A combination of two targeted cancer drugs showed unprecedented, "clinically meaningful" activity in patients with highly malignant brain tumors that carried a rare genetic mutation, according to a clinical trial report by investigators from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The drug combination, which blocked an overactive cell-growth signaling pathway, shrank tumors by 50% or more in one-third of 45 patients with hard-to-treat high-grade gliomas, including glioblastomas, the most aggressive brain tumor.

Aspirin use is associated with a 26% raised risk of heart failure in people with at least one predisposing factor for the condition. That’s the finding of a study published today in ESC Heart Failure, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Predisposing factors included smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

The population's immunity to SARS-CoV-2, achieved either through infection or vaccination, is crucial to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. A team of researchers led by the University of Zurich (UZH) has now discovered another component that contributes to SARS-CoV-2 immunity - previous antibody responses to other, harmless coronaviruses.

For the past year and a half, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to engulf the globe, fueled in part by novel variants and the uneven distribution of vaccines. Every day, hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 cases and thousands of new deaths are still being reported worldwide, creating a need for drugs that can combat the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Mount Sinai researchers have developed a new model that uses DNA and RNA sequencing data from hundreds of patients to identify specific genes and genetic alterations responsible for never-before-defined subtypes of a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. They also identified potential targeted treatments based on the findings, as reported in Science Advances in November.

Drinking coffee or tea may be associated with a lower risk of stroke and dementia, according to a study of healthy individuals aged 50-74 publishing November 16th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. Drinking coffee was also associated with a lower risk of post-stroke dementia.

Northwestern University researchers have developed a new injectable therapy that harnesses “dancing molecules” to reverse paralysis and repair tissue after severe spinal cord injuries.

In a new study, researchers administered a single injection to tissues surrounding the spinal cords of paralyzed mice. Just four weeks later, the animals regained the ability to walk.