A microscope image of a mitochondrion, artificially coloured in green and red. The organelles were extracted for a retinal transplant from the person’s own leg muscles. Credit: K. R. Porter/SPL Scientists have extracted mitochondria from a woman’s leg muscles and injected them into the vitreous fluid of her eyes in an attempt to treat severe
David Fajgenbaum discovered how to repurpose a drug to treat his own rare disease and has dedicated much of his career to repurposing drugs. Credit: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Clinton Global Initiative As a child, molecular biologist Francesca Granata had episodes of skin pain so excruciating that she could not bear even a hug from
Physicians test new narcolepsy treatments by checking whether the drugs help people to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night.Credit: Lucia Graphus/Alamy Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug designed to treat the root cause of narcolepsy, a condition that affects millions of people by causing extreme sleepiness
Fidji Simo, the former OpenAI executive who cofounded the biomedical startup ChronicleBio, said she believes AI can eventually cure all diseases, but smarter models alone won’t get us there. In an X post on Monday, Simo responded to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who wrote over the weekend that AI companies need to deliver concrete breakthroughs
The number of influenza infections could be reduced by an mRNA vaccine.Credit: Science Photo Library On 5 August, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to Moderna’s mRNA-based flu vaccine, mFLUSIVA, for adults aged 50–64, and accelerated approval for adults aged 65 and older. Moderna say it will be available “in a few
RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 05 August 2026 A study of more than one million people shows that rare genetic variants that disrupt the FNIP1 gene are associated with a favourable metabolic profile and a roughly 60% lower risk of cardiometabolic disease than the general population. Silencing genes in the FNIP1 pathway in mice induces fat breakdown and