Scientists are starting to accumulate huge datasets on which genes mutate during cancer, allowing for a more systematic approach to "precision medicine." In a study published in Cell, researchers compared genetic mutations in patient tumors to those in cancer cell lines and then tested the cell lines' responses to therapeutic compounds.

Researchers are getting closer to understanding how some natural antibiotics work so they can develop drugs that mimic them. A recent review commissioned by the British government reported that, "without policies to stop the worrying spread of antimicrobial resistance, today's already large 700,000 deaths every year would become an extremely disturbing 10 million every year by 2050, more people than currently die from cancer."

In recent years pasta gained a bad reputation: it will fatten you. This led lots of people to limit its consumption, often as part of some aggressive "do it yourself" diets. Now a study conducted by the Department of Epidemiology, I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed in Pozzilli, Italy, does justice to this fundamental element of the Mediterranean diet, showing how pasta consumption is actually associated with a reduced likelihood of both general and abdominal obesity.

A new study has found that reducing antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections - such as coughs, colds, sore throats and ear infections - is not linked to an increase in the most serious bacterial complications, such as bacterial meningitis. The study, published in the BMJ, investigated whether reducing antibiotic prescribing for people attending their GP with respiratory tract infections could have an effect on safety.

A quiet transformation has been brewing in medicine, as large-scale DNA results become increasingly available to patients and healthcare providers. Amid a cascade of data, physicians, counselors and families are sorting out how to better understand and use this information in making health care decisions.

Older men with low libido and low testosterone levels showed more interest in sex and engaged in more sexual activity when they underwent testosterone therapy, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Zika virus infection confers protection against future infection in monkeys, but lingers in the body of pregnant animals for prolonged periods of time, according to research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The findings appear in the June 28 issue of Nature Communications.