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Fountain Life’s Executive Health Membership Program shows how AI-guided prevention can unlock major savings and extend workforce healthspan. Fountain Life is putting numbers behind a claim the healthcare industry has been making for years: prevention pays. New data from the company’s Executive Health Membership Program shows that precision diagnostics paired with early intervention can generate more than $20 million in annual net benefit per 1,000 members, delivering a 13:1 return on investment over a decade.  For employers, with healthcare costs rising and productivity losses accelerating, these figures are no longer conceptual. They are measurable. The Florida-based longevity brand, which blends…

The complement system is an innate immune response that leads to increased inflammation. The drug pegcetacoplan—a complement inhibitor—was approved for medical use in the United States in 2021 to treat adults with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)—a rare, life-threatening blood disease. In 2023, the drug was approved to treat people with age-related macular degeneration. Now, the drug has shown promise in a clinical trial involving patients with C3 glomerulopathy (C3G), an ultra-rare condition that primarily affects children and young adults. Only around 5,000 Americans have C3G, which causes progressive kidney damage, with more than half of patients reaching end-stage kidney failure…

Researchers found that family dogs have many benefits, which may be in part due to changes in the microbiome.Image credit:©iStock.com, LightFieldStudiosDogs are famously man’s best friend, armed with unlimited tail wags and slobbery kisses that can make any gloomy mood disappear in an instant. It’s no surprise that dogs greatly benefit people’s mental health.For instance, researchers like Takefumi Kikusui, an animal behaviorist at Azabu University, found that people who lived with dogs both early and later in life had higher measures of companionship and social support.1 Other studies found that living with a dog can influence the owner’s gut microbiota.2…

Credit: Dr_Microbe/Getty Images Chinese researchers have used multi-omic profiling to comprehensively map the immune landscape of sepsis, which could lead to new precision treatments. The findings, in Nature Immunology, revealed both shared and divergent immune responses shaped by the anatomical site of infection and the patient’s age. It also identified distinct subsets of immune cells with unique functional states and molecular profiles, which could potentially be used as biomarkers or targets for precision immunotherapy. “Our study provides a comprehensive immune landscape of sepsis across infection sources and age groups, highlighting critical immune subsets as potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets,” reported Qian…

FDA greenlights early-stage trial of VectorY’s first-in-class therapy targeting the core biology driving most ALS cases. Netherlands-based biotech VectorY Therapeutics has received FDA approval to advance its first-in-class vectorized antibody therapy, VTx-002, into the Phase 1/2 PIONEER-ALS trial. The therapy targets the hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of motor neurons, leading to paralysis and respiratory failure. “The FDA’s clearance to proceed with our Phase 1/2 study marks a pivotal milestone for VectorY, as we strive to transform the neurodegenerative disease landscape with our novel vectorized antibodies that are specifically designed to address…

Credit: Wildpixel/Getty Images CDMO eXmoor Pharma and the Translational Research Office (TRO) at University College London (UCL) formed a strategic collaboration to speed the development of novel cell and gene therapies (CGTs) from academic research into clinical application. The collaboration intends to support earlier and more efficient engagement between UCL innovators and eXmoor’s multidisciplinary teams, helping to reduce the risk, cost, and complexity of technology development. By combining the TRO’s translational research expertise with eXmoor’s consultancy, development and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) capabilities, the collaboration aims to create faster and more effective routes to clinical trial readiness and beyond, according…

Credit: Kateryna Kon/ Getty Images / Science Photo Library A team of investigators at Penn State College of Medicine reports the development of a new method that improves the mapping of genetic variants that influence the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. The method, published in Nature Communications, was created in response to long-standing challenges in connecting genome-wide association study data to specific changes in gene expression within the brain. The researchers sought a new approach because conventional bulk tissue studies mix many cell types together, and available single-cell datasets, although more precise, are small—especially for rare brain cell types that play…

New MRI study shows hidden belly fat and muscle mass influence brain aging and may affect Alzheimer’s risk. Want to keep your brain sharp as you age? New research presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) suggests that the balance between your muscle mass and visceral fat, the hidden fat around your organs, could play a major role in how old your brain looks [1]. Researchers scanned 1,164 healthy adults, average age 55, using whole-body MRI, which allowed them to measure muscle, fat, and brain structure in stunning detail. AI algorithms then estimated each participant’s “brain age,” a…

Credit: PonyWang/Getty Images The first genetic changes leading to breast cancer could appear many decades before it is discovered—as far back as early puberty—according to a Korean study of whole-genome sequences from more than 1000 tumors. The findings, in Nature, reveal unique insights into the mutational landscape of breast cancer, and the heterogeneous and complex genomics of this disease. The research highlights novel oncogenic alterations in breast cancer and identifies novel driver genes, recurrent gene fusions, structural variants, and copy number alterations. It also reveals several pattern-driven genomic features that could potentially be used as biomarkers for predicting the clinical…

Researchers from the lab of Nobel laureate, David Baker, PhD, have now released RFdiffusion3 open source. The latest version of the de novo protein design model generates proteins that interact with any type of molecule, including DNA and small molecules with broad applications across sustainability and therapeutics.  “We built this as a general model and are sharing it freely so the scientific community can create things we haven’t even imagined yet,” said Rohith Krishna, PhD, postdoctoral researcher in the Baker lab and co-lead author of the RFdiffusion3 bioRxiv preprint that has not been peer reviewed.  The work shows experimental proof of concept for the design of…