While the pace of executive orders (EOs) coming out of the White House continues to decline, the impact of new EOs on U.S. health agencies, life sciences industries and the practice of medicine remains just as disconcerting as a year ago.

Scientists in Europe have added their voices to the many thousands of objections made against proposed changes to the oversight of U.S. federal research grants, under which political appointees and not peer review experts would have the final say on who and what gets funding. The concern is that awarding grants, based on the principle that research proposals must be in keeping with President Donald Trump’s policy priorities, poses a threat to open scientific inquiry and academic freedom, and also will undermine international research collaboration.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have used click chemistry to link a second antibody to a pre-existing antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) in vivo. In preclinical models of HER2 and EGFR co-expressing pancreatic, breast and gastric tumors, sequential administration of the ADC and the second antibody was better at shrinking tumors than either ADC monotherapy or a combination of antibody and ADC treatment.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is responsible for 3.2 million hospital admissions and about 118,000 deaths in children under 5 years of age. The increased risk of RSV infection (and other infectious diseases) in young children is broadly attributed to their immature immune system. But researchers from University College London have published work suggesting that this is not the only reason.

New research has teased out specific aspects of how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) sparks the immune response that leads on to the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), opening the way to the rational design of vaccines and antivirals that address the root cause of the disease.

New research has teased out specific aspects of how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) sparks the immune response that leads on to the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), opening the way to the rational design of vaccines and antivirals that address the root cause of the disease.

Certain cancers that contain organized clusters of immune cells known as tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) do not respond to treatment as well as expected. Even though they have TLS that support the elimination of cancer cells, they remain resistant to immunotherapy. γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), better known as the brain’s major inhibitory neurotransmitter, may play a role in this lack of response by acting as an immunoregulatory metabolite, according to a study led by scientists at Sorbonne Université.

More than 52,000 individuals, lawmakers, institutions and other organizations have submitted comments on the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) proposal to revise its Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance, which serves as a government-wide framework for administering grants, cooperative agreements and other forms of assistance.

The Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) is the world’s biggest dementia conference. And at the AAIC 2026 meeting, there is big buzz around tau. Sunday’s plenary speaker Ryan Watts, CEO of Denali Therapeutics Inc., highlighted tau-lowering agents as being among the most exciting themes of the conference. “At this conference, we’re going to see additional clinical data that may validate [tau as] a second target in Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid being the first,” he told the audience.

Cancer researchers are increasingly turning to the microbiome to understand why some patients respond well to treatment while others face severe complications. Gut microbial communities shift during intensive therapies such as bone marrow transplantation, and those changes influence infection risk, immune recovery and long‑term survival. New advances in microbial sequencing and engineering redefine this community as a measurable clinical parameter that can be monitored, modeled, and even therapeutically reshaped to improve outcomes in oncology and other conditions.