Recent News

• Protect yourself from COVID-19 and flu this fall and winter. Everything you need to know about new flu shots and the updated 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccine.
  UCHealth – August 22, 2025
  The new 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccines will fight the newest COVID-19 variants. Vaccine makers also update flu shots every year to protect people from the flu strains that are most likely to surface this fall and winter. The opportunity to protect yourself from the newest respiratory virus variants is one of many reasons you’ll want to get both your COVID-19 and flu vaccines this fall. You can get both shots at the same time, and the exact timing doesn’t matter, according to infectious disease expert, Dr. Michelle Barron. Just plan to get the updated 2025-2026 COVID-19 and flu vaccines sometime in the next couple of months if you want to avoid getting severely ill this fall or winter from COVID-19 or the flu and ending up in the hospital.
• FDA approves Ionis’ hereditary angioedema drug
  Biopharma Dive – August 21, 2025
  The Food and Drug Administration approved a drug Ionis Pharmaceuticals developed for the rare genetic disease hereditary angioedema (HAE), making the therapy, known as donidalorsen, the third new medicine to reach market this year for the rare genetic condition. Donidalorsen, which Ionis will sell under the brand name Dawnzera, is approved to prevent the swelling attacks associated with hereditary angioedema in adults and children at least 12 years of age. HAE is a rare, inherited condition estimated to affect about 1 in every 50,000 people worldwide. The disease is characterized by recurrent swelling attacks that can last for days if untreated, and most commonly affect the limbs, face, gastrointestinal tract and throat. These episodes can be life-threatening.
• UCLA-developed biomaterials address challenges of lower urinary tract surgery
  UCLA Health – August 18, 2025
  To address challenges in repairing and replacement of lower urinary tract (LUT) tissues, Renea M. Sturm, MD, FAAP, assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has led the development of an innovative biomaterial scaffold and adhesive patch. Both are elastic and biodegradable, overcoming limitations of current materials used for these procedures. The scaffolds, subject of a recently published article, were developed with Nasim Annabi, PhD, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA. They incorporate a combination of a gelatin to improve handling and biomechanics with an elastin-like peptide, a protein with intrinsic disorder encoded at the molecular level that increases the elasticity of many tissues. These features are harnessed to mimic the natural viscoelasticity of the urinary bladder and urethra, allowing them to engage in cyclic extension with minimal energy loss.
• Study of promising speech-enabling interface offers hope for restoring communication
  Stanford Medicine – August 15, 2025
  Assistant professor of neurosurgery Frank Willett, PhD, and his teammates are using brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, to help people whose paralysis renders them unable to speak. The brain’s motor cortex contains regions that control movement — including the muscular movements that produce speech. A BCI uses tiny arrays of microelectrodes (each array is smaller than a pea), surgically implanted in the brain’s surface, to record neural activity patterns directly from the brain. These signals are then fed via a cable to a computer algorithm that translates them into actions such as speech or computer cursor movement. To decode the neural activity picked up by the arrays into words the patient wants to say, the researchers use machine learning to train the computer to recognize repeatable patterns of neural activity associated with each “phoneme” — the tiniest units of speech — then stitch the phonemes into sentences.
• Precigen scores FDA nod for first-ever treatment for HPV-related disorder
  Fierce Pharma – August 15, 2025
  For the first time, the FDA has approved a treatment for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP), a rare, chronic disease that causes benign tumors, most commonly in the voice box, and can force some patients to endure hundreds of surgeries to remove the growths. Making the grade is Precigen’s Papzimeos (zopapogene imadenovec-drba), a first-of-its-kind non-replicating adenoviral vector-based immunotherapy, which can eliminate the need for repeated surgical interventions. Papzimeos, which is administered by a subcutaneous injection, triggers an immune response against cells infected with human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6 and 11, which cause RRP. Four shots are administered over the course of three months, providing patients with what is expected to be long-term protection against the emergence of the tumors, also called papillomas.
• FluMist, a vaccine nasal spray, can now be used at home. Here’s what to know about cost and more.
  CBS News – August 15, 2025
  Those looking to protect themselves against the flu this season now have an at-home option. FluMist, the only nasal spray flu vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is now available for purchase for self-administration. AstraZeneca’s FluMist was approved in 2003 to be given by health care providers. Last year, the FDA broadened the approval of the nasal spray to make it the first self-administered option.  An at-home delivery service, called FluMist Home, will be available in 34 states this flu season. Through FluMist Home, customers can get the same FluMist nasal spray — shipped to their homes — that patients can receive at a doctor’s office or pharmacy. According to the online ordering platform, FluMist is free under most commercial insurance. There is, however, a fee of $8.99 for shipping and processing. To order, customers have to give some basic personal information, medical details, insurance information and a payment method.
• New treatment eliminates bladder cancer in 82% of patients
  Keck Medicine of USC – August 13, 2025
  A new drug-releasing system, TAR-200, eliminated tumors in 82% of patients in a phase 2 clinical trial for individuals with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer whose cancer had previously resisted treatment. In the majority of cases, the cancer disappeared after only three months of treatment, and almost half the patients were cancer-free a year later.  “Traditionally, these patients have had very limited treatment options. This new therapy is the most effective one reported to date for the most common form of bladder cancer,” said Sia Daneshmand, MD, director of urologic oncology with Keck Medicine of USC and lead author of a study detailing the clinical trial results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. “The findings of the clinical trial are a breakthrough in how certain types of bladder cancer might be treated, leading to improved outcomes and saved lives.”
• UCLA scientists develop off-the-shelf immunotherapy for ovarian cancer
  UCLA – August 12, 2025
  Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death among women with gynecological cancers. The current medical playbook — surgery followed by chemotherapy — initially shows promise. Tumors shrink, sometimes disappearing entirely. But in more than 80% of patients, the cancer not only comes back, but returns more aggressive and increasingly resistant to the very treatments that once seemed effective. But now, there could be new hope. In a study published in the journal Med, UCLA researchers have detailed their development of a new type of immune cell therapy, called CAR-NKT cell therapy, that could transform ovarian cancer care by delivering superior cancer-fighting power. “This is the culmination of over a decade of work in my lab and represents over six years of collaboration with gynecologic oncologist Dr. Sanaz Memarzadeh,” said co-senior author Lili Yang, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.