Medical Xpress news

Medical Xpress / Genomic maps untangle the complex roots of disease

Today's biomedical researchers are relentlessly searching for genes that drive disease, with the goal of creating therapies that target those genes to restore health.

Dec 10, 2025 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / How the immune system stalls weight loss

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have uncovered a surprising new function for immune cells: preventing excess weight loss.

Dec 10, 2025 in Immunology
Medical Xpress / When it comes to language, context matters: How your brain deciphers sarcasm, metaphors and tone

In everyday conversation, it's critical to understand not just the words that are spoken, but the context in which they are said. If it's pouring rain and someone remarks on the "lovely weather," you won't understand their ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Uncovering the why behind cleft lip and palate with live imaging and gene editing

Every face is unique. Genetics helps to determine our features, but sometimes genes have errors which, in early fetal development, can result in babies with facial differences such as a cleft lip or cleft palate. If not treated, ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / Reverse genetics open new path to norovirus vaccine and drug development

Norovirus is the leading cause of gastroenteritis and is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. However, research progress into antiviral treatments and vaccines has been hindered by the absence of a ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / Years of war in Ukraine leave adolescents facing a growing mental health emergency

Adolescents who have lived through the escalating phases of the Russo-Ukrainian war are experiencing alarming levels of psychological distress, according to a new large-scale time-trend study from the Research Center for ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Key protein behind necroptotic cell death could drive new treatment strategies

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a protein that causes human cell membranes to break open in a form of inflammatory programmed cell death called necroptosis. Their findings, reported in Nature, ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Medical research
Medical Xpress / Genetic modifier of Friedreich's ataxia points toward treatment for devastating disorder

Friedreich's ataxia (FA) is a rare but devastating genetic disorder. Those with the condition are often diagnosed between 5 and 15 years of age and live only into their 30s or 40s. There is no widely approved treatment that ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / Pulmonary fibrosis traced to key signaling pathway

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic disease in which healthy lung tissue is gradually replaced by scar tissue. While the early events that initiate this change are poorly understood, recent research suggests ...

Medical Xpress / In pneumonia's tug-of-war, lung microbiome could tip the balance

Northwestern University scientists have potentially uncovered a previously unknown, hidden player in pneumonia. In a new study, scientists found the lungs' own microbial community, or microbiome, appears to influence how ...

Medical Xpress / Real-time imaging captures what happens to cancer cells arriving in the brain

Metastasis occurs when cancer cells break away from the original tumor and travel through the bloodstream to form new tumors in other parts of the body. It is the leading cause of cancer-related death. Brain metastasis is ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Oncology & Cancer
Medical Xpress / Mobile DNA elements reveal their role in lung cancer progression

Using lung cancer biospecimens from the Sherlock-Lung study, an international team led by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers, identified key factors that drive tumor evolution and influence outcomes. Overall, ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Oncology & Cancer