It’s easy to feel as though you’re doing something wrong these days if you don’t know your VO2-Max and how many hours of REM sleep you get each night, or if you’re not taking a dozen different supplements and scrutinizing every morsel of food that makes its way into your mouth. “Biohackers” and other longevity […]

For the ailing gene editing industry, hope came earlier this month in the tiny, smiling, fuzzy-headed form of KJ Muldoon. At just 6 months old, KJ received a gene editing treatment custom-built to correct his unique mutation. He’s not cured, researchers explained at the annual American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy meeting in New […]

Florida has just banned fluoride in public water, becoming the second state to do so. It’s part of decadeslong battle that has heated up in recent years. Local governments debate whether it belongs in the water supply. Parents question safety. Pseudoscience clouds public perception. Often, the conversation is framed as a domestic ideological battle between […]

Megan Molteni reports on discoveries from the frontiers of genomic medicine, neuroscience, and reproductive tech. She joined STAT in 2021 after covering health and science at WIRED. You can reach Megan on Signal at mmolteni.13. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is headed for a major reorganization as it tries to reduce its […]

Big pharmacies are in trouble. In March, Walgreens announced that it had reached a $10 billion buyout deal with private-equity firm Sycamore — a price that was just a tenth of its $100 billion value a decade ago. In recent years, the big three — Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid — have closed thousands of […]

Adam Feuerstein is a senior writer and biotech columnist, reporting on the crossroads of drug development, business, Wall Street, and biotechnology. He is also a co-host of the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud and author of the newsletter Adam’s Biotech Scorecard. You can reach Adam on Signal at stataf.54. This story first appeared in […]

In what researchers hope could be a case of 1 + 1 = 3, new research suggests that combining a model to predict 10-year cardiovascular risk with an imaging test of coronary arteries could be better than either method alone at identifying people in danger of their first heart attack. The model is PREVENT, which […]

GENEVA — World Health Organization members on Tuesday adopted a treaty aimed at preparing for and responding to future pandemics, what countries say is both a tangible example of how they’re learning the lessons of Covid-19 and a marker for the continued importance of international collaboration.  Health officials hailed the treaty, a goal of which […]

Imagine a world without lifesaving medicines, preventive care, or therapies — no insulin for diabetes, no vaccines for polio, and fewer (if any) options for treating cancer. What do these amazing medical achievements have in common? They all depended heavily on research using animals, the behind-the-scenes heroes of medical breakthroughs. Animal models play a starring […]

Helen Branswell covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development. Follow her on Mastodon and Bluesky. You can reach Helen on Signal at hbranswell.01. The Food and Drug Administration has finally approved Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, but in doing so has placed restrictions on it that its two competitors in […]