Innervation by the sympathetic nervous system is typically a boon to tumors. But researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and colleagues have shown that in some cases, the relationship between tumors and the nervous system is more complex. Depending on context, innervation can either assist or obstruct tumor growth. “The nervous system typically has been considered as a driver of cancer growth, but here we’ve found that it can be a brake on cancer growth in some contexts,” said David Simon, an assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine.
If Benjamin Braddock, of The Graduate fame, were a young neuroscientist in the 21st century instead of a liberal arts graduate in 1967, the advice he received from his parents’ neighbor might not have been “One word: plastics!” but “One word: plasticity!” Plasticity is a hot concept in neuropsychiatric disorders. New and old treatment modalities, these days, are said to work as psychoplastogens or neuroplastogens.
Swedish startup One-carbon Therapeutics AB is going after solid tumors with an approach that looks similar to synthetic lethals to some people, and to chemotherapy to others. But One-carbon CEO Ana Slipicevic said that TH-9619, the company’s first-in-class inhibitor of the enzyme MTHFD1/2, is neither of those things.
At BioEurope Spring 2026, pharma representatives and investors shared their thoughts about current and future landscapes of different disease areas, and on how to move toward success – both at the level of individual companies and for indications as a whole.
The first day of Bio-Europe Spring, being held for the first time in Lisbon this year, featured panels on the partnering landscape in specific indications, as well as a more general panel on “Piecing Together the Therapeutic Landscape with Analyst Insights.” One theme of the panel was that by and large, large companies are looking for deals with companies that fit with their existing programs – but that such a fit can come in many forms.
There is broad agreement that psychiatric diagnoses in their current form are not reflective of any underlying biology, and that this is one of the things hampering psychiatric drug development. “We are still fully reliant on descriptive diagnoses that yield heterogeneous patient cohorts,” Steve Hyman told the audience at the European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Roadmap Meeting on Precision Psychiatry in Amsterdam in January.
Computational pathology, which assesses molecular-level features of diseases directly from tissue images (rather than testing the tissue via methods such as staining or sequencing) is making rapid strides.
CAR T cells have been groundbreaking for the treatment of B-cell cancers. But 8 years after Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel, Novartis AG) became the first CAR T-cell therapy to be approved, there are no CAR Ts approved for solid tumors.
On the average, humans – and pigs, and deer, and birds – who live at high altitudes have better blood glucose control than their counterparts near sea level. In work published in the Feb. 19, 2026, issue of Cell Metabolism, investigators have linked this phenomenon to red blood cells that directly take up and metabolize glucose from the blood under low oxygen conditions.
The prevalence of asthma differs between men and women, and furthermore, the difference changes over the lifespan. “Asthma is more common in boys than girls, but more common in women than men,” Clare Lloyd told BioWorld. Females are particularly susceptible to asthma during developmental periods of hormonal changes, also known as puberty, pregnancy and menopause.
