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Some breast cancer patients are at higher risk of having their disease spread elsewhere in their body because of an inherited genetic predisposition, researchers reported in Cell. The vast majority of cancer deaths stem from the spread of cancer, rather than issues associated with the initial tumor. (Reed and Goldman, 12/11)

New data suggests researchers may have found one of their most promising candidates yet for the next generation in immunotherapy drugs — bispecific antibodies targeting two key proteins in cancer, PD1 or PD-L1 and VEGF. (Chen, 12/10)

Transmission of vaccine-strain rotavirus was uncommon and had no clinical consequences in a US neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that routinely administers the live pentavalent (five-strain; RV5) rotavirus vaccine, a report published yesterday in Pediatrics suggests. (Van Beusekom, 12/10)

Two new large studies, one based on outcomes among US children and teens and the other on adults in Japan, show COVID-19 vaccines are protective against long COVID. Both studies were conducted when the Omicron strain of the virus was dominant, with the first also assessing the Delta variant. (Soucheray, 12/10)

Around one in every five people aged below 50 around the world is infected with incurable genital herpes, researchers have newly estimated. According to a new paper in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, 846 million people worldwide are genitally infected with the herpes simplex virus—which causes both genital and oral herpes—with 42 million new cases in 2020 alone. During the same year, the researchers predict that over 200 million 15 to 49-year-olds likely had at least one outbreak of the infection. (Thomson, 12/10)

Siga Technologies' (SIGA.O) antiviral drug did not reduce the time to lesion resolution or have an effect on pain among adults affected by the clade II strain of mpox, according to a U.S. National Institutes of Health study published on Tuesday. A data safety and monitoring board recommended stopping further enrollment of patients in the study based on the interim results. (12/10)

A paper published yesterday in the American Journal of Infection Control describes a small cluster of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Shigella cases in California. The three cases of XDR Shigella sonnei were identified in men who have sex with men (MSM) in Los Angeles who all presented with symptoms within 3 months of one another in 2023. All three men had reported histories of high-risk sexual behavior, and one was HIV-positive. (Dall, 12/10)

Socially vulnerable adults hospitalized for influenza required invasive mechanical ventilation and/or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support at greater rates than their higher-income counterparts during five respiratory virus seasons in the United States, concludes a study published in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 12/10)

Stem cells have been taken from the blood of 'superagers' – people aged 100 or more - and reprogrammed so that they are again capable of becoming any cell type in the body in research that could open the door to a better understanding of how cells age, and how some of us become more resistant to diseases of aging such as Alzheimer's. (Duke, 12/10)

Early detection is vital to treating Alzheimer’s disease — and AI could help doctors make the diagnosis faster. What now? A $2.35 million NIH grant to train Arizona State University doctoral students to build artificial intelligence-backed tools to diagnose and treat neurodegenerative diseases is the agency’s latest contribution to the fight. The project will connect molecular scientists, AI experts and local research institutions like Mayo Clinic with students to develop AI medical imaging technology. (Svirnovskiy, Reader and Paun, 12/10)

Eli Lilly, the company that makes the blockbuster weight loss treatment Zepbound, will start studying its obesity products as treatments for alcohol and drug abuse, making it the first major drugmaker to do so, CEO David Ricks said Tuesday. (Chen, 12/10)