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A team from the U.K.’s Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult has been using digital tools to aid the manufacturing of autologous therapies, personalized to individual patients, as well as allogeneic therapies that treat a larger patient population with donor cells. According to Jahid Hasan, PhD, program head of cell delivery at CGT Catapult, digital tools can help reduce errors from paper-based batch management, as well as improve process analytics and manufacturing control. “A key take-home is that everyone should be developing and integrating digital tools, if they’re not already, and also that it’s possible to see the benefits even with…

Credit: YelenaYemchuk/Getty Images A ketogenic diet, high in fat and low in carbohydrates, could improve the mental health of people with treatment-resistant depression, a small trial has shown. Keeping to the keto diet for six weeks had antidepressant benefits when compared with a well-matched control diet in the Dietary Interventions for Mental Health (DIME) study. However, maintaining the eating plan—which is similar to the Atkins diet made popular in the 1970s—was challenging for participants once the provision of meals and support ended. Indeed, less than a tenth were able to continue with the keto diet afterwards, the researchers acknowledged in…

Death Clock adds AI-powered blood biomarker analysis and preventive health guidance in new Life Lab offering.   Provocatively-named digital health startup Death Clock has launched an AI-driven tool designed to make longevity services offered by concierge medicine and elite wellness clinics more accessible to a mass audience. The San Francisco–based company, best known for its mortality-prediction app, is expanding its offering with Life Lab, described as an “AI health concierge” that combines laboratory testing and personalized health planning within the existing app. Already boasting more than a million downloads, Death Clock’s death prediction app was initially something of a novelty,…

By employing a CRISPR-based approach, scientists introduced hundreds of variants in a gene to study how they fuel tumor growth.Image credit:© iStock.com, spawnsCells have a carefully orchestrated mechanism consisting of several proteins to ensure healthy replication and division. One of the key players that participates in regulating tissue growth and repair is β-catenin. However, mutations in CTNNB1, the gene encoding β-catenin, increase its signaling and result in a cascade of events driving tumor growth. Missense mutations—which cause a different amino acid to be encoded at a particular position—within a specific region of CTNNB1 are among the most common mutations in…

In genetics, one harmful variant can be enough to cause disease—but two can make it far more severe. One notable example is KJ, an infant diagnosed with a rare urea cycle disorder with a grim prognosis: He had a 50 percent chance of dying. His story ultimately became one of scientific collaboration and a successful personalized gene therapy. As researchers and clinicians use genome sequencing to identify genetic variants in patients, these advancements also underscore a new question: Can this information do more than diagnose disease? The human genome contains many variants with unknown functional consequences, and some combinations of…

At the 2026 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, there was a lot of movement on genetic medicines and particular cell therapies, particularly CAR Ts. But in adjacent rooms there were conversations with companies rethinking how medicine is delivered, activated, and experienced by patients. Across vaccines, oncology, neurodegeneration, and neurosurgery, several companies positioned themselves not as single-asset stories, but as builders of platforms that can evolve the landscape of medicine and healthcare. Vaxart: Reimagining vaccines as pills  Sean Tucker, PhD, senior vice president and CSO of Vaxart, said the company is based on a simple but radical idea: vaccines should…

In the world of superfoods, few tiny ingredients pack as much punch as the chia seed. These ancient seeds, once a staple for Aztec and Mayan warriors, have made a massive comeback in modern nutrition. However, as their popularity has soared, so has the confusion surrounding their preparation. Many people find themselves asking, how to eat chia seeds in a way that is not only delicious but also safe and effective for health goals like weight loss or improved digestion. The unique characteristic of chia seeds is their hydrophilic nature—the ability to absorb up to 12 times their weight in…

In the sprawling aisles of the supplement department, few products cause as much consumer confusion as the bottles labeled “Fish Oil” and those labeled “Omega-3. “To the untrained eye, they appear identical—golden, translucent soft gels promising a litany of health benefits ranging from heart protection to cognitive clarity. However, the question of is omega 3 the same as fish oil is not merely a matter of semantics; it is a fundamental distinction that affects potency, purity, and clinical outcomes. For years, these terms have been used interchangeably by marketers and wellness influencers, leading many to believe they are purchasing the…

Credit: FG Trade/Getty Images A medication commonly prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes, metformin, can help protect against the development of a common cause of blindness known as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is a chronic, progressive disease of the macula, the central part of the retina in the eye responsible for sharp, detailed, central vision. It affects more than 18 million people in the U.S. and estimates suggest that around one in 10 people over the age of 40 years have some degree of AMD. “There is considerable interest in the effects of metformin… on aging and AMD,” write…

Credit: Ruslanas Baranauskas / Getty images / Science photo library Scientists at The Wistar Institute have developed an HIV vaccine candidate that induced detectable neutralizing antibodies after a single immunization in nonhuman primates, a breakthrough that could significantly shorten and simply HIV vaccinations. The research, published in Nature Immunology, details how the team engineered a protein that removes the N332-glycan completely to produce their candidate WIN332, an unprecedented approach to current vaccine efforts that have focused on preserving N332-glycan. “By going against one commonly held belief in the field, we achieved low neutralization after a single immunization, which was further…