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Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 31-Oct-2026 08:15 ET (31-Oct-2026 12:15 GMT/UTC)

Older Americans are taking more medications, with 1 in 5 at risk for a major drug interaction

University of Southern California
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Older Americans are increasingly taking multiple prescription medications and dietary supplements. Although the prevalence of potentially major drug-drug interactions has declined slightly, more than 1 in 5 older adults are potentially at risk, according to a new USC-led study.

Journal: JAMA

Miami’s first quantum computer coming to FIU

Florida International University
Business Announcement

IonQ Superion system will give FIU researchers and students direct access to technology with the potential to advance health, energy and environmental sustainability, cybersecurity and national security.

Exceptional longevity across species linked to DNA maintenance, stemness and stress resistance

Impact Journals LLC
Peer-Reviewed Publication

BUFFALO, NY — September 24, 2026 — A new review was published in Volume 18 of Aging on September 8, 2026, titled “How to live for centuries: common denominators of organisms with exceptional longevity.”

Journal: Aging-US

New study: USF Health researchers identify new vaccine target in malaria parasite

University of South Florida
Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of South Florida researchers have discovered a previously unknown vulnerability in Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax), a malaria parasite that infects millions of people in Central and South America and Southeast Asia. The findings, published today in Immunity, provide a new target for developing a vaccine against P. vivax, the most widespread malaria parasite outside sub-Saharan Africa.

Journal: Immunity

State HIV prevention policies may benefit racial and ethnic groups unequally

Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Peer-Reviewed Publication

State policies that make healthcare easier to obtain and protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination are associated with greater use of HIV prevention measures among white adults, but those benefits may not extend equally to Black and Latino populations, a new study finds.

Journal: AIDS and Behavior

Study reveals how a membrane lipid tunes the eye’s response to light

Weill Cornell Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Weill Cornell Medicine investigators have determined the mechanism by which a molecule within cells can help tune the light sensitivity of the eyes. The study identified the molecule’s binding site on a protein in retinal cells, which should enable the development of drugs that target this site to treat related eye diseases.

Journal: Nature Communications

Healthcare’s high-stakes game of brinkmanship threatens patient care

Brown University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Publicly announced threats to leave networks in hospital and insurer negotiations is relatively common negotiating tacttic in recent hospital-insurer contract disputes and is more likely to be used by some of the most financially strong players in health care, including large national insurers and hospitals already commanding relatively high prices.

Journal: Health Affairs

Terasaki Institute researcher Dr. Yangzhi Zhu advances tear bioelectronics with smart contact lens for serotonin monitoring

Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Los Angeles, CA – September 24, 2026 - A research team led by Dr. Yangzhi Zhu, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), has developed a soft, reusable smart contact lens as part of its broader Ocular Library for the Analysis of Tear Biomarkers (OCULAB), a tear bioelectronics platform for noninvasive, longitudinal biochemical monitoring through the ocular surface and tear film.

Journal: Science Translational Medicine
Funder: Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, (NARSAD) Young investigator Grant

University of Vermont launches $19 million national research center to unlock secrets of neurobiology

University of Vermont
Grant and Award Announcement

The University of Vermont will coordinate a $19 million, five-year National Science Foundation project to design and test a national observatory for exploring life’s smallest structures in three dimensions. Working with UC San Diego, researchers will combine advanced electron microscopy, artificial intelligence and powerful computing to expand access to imaging capabilities currently concentrated in specialized laboratories. Pilot studies will investigate how learning changes brain wiring, how vision varies across species, how a parasite crosses the blood-brain barrier, and how single-celled organisms are organized. The project will lay the groundwork for a shared national resource serving researchers across biology and medicine.