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Migraine is a primary headache disorder affecting approximately 14% of the global population. For individuals affected, however, labeling migraine as a headache minimizes its intensity, much like calling a wildfire a campfire. Often unrelenting, migraine continues to be one of the leading causes of disability, particularly among women aged 15–49. Among the recent research reshaping understanding of the disorder, studies have focused on the role of the microbiome in migraine management and pathogenesis. This IPA blog describes research on the links between migraine and the microbiome, as well as trials testing whether biotic supplements may mitigate symptoms. Migraine, in brief…

Credit: sefa ozel/Getty images Researchers at Washington State University have potentially found the reason why tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFis) are an ineffective treatment in as many as 40% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), by identifying an alternate inflammatory signaling pathway that allows inflammation to persist even when TNF activity is blocked. The study, published in Cellular & Molecular Immunology, found that TNF-α can exploit signaling through the TWEAK/Fn14 axis to amplify inflammation, showing a biological basis for TNFi resistance and identifying a new target that could potentially improve treatment efficacy. “It’s kind of like a back-door entry or…

Researchers use in vivo chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) approaches to reprogram immune cells inside living systems, offering more efficient alternatives to traditional ex vivo CAR T development.1 As scientists work toward moving in vivo CAR methods from concept to clinic, they must ensure that complex, multistep discovery and development workflows yield reliable and biologically meaningful data.In vivo CAR strategies involve delivering preclinically designed CAR-encoding DNA or mRNA to a patient’s T cells directly, for example via viral vectors or nanoparticle-based carriers.1,2 In vivo CARs must meet specific criteria, including precise T cell targeting, high gene editing efficiency, and low toxicity.2…

From peptides to stem cells, a physician shows how regenerative medicine is reshaping chronic pain and healthy aging in practice. If you’ve ever wondered whether regenerative medicine and peptide therapies are hype or reality, the latest episode of Longevity.Technology UNLOCKED offers a front-row seat. Hosts Dr Nina Patrick and Phil Newman sit down with Dr Hany Demian, a physician whose work sits at the crossroads of regenerative medicine, peptide therapeutics and performance optimization. The conversation dives into what these tools actually do in the real world, for real people. For Demian, the starting point is simple but profound: chronic pain…

Credit: Christoph Burgstedt / iStock / Getty Images Plus Aging alters nearly every cellular system, but how these changes unfold at the level of intracellular architecture has remained difficult to capture. In a new study published in Nature Cell Biology, researchers uncover a conserved, age-dependent remodeling of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)—a process driven by selective autophagy and tightly linked to organismal longevity. The work, led by Kristopher Burkewitz, PhD, and colleagues, provides a mechanistic view of how ER structure and turnover shift with age, identifying a regulated loss of tubular ER as a hallmark of aging across tissues and species. The…

An international team of scientists headed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, has created a complete map showing how hundreds of possible mutations in a key cancer gene, CTNNB1, influence tumor growth. CTNNB1 is the gene coding for the protein β-catenin, which helps regulate tissue growth and repair. When β-catenin is disrupted, cells can begin uncontrolled growth—a hallmark of cancer. By systematically testing all possible mutations in the gene’s “mutation hotspot” in mouse cells, the researchers were able to assign functional scores to more than 80% of CTNNB1 missense mutations observed in cancer. The resulting map helps to explain…

In the 1970s, I was at Michigan State University, studying mutations in DNA repair that led to skin cancer in people with xeroderma pigmentosum. At that time, researchers hypothesized that carcinogenesis happened in three stages: an initiation stage where a mutation occurs, a promotion step where non-mutagenic factors allow the mutated cell to grow into a benign tumor, and then a progression phase where the tumor becomes invasive. Researchers couldn’t explain what occurred during the promotion step, but I believed that all cancers arose from some factor inhibiting the DNA repair process which led to mutations. Around this time, I…

Credit: Peter Dazeley/ Getty Images Results from an international Phase III trial show treating people with advanced lung cancer with immunochemotherapy earlier in the day significantly improves patient outcomes. Writing in Nature Medicine, the investigators report that during just over two years of follow up patients who received treatments before 3pm doubled their progression free survival time and had about 70% longer median survival versus those who had treatment after 3pm. “Immune checkpoint inhibitors have improved treatment outcomes for patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer. However, a substantial fraction of patients (~10% to 15%) neither respond to checkpoint inhibitor…

The United States federal government is the primary source of research funding for American universities. Last fiscal year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) invested a combined $57 billion into scientific research across the major disciplines, and additional research and development funding comes from agencies such as the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. Most of these federal dollars go to non-governmental academic research institutions. At our university, the University of California, over $5 billion in federally funded research was awarded in 2024, the most recent year for which data are available. Without…

In the mid-1980s, an article in a popular science magazine that talked about genetic engineering—recombinant DNA technologies, cloning, and related advances—caught my attention as a high schooler in São Paulo, Brazil. The story referenced a science book filled with these topics, written by scientists from the University of São Paulo.This motivated me to approach the authors, microbiologists Elisabete Vicente and Beatriz Fernandes, in the interim between high school and my studies at the University of São Paulo to join their research group. Naturally, they didn’t let me run experiments at first. I started by washing glassware and gradually worked my…