https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us provides the latest news from University of California, San Francisco A new analysis from UC San Francisco argues that diagnostics—medical tests that match patients to the appropriate treatment—are being overlooked both in the United States and around the world. This is slowing progress against major diseases, despite rapid advances in targeted therapies and precision health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-medicines-difference.html Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news694949275 The biological connection between a pregnant woman and her developing baby has been mapped in unprecedented detail by UC San Francisco scientists, revealing new cell types and insights into conditions such as preeclampsia, preterm birth, and miscarriage. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-cell-analysis-clues-pregnancy.html Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:00:06 EDT news694775462 With its striking San Francisco Bay settings, director Alfred Hitchcock's iconic horror film "The Birds" has captivated audiences for more than 60 years. For Hitchcock, the film—set in an ocean-side town terrorized by swarming, murderous birds, was about how an unexpected threat could shatter everyday life. Today, the plot reads like a warning about our warming climate. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-qa-red-tides-threaten-human.html Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:20:01 EDT news694707615 Psychedelic drugs are being investigated as scientific and clinical tools, but the brain mechanisms behind their effects remain unclear. Earlier brain imaging studies in small cohorts from single centers produced inconsistent findings, which made it difficult to identify effects that were reliable across studies and drugs. Understanding how psychedelics influence the brain's functional connectivity—how activities in different parts of the brain fluctuate together over time—has therefore been unclear. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-brain-psychedelics-neuroimaging-cortical-network.html Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:20:01 EDT news694705441 For decades, multiple sclerosis research has focused on myelin, the insulation around the brain's wiring. Scientists paid less attention to another loss that was happening in parallel: neurons in the cortex, the seat of higher thinking and cognition, were quietly dying. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-scientists-multiple-sclerosis-neurons.html Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:10 EDT news694251988 Older adults are much more likely to become seriously ill from flu or COVID because aging lung cells can drive excessive immune responses, according to a new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco. The findings enhance the understanding of the inflammation that accompanies aging, explaining how an otherwise minor cough can sometimes send an elderly person to the hospital. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-covid-flu-older-lungs-harder.html Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:00:08 EDT news693827949 Anyone who has weathered a bad stomach bug knows the feeling: a loss of appetite that sets in and lingers, even after the initial illness. For the millions of people around the world who are chronically infected with parasitic worms, the same thing happens. But scientists have long puzzled over exactly why. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-gut-brain-pathway-immune-triggers.html Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:29 EDT news693577142 When you reach into a bucket of ice, open your front door on a snowy day, or feel the tingle of menthol toothpaste, a protein in your nerve cells called TRPM8 springs into action, opening like a tiny gate to send a "cold" signal to your brain. Now, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered how TRPM8 changes its shape when exposed to cool temperatures. The work, published in Nature, could one day be used to help treat pain that is triggered by cold. It also answers a long-standing question about why birds—which also have TRPM8 in their nerve cells—are far less cold sensitive than mammals. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-body-cold-mystery.html Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:09 EDT news693576901 A machine-learning analysis of brain waves recorded during sleep may help identify people at high risk of developing dementia, according to a study led by UC San Francisco and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. The study found that when a person's "brain age," estimated from sleep signals using EEG, exceeded their actual age, the risk of dementia increased. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-brain-aging-faster-key.html Sun, 22 Mar 2026 11:00:02 EDT news693140845 A blood pressure program adopted across the University of California's six academic medical centers has effectively lowered hypertension and prevented serious disease or death for thousands of patients, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-wide-medication-algorithm-blood-pressure.html Wed, 18 Mar 2026 19:30:01 EDT news693044574 For years, one of the most powerful weapons against certain blood cancers, called CAR-T cell therapy, has required an elaborate process: Doctors extract a patient's immune cells, ship them to a specialized facility where they're genetically reprogrammed to fight cancer, then ship them back for infusion back into the patient's bloodstream. This has revolutionized cancer treatment, but it takes weeks and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, placing it out of reach for many of the patients who need it most. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-scientists-cancer-immune-cells-body.html Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:00:10 EDT news692979485 Psychedelic-assisted therapy may be no more effective than traditional antidepressants when patients know what drugs they are actually taking, according to a first-of-its kind analysis that compared how well each type of drug worked for major depression. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-psychedelics-antidepressants.html Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:00:05 EDT news693041461 Heart disease is the leading cause of adult death worldwide, making cardiovascular disease diagnosis and management a global health priority. An echocardiogram, or cardiac ultrasound, is one of the most commonly used imaging tools employed by physicians to diagnose a variety of heart diseases and conditions. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-ai-standard-cardiac-imaging.html Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:20:07 EDT news692983981 Taking azithromycin for as little as one day triggers antibiotic resistance in the respiratory tract, according to a first-of-its kind look by scientists at UC San Francisco of the changes that occur in the microbiome of hospitalized patients who were treated for COVID-19. Azithromycin is one of the most widely used antibiotics in the world, and it is essential for treating certain classes of bacterial infections that cause strep throat, pneumonia, and sexually transmitted diseases. But it does not work against viruses. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-inappropriate-antibiotic-covid-linked-resistance.html Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:20:02 EDT news692891581 For five decades, scientists have known about a notorious cancer-causing enzyme called SRC. But they always assumed it only appeared on the inside of cells, where it sent signals that fueled tumor growth and stayed hidden from the immune system. But now researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered that the SRC enzyme also appears like a flag on the surface of bladder, colorectal, breast, pancreatic and probably many other tumor cells. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-scientists-therapeutic-tumors.html Thu, 12 Mar 2026 14:00:03 EDT news692529579 Miniature organs grown in the lab can organize themselves into complex shapes. But they never do it the same way twice, which makes it hard to use these so-called "organoids" to study disease. Now, scientists at UC San Francisco have created a new material that helps organoids grow in a more predictable way. They mixed microparticles of alginate, a complex carbohydrate derived from algae, into Matrigel, the standard gel used to grow organoids. This made the gel more akin to the soft but supportive environment inside the body that tissues normally grow in. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-dynamic-gel-scientists-reliably-lab.html Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:20:04 EDT news692442481 Cameras that have been installed in their homes by the CIA, voices that whisper vicious words, and demons that appear in their bedroom at night. These are the delusions and hallucinations of psychosis, a core symptom of schizophrenia. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-qa-schizophrenia-track.html Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:00:05 EST news691767482 Consumers can protect their skin from damaging ultraviolet (UV) light rays for as little as $40 a year—or as much as $1,400 a year—depending on how expensive a sunscreen they buy and how much of their skin they protect with hats and clothing, according to a new analysis by researchers at UC San Francisco. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-skin-uv-year.html Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:50:02 EST news691349701 Tau proteins play an important role in Alzheimer's disease. Tau helps to stabilize neurons in the brain, but in Alzheimer's disease, tau proteins can misfold and tangle inside neurons. These tangles spread across the brain forming toxic clumps that impair neuronal function and ultimately lead to cell death. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-tau-pet-scans-brain-alzheimer.html Thu, 26 Feb 2026 12:10:01 EST news691328838 Pain related to sickle cell disease (SCD) increases during menstruation, as do emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations, for many women and girls—according to a new, nationwide study led by researchers at UC San Francisco. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, included 211 female patients from 13 SCD centers across 11 states. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-periods-trigger-pain-sickle-cell.html Thu, 19 Feb 2026 15:40:01 EST news690730233 Researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered a mechanism that could explain how exercise improves cognition by shoring up the brain's protective barrier. With age, the network of blood vessels—called the blood–brain barrier—gets leaky, letting harmful compounds enter the brain. This causes inflammation, which is associated with cognitive decline and is seen in conditions like Alzheimer's disease. The research is published in the journal Cell. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-scientists-mechanism-brain.html Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:40:03 EST news690653419 More than a century ago, Pavlov trained his dog to associate the sound of a bell with food. Ever since, scientists have assumed the dog learned this through repetition. The more times the dog heard the bell and then got fed, the better it learned that the sound meant food would soon follow. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-brains-rare-events-repetition.html Wed, 18 Feb 2026 11:49:32 EST news690637742 In an early test of how AI can be used to decipher large amounts of health data, researchers at UC San Francisco and Wayne State University found that generative AI tools could perform orders of magnitude faster—and in some cases better than computer science teams that had spent months poring over the data. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-prompts-ai-chatbots-biomedical-big.html Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:00:03 EST news690481621 Scientists have traditionally studied how the brain controls movement by asking patients to perform structured tasks while connected to multiple sensors in a lab. While these studies have provided important insights, these experiments do not fully capture how the brain functions during everyday activities, be it walking to the kitchen for a snack or strolling through a park. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-lab-room-decoding-parkinson-patients.html Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:00:03 EST news690193981 A Medicare-covered program that offers support and medical advice for caregivers of patients with dementia may bring more benefit than a costly Alzheimer's medication, research finds. UC San Francisco researchers have compared outcomes for patients in collaborative care programs with those taking lecanemab, one of two approved drugs that have been shown to slow progression of Alzheimer's in some patients. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-dementia-patients-easy-access-experts.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 07:00:04 EST news689447281 Researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered a new clue to how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) could contribute to multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune disease that affects nearly one million Americans. The work found that certain types of CD8+ "killer" T cells—immune cells that destroy damaged or infected cells—are more abundant in people with MS. Some of these killer T cells target EBV, which suggests that the virus may trigger the damaging immune response seen in MS. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-immune-cells-linked-epstein-barr.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:00:01 EST news689445001 Cervical cancer screenings are considered one of the most significant public health advances of the past 50 years, particularly in detecting HPV (human papillomavirus), the culprit of most cervical cancers. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-cervical-cancer.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:04:02 EST news689335381 A new study offers hope that kidney transplant patients could one day have a monthly treatment instead of multiple pills every day. The new treatment may also reduce side effects and increase the lifespan of the donor organ. The results appear in the American Journal of Transplantation. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-monthly-infusion-therapy-life-kidney.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:00:01 EST news689271301 Researchers at UC San Francisco have identified a hazardous waste collector in the brain that disposes of the toxic clumps of tau protein that can lead to dementia. Neurons with more of this garbage collector, technically known as CUL5, are less vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-brain-hazmat-protein-tau-dementia.html Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:19:35 EST news688904341 Every second, millions of cells in your body divide in two. In the space of an hour, they duplicate their DNA and grow a web of protein fibers around it called a spindle. The spindle extends its many fibers from the chromosomes in the center to the edges of the cell. Then, with extraordinary force, it pulls the chromosomes apart. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-mighty-microscopic-fibers-key-cell.html Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:43:28 EST news688668182