The average healthy man is 54 percent muscle by mass, but people with muscular dystrophy, an incurable, genetic condition, have almost no muscle at terminal stages of the disease. New research from The Rockefeller University provides insights about what causes patients' muscles to degenerate and offers potential avenues for drug development.

A protein designed by researchers at Georgia State University can effectively target a cell surface receptor linked to a number of diseases, showing potential as a therapeutic treatment for an array of illnesses, including cancer, according to the research team.

Evidence is mounting that a diet mimicking the effects of fasting has health benefits beyond weight loss, with a new USC-led study indicating that it may reduce symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Scientists discovered that the diet triggers a death-and-life process for cells that appears critical for the body's repair.

Around 8,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year. It is known as the UK's deadliest cancer, with a survival rate of just 3 per cent. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy alone are relatively unsuccessful in treating the disease, and while surgery to remove the tumour offers the best chance of survival, most patients are diagnosed when the cancer has already spread to other organs.

Conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific claims refuting the facts around Zika virus vaccines could be putting vulnerable people at risk, according to a new study published in Vaccine. By analyzing social media in real time, researchers were able to identify conversations about Zika virus vaccines and pinpoint the conspiracy theories being discussed.

An early-stage HIV vaccine clinical trial in South Africa has determined that an investigational vaccine regimen is safe and generates comparable immune responses to those reported in a landmark 2009 study showing that a vaccine can protect people from HIV infection.

A viral protein known as NS5 is a promising target for vaccines against Zika and related viruses, according to National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and colleagues at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine. Their study, published online May 19, 2016 in Cell Host & Microbe, suggests that altering or removing the NS5 protein from Zika virus would allow the human body's own immune defenses to attack the virus.