A genomic study has identified individuals with a mutation that led to both high levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and an increased risk of heart disease. The findings further call into question the idea that HDL is good for cardiovascular health.

Scientists have discovered that triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) that are driven by overexpression of the oncogene Myc have changes to their metabolism that can be targeted with inhibitors of fatty acid oxidation.

By comparing the genomic landscape of multiple metastases from the same patient to each other, and to the primary tumor, scientists have shown that prostate cancer metastases within the same patient were similar to each other in terms of their mutations and gene expression profiles.

More than 100 years since the oncogene SRC first came to the attention of the biomedical research community, researchers have for the first time identified individuals with a germline SRC mutation.

Researchers have shown that keeping mice with Leigh syndrome, one of the more frequent mitochondrial diseases, in a low-oxygen environment reduced their disease symptoms and could more than double their life span.

Somewhat like a vaccine for HIV, a cure has been on the horizon yet out of reach for a frustratingly long time. "I think it's fair to say that the score card is not very impressive," Mario Stevenson, chief of the division of infectious disease at the University of Miami Medical School, told the audience at a the plenary session of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), which is going on in Boston this week.

Using a nanoparticle-based approach, researchers have succeeded in triggering the formation of regulatory T cells in animal models of multiple autoimmune diseases. If the findings, which were published in the Feb. 17, 2016, advance online issue of Nature, pan out clinically, it may be possible to halt or reverse autoimmune disease by specifically dampening the maladaptive autoimmune response.

Researchers have reported rapidly isolating and analyzing about 350 antibodies from a survivor of the 2014/2015 West African Ebola outbreak. The work provides insights into the immune response to the virus that could be useful for drug discovery and vaccine efforts, and the speed with which it was conducted offers a solution to the technical problems that hamper rapid responses to emerging infections.