Health

The future of fertility, from artificial wombs to AI-assisted IVF

A look back at the history of infertility treatments and ahead to the tech that could change everything we thought we knew about reproduction.

Kristin Houser

Overlay of hands and abstract patterns in purple and blue tones, symbolizing hope for Parkinson's cure.

Drugs

The exciting research that may cure Parkinson’s

GeneCode is developing a drug it hopes won’t just alleviate Parkinson’s symptoms but also protect and restore patient’s neural health.

Kevin Dickinson

A child sitting on a couch in a dimly lit room, holding and looking intently at a tablet, as if testing the Goldilocks hypothesis for the perfect screen brightness.

Mental Health

Beyond screen time: Rethinking kids’ tech use with the “Goldilocks hypothesis”

The “Goldilocks hypothesis” asks parents to think beyond screen time and consider the habits that teens build around technology use.

Kevin Dickinson

Genetics

An international team sets out to cure genetic heart diseases with one shot

Researchers from the UK, US, and Singapore are beginning work on a genetic heart cure they hope to begin clinically testing within five years.

B. David Zarley

Coronavirus

Researchers may have created a universal coronavirus vaccine

All currently licensed COVID-19 vaccines target the spike protein’s S1 region, which is prone to mutations. We need a universal vaccine.

Peter Rogers

Medicine

Pfizer’s RSV vaccine is 86% effective at preventing severe illness

According to a huge phase 3 trial, Pfizer’s RSV vaccine is nearly 86% effective at preventing severe illness in older adults.

Kristin Houser

Surgery

Scientists convert kidney to universal “O” blood type

Kidneys still need to be tissue matched, but by converting them to type O, more will be available for transplant.

B. David Zarley

Coronavirus

MIT just created a test that can tell if you’re immune to COVID-19

MIT researchers have developed an easy-to-use test that may be able to predict an individual’s immune response to SARS-CoV-2.

Anne Trafton | MIT News Office

Neuroscience

New epilepsy treatment could stop seizures in their tracks

A new epilepsy treatment that's delivered as a nasal spray may be able to prevent seizures or even interrupt them.

Kristin Houser

Medicine

A sepsis-catching AI has proven effective in hospitals

A new AI for spotting sepsis, which accounts for ⅓ of hospital deaths, was found to be effective in a large trial.

B. David Zarley

CRISPR

First personalized CRISPR therapy approved for trial

The FDA has approved a trial for the first personalized CRISPR therapy, which was developed to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Kristin Houser

Food

Light pulses can stop dangerous food poisoning like Salmonella

A team at Penn State has developed a pulsed light technique capable of killing common food poisoning pathogens.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

Synthetic cartilage is now stronger than the real stuff

Using a heating process, Duke researchers have created a synthetic cartilage hydrogel that can outperform the real thing.

B. David Zarley

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