EurekAlert! National Institutes of Health

Latest news releases from NIH-funded organizations

Funded Research News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 27-Dec-2025 06:11 ET (27-Dec-2025 11:11 GMT/UTC)

9-Sep-2025

Blood test identifies HPV-associated head and neck cancers up to 10 years before symptoms

Mass General Brigham
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mass General Brigham researchers have developed a new liquid biopsy tool, HPV-DeepSeek, that can detect HPV-associated head and neck cancers up to 10 years before symptoms appear, potentially enabling earlier and less aggressive treatment. The test uses whole-genome sequencing to identify microscopic fragments of HPV DNA in the bloodstream and has demonstrated high accuracy and specificity in early detection.

Journal: JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Funder: NIH/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research

9-Sep-2025

University of Oklahoma health doctoral student earns prestigious National Cancer Institute grant

University of Oklahoma
Grant and Award Announcement

OKLAHOMA CITY – University of Oklahoma Health Campus Ph.D. candidate Alex Arreola has earned a prestigious National Cancer Institute grant – one of only 15 awarded nationwide this year. He is the first trainee from OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center to receive the honor, which will support his doctoral and postdoctoral training in experimental oncology and pathology.

Funder: NIH/National Cancer Institute

9-Sep-2025

Federally funded study is first to link pesticides and death in kids

University of California - San Francisco
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Public concern continues to grow about the harmful effects of pesticides and other environmental pollutants, especially for children. Pesticides have previously been linked to a higher risk of developing childhood leukemia. Now a new study shows that children with leukemia who were exposed to pesticides during their mother’s pregnancy have a higher risk of death.

Journal: Cancers
Funder: California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Public Health Institute

9-Sep-2025

At-home blood pressure cuffs—and reminders to use them—key to blood pressure control

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a study designed to test “opt-in” versus “opt-out” nudging, it turned out that what really mattered was convenience and keeping patients’ condition top of mind

Journal: JAMA Network Open
Funder: NIH/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), NIH/National Cancer Institute

9-Sep-2025

Explore or exploit: Research that decodes animal decision-making earns NIH grant

University of Maryland Baltimore County
Grant and Award Announcement

Researchers led by Noah Cowan at Johns Hopkins University have secured NIH funding to probe how animals alternate between "explore" (sensing) and "exploit" (task-oriented) behaviors in uncertain environments, using the weakly electric glass knifefish as a model. The team includes researchers from four universities who will integrate their expertise in neuroscience, math, engineering, and machine learning to build on 2023 findings in Nature Machine Intelligence that revealed the explore/exploit pattern across species from amoebas to humans. The project aims to decode decision triggers, with implications for robotics and medicine.

Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health