Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) live year-round in the icy or near-icy waters of the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Although they migrate with the seasonal cycles of ice formation and melting, they never reach the warmer waters visited by other large marine mammals. Their adaptation to low temperatures may have also enabled them to live longer and avoid cancer, a disease closely linked to aging.

At this year’s AACR-NCI-EORTC conference, several presentations brought to light new ways to tackle the treatment of genomically unstable cancers. Genomically unstable cancers can be treated by exploiting their repair dependencies, inducing catastrophic DNA damage, or harnessing immune responses to instability.

Durable reprogramming of human T cells may now be possible thanks to a new technique based on the CRISPRoff and CRISPRon methodology. Researchers from the Arc Institute, Gladstone Institutes, and the University of California San Francisco have stably silenced or activated genes in this type of immune cell without cutting or altering its DNA, making T cells more resistant, active, and effective against tumors.

A technology that combines transcriptomic data and AI enables a novel approach to drug discovery based on the state of cells, how they behave and which genes they express. The Drugreflector model, developed by scientists at Cellarity Inc., learns from gene expression profiles and predicts which compounds could induce beneficial changes in that cellular state to develop a treatment.

Stem cells are a promising therapeutic modality to fight aging and age-related disease, speakers at the Bio-Plus Interphex Korea 2025 said. Progress in cell-based longevity medicine is being made, they added, although safety, ethical and regulatory issues are ongoing challenges.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a mature technology. The first ADC, Mylotarg, was initially approved in 2000, and there are now 14 approved agents in both leukemias and solid tumors. According to Clarivate’s Cortellis Drug Discovery & Intelligence, those drugs collectively accounted for $13.55 billion in sales in 2024 – a figure that Cortellis projects will rise to $16 billion in 2025.

The 2025 Annual Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) featured a track on tumor-agnostic therapies – the first time such a track has been included at ESMO, or at any major medical oncology meeting. “It’s a milestone,” Vivek Subbiah told the audience at a session on how to accelerate tumor-agnostic drug development.

At the 2025 European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress in Amsterdam this week, researchers presented new findings on the role of endocannabinoids in stress, addiction … and the integrity of the blood-brain-barrier.

While recent advances in gene therapy have offered unprecedented options for patients with hemophilia, new data presented at the 32nd Annual Congress of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT), held in Seville Oct. 7-10, revealed persistent concerns regarding the durability of these treatments and their potential liver toxicity.