Medical Xpress news

Medical Xpress / First-in-the-world gene therapy delivers missing gene directly to infant's brain

An 8-month-old infant with severe genetic epilepsy has become the first patient in the world to receive an experimental gene replacement therapy designed to restore the function of the WWOX gene directly in the brain. The ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / New drug could slow the development of Alzheimer's

"Compound 10" is how Ursula Quitterer refers to the chemical compound that her team has developed and that could slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Quitterer is a professor of molecular pharmacology at ETH Zurich ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / New Huntington target may open simpler drug path to slow brain damage

Huntington disease is a rare, inherited brain disorder that progressively destroys nerve cells, leading to worsening movement, cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. Caused by a mutation in the huntingtin gene, the fatal disease ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Why one diabetes drug may sharply cut heart failure risk for genetically vulnerable patients

Rare genetic variants known to cause cardiomyopathy, an inherited cause of a weak heart, can increase the risk of patients developing heart failure. However, new research from Mass General Brigham Heart and Vascular Institute ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Metabolic switch in lung cancer reprograms immune cells to slow tumors

An international research team, led by Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), the Institute for Lung Health (ILH) in Giessen, and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, has identified a promising ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Mylpf protein serves as a molecular linchpin for muscle health

University of Maine researchers have published new findings about how muscles form, why certain muscle diseases develop and why symptoms may not appear until years after muscle degeneration begins.

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Study shows US tobacco firms used cigarette-selling tactics to globally market ultra-processed foods

A new study from the University of Kansas details how U.S. tobacco corporations expanded into global food markets from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, using strategies honed through cigarette sales to market ultra-processed ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / New map reveals how antidepressants reshape the brain's serotonin system

A new study has uncovered how antidepressants affect different groups of serotonin-producing brain cells in opposite ways, offering new insights into why selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can cause unpleasant ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Defective HIV copies explain most persistent traces in blood following treatment, study finds

Antiretroviral drugs for HIV infection have enabled most people living with the virus to live long and healthy lives. However, a small portion of people experience detectable—and worrisome—traces of the virus that causes ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Music listening shows no mental health benefit in 20,000 twin records

For many, music is a source of comfort, a mood booster and a remedy for loneliness. But does frequently listening to music actually lead to better mental health? A new study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Researchers trigger sleep's restorative effect in parts of the awake brain

By inducing specific patterns of activity in small portions of the brain in awake mice, researchers have triggered a recalibration of neural connections that normally only occurs during sleep. This new approach offset the ...

Jun 8, 2026
Medical Xpress / Left-handed DNA tubes double cancer drug killing by boosting cell uptake

Researchers in the lab of Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) member Xing Wang have discovered the influential role of structural chirality, or "handedness," of a DNA nanostructure to dictate cancer cell response to targeted ...

Jun 8, 2026