Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute and the Mayo Clinic have developed a new class of drugs that were shown to significantly slow the aging process in animal models. The research was only carried out on mice, but the introduction of an entirely new class of drugs, called "senolytics," could have incredible potential for humans as well. The drugs work by selectively targeting and killing senescent cells — older cells that have stopped dividing but are steadily accumulating and contributing to the aging process.

Many animals, including humans, acquired essential 'foreign' genes from microorganisms co-habiting their environment in ancient times, according to new research. The study challenges conventional views that animal evolution relies solely on genes passed down through ancestral lines, suggesting that, at least in some lineages, the process is still ongoing.

Amid rumours that precision gene-editing techniques have been used to modify the DNA of human embryos, researchers have called for a moratorium on the use of the technology in reproductive cells. In a Comment published on 12 March in Nature, Edward Lanphier, chairman of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine in Washington DC, and four co-authors call on scientists to agree not to modify human embryos — even for research.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first so-called biosimilar drug for use in the United States, paving the way for less expensive alternatives to an entire class of complex and costly drugs. The approval involves biologic drugs, which are made using living cells and not synthesized from chemicals like typical drugs.

A genetic variation has been discovered that, in women, significantly increases their risk of developing multiple sclerosis, scientists report. The variant occurs almost twice as often among women with MS as in women without the disease, making it "one of the strongest genetic risk factors for MS discovered to date,” said the study's senior author.

The first immune-based treatment for lung cancer won approval from the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, and it could displace more conventional chemotherapy for certain patients, at least.

Having to decide on your parent's death is something you should never have to do. While I would like to be able to make a blanket statement, saying that you should always honor his or her own decision, in the end I guess every case is different.

Researchers from Germany have found a gene that can only be found in humans and is responsible for making us more intelligent than other creatures. The gene, dubbed ARHGAP11B, is believed to have emerged after human ancestors and chimpanzees split off from the same evolutionary path over five million years ago paving way for the rapid expansion of the human brain. The gene, which was described in the journal Science on Feb. 26, dramatically increased the number of brain cells present in the key regions of the brains and thus led to the rise of human intelligence.

This spring, a federally funded national program will start to screen tumors in thousands of patients to see which might be attacked by any of at least a dozen new drugs. Those whose tumors have mutations that can be attacked will be given the drugs. The studies of this new method, called basket studies because they lump together different kinds of cancer, are revolutionary, much smaller than the usual studies, and without control groups of patients who for comparison’s sake receive standard treatment. Researchers and drug companies asked the Food and Drug Administration for its opinion, realizing that if the F.D.A. did not accept the studies, no drugs would ever be approved on the basis of them. But the F.D.A. said it sanctioned them and could approve drugs with basket study data alone.