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Better animal models of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis are needed to more fully understand the disease and to identify potential new therapeutic treatments for this increasingly common condition.
Genetic association studies of the human genome often omit the X chromosome because of the unique analytical challenges it presents. A concerted effort to undo this exclusion could offer medically relevant insights into basic biology that might otherwise be missed.
A growing number of clinical trials on combination therapies raises the question of to what degree they may be redundant. Systems biology and hypothesis-driven preclinical studies could help to identify the most promising candidates for clinical trials, and also offer new insights into the biological mechanisms that underlie drug synergies.
Drugs administered to children with cancer were typically developed under the assumption that childhood cancers are similar to their tissue-matched adult counterparts. Focusing on identifying and targeting alterations present specifically in childhood tumors will accelerate the development of tailored therapies and improve the prognosis of children with cancer.
Recent evidence shows that both acute and chronic infections can persist in tissue reservoirs that act as a source of subsequent disease. Identifying the parallels of reservoir maintenance by diverse pathogens might offer new leads to enable their control.
Deaths from drug overdose are rising worldwide, in part owing to the growing epidemic of opioid addiction. Efforts to combat opioid addiction will benefit from stronger collaboration between preclinical researchers who are studying addiction and those studying chronic pain.
Cancer research has made great strides in identifying effective therapies for treating advanced-stage tumors. The next challenge is moving the battle to earlier stages of disease.
Proposed US budget cuts and the impending exit of the UK from the European Union have the potential to destabilize the global biomedical-research enterprise. In the meantime, the uncertainty of not knowing just how bad the effects will be will inflict its own damage.
President Donald Trump's call to speed up drug approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) overlooks the fact that the agency has become faster over the past two decades. When considering changes to the drug-approval process, we should instead increase our investment in the many years of research that precede approval.
The scientific process relies on people's willingness to publish data-driven findings. Turning to the legal system to adjudicate the merit of evidence-based assertions in the scientific literature leads us down a dangerous path.
Immune-related adverse effects are understudied and not easily treatable risks of cancer immunotherapy. Concerted research efforts to understand the mechanisms of immunotherapy-triggered responses are crucial for developing better treatments.
Changing political and funding landscapes in the US create an uncertain environment for biomedical research. The research community must insist that scientific policy follow from science, not political partisanship.
