanda, Liberia, Sri Lanka and Laos introduced such electronic immunisation registers during the pandemic.

Research from Exemplars in Global Health shows that Rwanda's use of a DHIS2-based register led to an 82 percent reduction in the monthly hours health workers spent on administrative tasks. The time spent creating lists of patients who had missed vaccinations fell by 93 percent, freeing up more time for direct patient care.

In Laos, a study found that the large majority of users were positive about the new system, finding it faster and easier to use than their previous one. The researchers noted that the decision to build on an existing platform, DHIS2, was highlighted by key informants as crucial to the early success and as an important driver of acceptance and uptake among healthcare workers.

DHIS2 during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, countries shared DHIS2 solutions with one another, helping 60 countries quickly deploy digital tools for disease surveillance and vaccine delivery. This illustrates how open source enables the rapid spread of working solutions between countries without each country having to start from scratch.

Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya is among those calling on all African countries to digitalise health data using DHIS2 tracking programmes, to collect person-centred health data at the community level. The goal is to improve healthcare delivery, disease surveillance, and supply chain efficiency and resilience.

💉 New vaccine reduced Lyme disease cases by 70 percent in clinical trial

WALL-Y — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 09:06:46 GMT

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Valneva report that their Lyme disease vaccine LB6V reduced the number of disease cases by around 70 percent compared with placebo.
It would become the first approved Lyme disease vaccine for humans in nearly three decades.
In the United States, an estimated 476,000 people are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year.

The vaccine stops the bacteria inside the tick

The LB6V vaccine protects against Lyme disease by stopping transmission while the bacteria are still inside the tick. The shot trains the body to produce antibodies against a bacterial protein called OspA, found on the surface of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium. When a tick feeds on a vaccinated person, it takes in the antibodies, which bind to OspA and prevent the bacteria from leaving the tick.

Full protection requires four doses of LB6V, and booster shots may be needed at regular intervals to maintain antibody levels.

The companies plan to submit the data to drug regulators in the United States and Europe for review and approval decisions.

Built on earlier research

LB6V builds on work from an earlier vaccine. That previous vaccine, LYMErix, also used OspA and had an efficacy of 76 percent. It was approved by the U.S. FDA in 1998 but was withdrawn from the market in 2002, partly due to low demand.

Follow-up studies from both the FDA and the manufacturer showed similar numbers of arthritis cases in vaccinated and control groups, suggesting the vaccine did not cause the condition. Laboratory studies also argued against a link. Even so, Valneva has removed the part of OspA identified as a possible cause in order to reduce any risk.

Lyme disease is spreading to new areas

Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is increasing in parts of the United States, Canada, and Europe. Ticks carrying the bacteria are spreading to new areas as temperatures rise, and more are surviving the winter.

Blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are found across much of the eastern United States. Another species in the western part of the country, Ixodes pacificus, can also transmit Lyme disease. Ticks in the east more often carry the bacteria than ticks in the west.

Several strategies being developed in parallel

Researchers are also working on other methods. Lab-produced antibodies could provide fast protection, where a single shot at the beginning of the season could confer immunity for an entire tick season.

Another strategy targets the bacteria before they reach the tick. White-footed mice carry the bacteria and pass them on to ticks, which then spread them to other mammals, including humans. Researchers at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center have tested a vaccine for mice, in which the mice eat bait laced with an OspA-based vaccine that stops the bacteria inside the tick.

Field trials in parts of Maryland show that areas with vaccinated mice ended up with fewer infected ticks. Over five years, treated sites had 43 percent fewer immature ticks carrying Borrelia burgdorferi. In untreated sites, the population of immature ticks capable of transmitting the bacteria more than doubled.

🧬 From 13% to 88%: This many survive pancreatic cancer thanks to new vaccine

WALL-Y — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:56:35 GMT

Seven of eight patients who responded to the personalized mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer are still alive six years after treatment.
The vaccine is tailored to each patient using genetic material from their unique tumor cells.
A Phase 2 study with more participants is already underway.

How the vaccine works

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. Fewer than 13 percent of those diagnosed survive more than five years. New data from a Phase 1 clinical trial now shows that a personalized mRNA vaccine can produce a lasting immune response — and that most patients who responded to the vaccine are still alive six years later.

The vaccine is a form of immunotherapy. It activates the body's own immune system to fight cancer cells. The goal is not to remove existing tumors, but to seek out and destroy lingering cancer cells after surgery — and prevent new cells from causing a recurrence.

Patients first undergo surgery to remove the tumor. Genetic material from their individual tumor cells is then analyzed, and the vaccine is manufactured specifically for each person. In the study, patients received nine doses of the vaccine, followed by standard chemotherapy.

Results after six years

The study included 16 patients with early-stage pancreatic cancer. Eight of them responded to the vaccine and produced a strong immune response in the form of T cells — immune cells that seek out and destroy tumor cells. This was unexpected, as pancreatic cancer has long been considered one of the hardest cancers in which to generate any immune response at all.

Six years after treatment, seven of the eight patients who responded to the vaccine are still alive. Of the eight who did not respond, two are still alive. Two of the responding patients experienced a cancer recurrence, and one of them has since died.

The new results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting in San Diego.

Two types of T cells working together

The research team also investigated how the immune response functions at the cellular level. They found that two types of T cells likely work in tandem to create a lasting defense. So-called killer T cells directly attack cancer cells. Helper T cells appear to extend the lifespan of these killer cells — which may be critical for maintaining the immune response over time.

The study's lead researcher, Dr. Vinod Balachandran at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, describes it as the vaccine needing to generate both types of T cells for an optimal response.

Larger study underway

The drugmakers Genentech and BioNTech, behind the vaccine, have already launched a Phase 2 study with more participants. A separate research team is working on a standardized vaccine targeting a protein called KRAS, which is present in up to 90 percent of all pancreatic cancer cases. In a small early trial, around 85 percent of participants mounted an immune response to the protein.

Researchers not involved in the study note that the results come from a small group of patients and that more research is needed. There is always a subset of pancreatic cancer patients who survive longer than five years, and it remains unclear what role the vaccine plays compared to other factors.

😶‍🌫️ The risk of developing dementia at any given age has dropped sharply

WALL-Y — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:42:53 GMT

The share of older people with dementia at any given age has fallen by two-thirds over 40 years.
An 85-year-old in 2024 has one-third the risk of having dementia compared to an 85-year-old in 1984.
A new analysis suggests dementia cases will increase by 25 percent by 2050 — not double, as long predicted.

A dramatic decline over four decades

Over the past 40 years, the share of people with dementia at any given age has fallen by two-thirds. These are not marginal changes: in 1984, 30 percent of all people between the ages of 85 and 89 had dementia. In 2024, that figure was 10 percent.

The researchers behind the analysis are Eric Stallard, Svetlana Ukraintseva, and Murali Doraiswamy at Duke University in North Carolina.

Stallard analyzed data from three large population studies to reach this conclusion. The first was the National Long Term Care Survey, which followed Americans over age 65 from 1984 to 2004 and showed that the prevalence of severe cognitive impairment declined by 2.7 percent per year. The second was the US Health and Retirement Study, with data from 2000 to 2012, which showed a similar decline of 2.5 percent per year. The third was the National Health and Aging Trends Study, with data from nearly 50,000 people between 2011 and 2021, which showed a decline of 3.7 percent per year — but Stallard used only the years 2011–2019 to avoid the distortion caused by COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes during 2020–2021. During that period, the decline was 3 percent per year.

Each generation fares better

Stallard combined the three sources and used 2.7 percent as the annual rate of decline. The results show that each successive five-year birth cohort has lower dementia prevalence at any given age than its predecessors. A person born in 1945 had significantly lower risk of having dementia in a given age group compared to someone born in 1895.

Earlier projections called into question

The standard projections of a doubling of dementia cases by 2050 rest on the assumption that the share of people affected within each age group remains constant. But that is not the case, the analysis shows. If the current trend holds, Stallard calculates that dementia cases will increase by 25 percent by 2050 — a rise explained by the fact that there will simply be more older people, not that individuals face higher risk. A similar analysis from the Netherlands, based on data from the Rotterdam Study, points to an increase of 30 percent.

If the rate of decline continues in future birth cohorts as well, the increase could be even smaller — only 10 percent more cases by 2050, according to Stallard's calculations.

Better public health as an explanation

What has driven the decline is not yet fully understood. Since the late 1800s, much has changed: better nutrition, higher levels of education, vaccines and antibiotics against infectious diseases, and more effective treatment of cardiovascular disease and stroke. Mortality from heart disease fell by roughly three-quarters during the same period in which dementia prevalence declined by two-thirds, suggesting a link between the two trends.

More recent research has also identified changes in lifestyle factors — such as physical activity, smoking, hearing loss, and high blood pressure — as factors influencing dementia risk.

🪱 Hookworm vaccine reduces infection in trial – could help millions with anemia

WALL-Y — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 09:44:04 GMT

Hookworm infects more than 100 million people and is a major cause of iron-deficiency anemia, particularly in children and pregnant women.
A phase 2 trial shows that a vaccine candidate substantially reduces the intensity of infection, with a median of 0.0 worm eggs per gram of feces compared with 66.7 eggs in the placebo group.
The Na-GST-1/Al–CpG formulation is now advancing to further clinical evaluation, either as a standalone vaccine or as part of a combination vaccine.

Researchers at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine, have published results from a phase 2 trial of a hookworm vaccine. The study was published on March 17, 2026 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Hookworm infects an estimated 113 million people globally, and some estimates suggest more than 400 million. The parasite is found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. It feeds on blood in the small intestine and is one of the most common causes of iron-deficiency anemia, particularly in children and pregnant women in low-resource settings. There is currently no licensed vaccine against the disease.

How the trial was conducted

The trial involved 39 adult participants in Washington, D.C. Participants received three doses of one of three vaccine formulations or placebo, and were then exposed to the parasite under controlled conditions. All vaccine candidates had previously been tested for safety in phase 1 trials in the United States, Brazil, and Gabon, but had not been tested against actual infection.

Each candidate contains the protein Na-GST-1, an antigen that can generate an immune response against hookworm. The most effective formulation combined Na-GST-1 with an adjuvant called CpG, which enhances the immune response.

Lower infection levels in vaccinated participants

Participants who received the Na-GST-1/Al–CpG vaccine had significantly lower infection intensity after exposure. The highest measured worm egg count had a median of 0.0 eggs per gram of feces, compared with 66.7 eggs in the placebo group.

Levels of eosinophils, a blood marker linked to parasitic infection, were also significantly lower in the group that received Na-GST-1/Al–CpG. The same group also produced the highest levels of antibodies against Na-GST-1, suggesting that these antibodies may contribute to protection against infection.

Advancing as standalone or combination vaccine

Based on the results, the Na-GST-1/Al–CpG formulation has been selected for further clinical evaluation. It may be used either as a standalone vaccine or as part of a combination vaccine. In areas with high rates of both malaria and hookworm, it is not always clear which of the two diseases is the primary cause of anemia, according to the researchers behind the study.

Nearly 40 percent of children under the age of five suffer from anemia globally.

💉 GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic, show positive effects against at least ten different diseases

WALL-Y — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:38:19 GMT

The FDA has approved GLP-1 drugs for the treatment of kidney disease, heart disease, liver disease and sleep apnea – in addition to diabetes and obesity.
A large study of over 600,000 people shows that GLP-1 drugs are linked to a 14 percent lower risk of developing substance use disorders.
Studies show early signs of positive effects also in cancer, asthma, fertility, dementia and inflammation.

From diabetes drug to treatment for a range of diseases

GLP-1 drugs – sold under brand names such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound – were developed to treat diabetes and obesity. Research now shows they have effects against a range of other diseases, writes The Washington Post.

The drugs work in different ways. Ozempic and Wegovy contain semaglutide, a synthetic version of the hormone GLP-1 that regulates blood sugar and signals fullness. Mounjaro and Zepbound contain tirzepatide, which mimics GLP-1 but also acts on a second hormonal pathway called GIP.

Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist at the University of Toronto who has studied GLP-1 drugs for decades, describes patients with rheumatoid arthritis experiencing strong anti-inflammatory effects without losing weight. Harlan Krumholz, professor of medicine at Yale University, has noted improvements in blood pressure. Other clinicians have seen positive results in sleep apnea, joint pain and liver disease.

Kidney disease

Semaglutide reduced serious kidney events to 5.8 per 100 patients per year, compared with 7.5 in the placebo group.
The study was stopped early due to the strong results.
The FDA approved Ozempic for chronic kidney disease in January 2025.

A clinical trial with more than 3,500 patients showed that semaglutide significantly reduced the risk of kidney complications in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. The study was presented at the European Renal Association meeting in Stockholm in 2024 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The improvements were not linked to weight loss. The researchers noted that the mechanisms behind the kidney protection are likely multiple.

Cardiovascular disease

Semaglutide reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death by approximately 20 percent.
The FDA approved semaglutide for cardiovascular disease in people who are overweight or obese in March 2024.

The approval is based on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in November 2023. Over a follow-up period of approximately 40 months, 6.5 percent in the semaglutide group experienced serious cardiovascular events, compared with 8.0 percent in the placebo group. An additional study showed that tirzepatide lowered the risk of serious heart problems in patients with obesity and a type of heart failure.

Liver disease

62.9 percent of patients receiving semaglutide had improved liver inflammation without increased scarring, compared with 34.3 percent in the placebo group.
The FDA granted accelerated approval for semaglutide for metabolic liver disease in August 2025.

A study published in 2025 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that semaglutide improved outcomes for people with metabolic liver disease and liver fibrosis, the progressive form of what was previously called fatty liver disease. Another study involving HIV patients showed that liver fat decreased by 31 percent after six months of treatment with semaglutide.

Sleep apnea

Tirzepatide reduced breathing interruptions during sleep by 25 to 29 per hour, compared with 5 to 6 in the placebo group.
Zepbound became the first approved drug for moderate to severe sleep apnea in December 2024.

Two major clinical trials showed that tirzepatide improved symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea in people with obesity. The results were presented at the American Diabetes Association conference in Orlando and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Being overweight is the top risk factor for the condition, which affects millions of adults.

Addiction and substance use

GLP-1 use was linked to a 14 percent lower risk of developing addiction to alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine and opioids.
Patients with alcohol use disorder drank less and had fewer cravings for alcohol and cigarettes during treatment with semaglutide.

A large study published in the BMJ involving more than 600,000 American veterans with type 2 diabetes showed these results. Among veterans with preexisting substance use disorders, GLP-1 use was linked to fewer drug-related emergency visits, hospitalizations, overdoses and deaths over three years. A study in JAMA Psychiatry from February 2025 confirmed reduced cravings for alcohol and cigarettes during a nine-week treatment period.

Knee pain and inflammation

Patients with obesity and knee osteoarthritis reported a 41.7 percent reduction in knee pain with semaglutide, compared with 27.5 percent with placebo.
Eli Lilly is now investing in inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease and severe skin and lung disorders.

A study published in October 2024 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed these results after 68 weeks of treatment. Researchers are not certain whether the effect is due to weight loss or whether the drugs have a specific action on the joints. An analysis in Obesity Science and Practice from May 2024 showed that semaglutide may reduce the risk of developing knee osteoarthritis. Smaller studies have also shown improvements in psoriasis, kidney function and reduced risk of blood clots.

Cancer

People with type 2 diabetes who took GLP-1 drugs had a markedly reduced risk of colon cancer in a study of 101.2 million patient records.
Laboratory experiments show that GLP-1 drugs can reduce cancer cell migration and tumor growth.

The study was published in JAMA Oncology in December 2024 by researchers at Case Western Reserve University. It does not prove that the drugs caused the risk reduction, but the researchers noted that the link is strong enough to warrant further study. A review published in Nature Cancer in January listed dozens of ongoing clinical trials of GLP-1 drugs related to cancer, with a focus on endometrial, breast and prostate cancer.

Asthma

People with obesity and asthma who took GLP-1 drugs had better control of their asthma symptoms.

A British study published in April 2025 examined approximately 60,000 patients, of whom roughly 10,000 used GLP-1 drugs and had both obesity and asthma. The patients had better symptom control. The researchers believe the drugs' anti-inflammatory effects may be behind the improvements.

Fertility and PCOS

Low doses of semaglutide reduced body weight in nearly 80 percent of patients with polycystic ovary syndrome who had not responded to previous treatment.
Menstrual cycles normalized in these patients.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine in September 2023. There are also signs that weight loss linked to semaglutide may increase sperm count and sperm motility in men. In women with type 2 diabetes, hormonal imbalances affecting ovulation may improve. At least a dozen studies are underway on GLP-1 use in polycystic ovary syndrome and obesity.

Food cravings

Participants taking semaglutide and tirzepatide reported less hunger and fewer compulsive food thoughts compared with placebo.
Brain imaging studies show reduced activity in the brain's reward centers when exposed to high-calorie food.

Clinical trials have consistently shown that GLP-1 drugs reduce appetite, cravings and intrusive thoughts about food. In an 18-week study published in Diabetes in June 2023, adults with obesity taking tirzepatide showed clearly reduced hunger and fewer cravings.