Nobel prize awarded for discovery of immune system’s ‘security guards’
- Three scientists have been awarded the 2025 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for discovering how the body stops its own immune system from turning against itself.
- Shimon Sakaguchi from Osaka University in Japan, Mary E. Brunkow from the Institute for System Biology and Fred Ramsdell from Sonoma Biotherapeutics, both in the USA, identified specialised “security guard” cells that keep our immune system in check.
- These discoveries have been important for understanding how to treat and prevent autoimmune conditions. The trio will share a prize sum of 11 million Swedish Kronor (£870,000).
Scientists develop first ‘accurate blood test’ to detect chronic fatigue syndrome
- Scientists say they have developed the world’s first blood test to diagnose myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
- There is currently no test for the condition and patients tend to be diagnosed based on symptoms, which means many can go undiagnosed for years.
- However, some experts not involved with the research urged caution and said the test would need to be fully validated in better designed and independent studies before it could be considered for use in clinical practice.
NHS to screen all newborn babies for life-threatening metabolic disorder
- Newborn babies will now be routinely screened and treated earlier on the NHS for a rare, life-threatening metabolic disorder, which can result in the need for a liver transplant.
- Hereditary Tyrosinaemia Type 1 (HT1) is a rare, genetically inherited disorder that affects around 7 babies per year in the UK. Left untreated, it can lead to severe complications such as organ damage and liver failure.
- This condition will now be screened for, in the blood test that babies get on the fifth day after they are born, taken from the heel.
Study reveals genetic link between childhood brain disorder and Parkinson’s disease in adults
- The study, published in the Annals of Neurology, looked at a gene called EPG5.
- Errors in this gene are already known to cause Vici syndrome – a rare and severe inherited neurodevelopmental condition that presents early in life and affects multiple organ systems.
- Now researchers at King’s College London, University College London (UCL), the University of Cologne and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing have found that errors in the same gene are linked to changes in nerve cells that lead to more common age-related conditions like Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
WHO warns of widespread resistance to common antibiotics worldwide
- One in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections causing common infections in people worldwide in 2023 were resistant to antibiotic treatments, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report launched today.
- Between 2018 and 2023, antibiotic resistance rose in over 40% of the pathogen-antibiotic combinations monitored, with an average annual increase of 5–15%.
- Data reported to the WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) from over 100 countries cautions that increasing resistance to essential antibiotics poses a growing threat to global health.
