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Brain scans find no evidence of widespread inflammation in long COVID

A new brain imaging study has found no evidence of widespread brain inflammation in patients suffering from prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection. Instead, the most severe long COVID symptoms were associated with increased brain activity in regions involved in mood and emotion.

22 May 2026

Semaglutide helps patients who gain weight after bariatric surgery

New UCL research supports use of the weight loss drug semaglutide for patients who do not get enough benefit from bariatric surgery.

22 May 2026

NIH researchers discover how weight-loss drugs alter brain cells

A team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have unveiled new details about the events GLP-1 receptor agonists trigger within neurons, which have been largely unexplored until now.

22 May 2026

Cincinnati scientists grow larger gut organoids with self-developing nerve cells

Thanks to special 3D-printed scaffolding trays designed by experts at Cincinnati Children's, researchers can now produce larger versions of functional human gut organoids twice as fast as previous methods-and these organoids grow their own nerve cells.

22 May 2026

Lab-grown brain models reveal how epilepsy drug alters fetal development

It is known that the antiepileptic drug valproate increases the risk of developmental disorders in unborn children.

22 May 2026

Optimized extended PCLS culture system extends tissue viability up to two weeks

Precision-cut liver slice (PCLS) technology has long been regarded as a promising ex vivo platform because it preserves the native multicellular architecture of liver tissue.

22 May 2026

Graph neural networks accelerate drug discovery for complex bone diseases

Announcing a new publication for Acta Materia Medica journal. Traditional Chinese medicine has shown therapeutic potential in treating osteoarthritis (OA) by regulating inflammation and maintaining cartilage homeostasis.

22 May 2026

Innovative platform bridges the gap between OUD treatment and HIV prevention

People with opioid use disorder (OUD) are at increased risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). While there are effective interventions that can substantially reduce HIV incidence and opioid overdose, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), many patients still face barriers to accessing and staying engaged in care.

22 May 2026

How screen time, stress, and nicotine trap young adults in poor sleep

Among the younger part of the population, sleep problems, anxiety, and depression are widespread and growing issues.

22 May 2026

What medicine-exposed rats reveal about the next urban zoonotic threat

Researchers found that more than half of urban rats sampled from low-income communities in Salvador, Brazil, carried active pharmaceutical ingredients in their brain tissue. These pollutants were associated with altered zoonotic infection patterns, including lower Leptospira infection probability in rats carrying azithromycin and higher Capillaria infection probability in rats carrying citalopram.

22 May 2026

New study reveals nitric oxide’s widespread impact on genetics

Genes undergo extensive editing through a process called alternative splicing, which greatly increases the size of the functional genome, the working portion of our DNA that helps make each person unique. Put simply, a single gene can be edited in different ways to produce multiple sets of instructions.

22 May 2026

Explainable AI could make breast cancer drug predictions safer and clearer

AI-driven genomic analysis could help researchers identify existing drugs that may be repurposed for subtype-specific breast cancer treatment. The review proposes an interpretability-driven framework that links multi-omics data, mechanistic validation, and clinical translation to make AI predictions more transparent and clinically useful.

22 May 2026

Could blocking inflammation help treat difficult-to-treat depression?

A small proof-of-concept RCT found that tocilizumab, an IL-6 receptor blocker, showed a non-significant but clinically suggestive pattern of improvement in difficult-to-treat depression linked to low-grade inflammation. The study found that baseline hs-CRP, rather than IL-6, may help identify patients most likely to respond, supporting larger trials of immune-targeted depression care.

22 May 2026

New discovery maps how mutant colorectal tumors adapt to KRAS inhibitors

A new preclinical study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medicine has uncovered genetic and cell-state adaptive mechanisms that drive resistance to KRAS inhibitors in patients with KRAS-mutant colorectal cancer.

22 May 2026

Scientists join international collaborative to advance Parkinson’s disease research

Michael Koob, PhD, and his team from University of Minnesota Medical School have been selected to join the Collaborative Research Network (CRN), an international, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional network working to address high-priority research questions about Parkinson's disease, through a $6 million grant awarded by Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP), in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF).

22 May 2026

Disrupted sleep rhythms may increase dementia risk through impaired waste clearance

Why are conditions such as chronic stress, depression, cardiovascular disease, fragmented sleep, and aging all associated with a higher risk of dementia? In a new review piece in Science, University of Rochester Medicine neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard, MD, DMSc, proposes that many of these seemingly different conditions may converge on the same biological problem: disruption of a sleep-dependent brain rhythm that helps clear waste from the brain.

22 May 2026

Study finds widespread hantavirus exposure among Pacific Northwest rodent populations

The Sin Nombre virus – a hantavirus that can cause a deadly respiratory disease in humans – may be more widespread among rodent populations in parts of the Pacific Northwest than previously recognized.

21 May 2026

Excess EXO1 protein may drive cancer DNA damage and treatment response

When it comes to cancer, tumor suppressor genes are usually thought of as the "good guys." These genes make proteins that protect and repair DNA in cells.

21 May 2026

AI-created miniproteins show promise for targeting hard-to-treat diseases

G protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs, sit in the plasma membrane, the boundary that defines the inside and outside of a living cell. They communicate with nearly every physiological process in our bodies - from the ability to see and smell, to sensing of adrenaline, insulin, nutrients and medicines.

21 May 2026

Scientists capture immune cells attacking live melanoma cells in real time

Scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have captured, for the first time, 'housekeeping' immune cells actively attacking and engulfing live melanoma cells – a discovery that could change the way we approach treatment for one of Australia's most common and deadly cancers.

21 May 2026