Many people with hypertension, a risk factor for strokes, heart attacks and kidney disease, do not have elevated blood pressure when examined in a doctor’s office.

The application of food as a medical intervention is founded on decades of evidence demonstrating that various plant-forward dietary patterns are associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, type 2 diabetes and cancer, and all-cause mortality, while greater consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with higher risks of a variety of adverse health outcomes, such as cardiometabolic disease, common mental disorders, and mortality outcomes. 

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine has gone in this eighteenth edition to Carl June (University of Pennsylvania) and Michel Sadelain (Columbia University) for revolutionizing the treatment of cancer by means of CAR-T cell immunotherapy. The two laureates pioneered this innovative therapeutic strategy whereby T cells are extracted from the patient’s own immune system, grown in the lab and genetically engineered so they recognize and selectively destroy cancer cells on being infused back into the body, leading to remission of the disease.

Human activity has lessened the resilience of modern coral reefs by restricting the energy flow that moves through the food chains – or webs – of these important ecosystems. Examining otoliths – fish ear stones that are preserved in marine sediments across millennia – the team applied a novel nitrogen isotope method to 7,000-year-old fossils in order to reconstruct ancient reef food webs directly for the first time and compare with modern reefs. This new approach allows for a clearer understanding of the threats now posed to these centers of marine biodiversity, an international team of researchers report today in the journal Nature.

In 2024, Vanderbilt Health investigators received funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) for a phase 3, multicenter, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of the immunomodulatory drug baricitinib for treating the persistent neurological and cardiopulmonary symptoms of long COVID.