A review of 2025's noteworthy advances in medical research, including GLP-1 receptor agonists as anti-aging drugs, tumor-agnostic therapies and xenotransplants.
In October, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for their discoveries in the field of autoimmunity.
In October, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for their discoveries in the field of autoimmunity. As has become typical for the scientific Nobel Prizes, the award-winning research is by now several decades old. But the discoveries were the basis for ongoing research into how to prevent autoimmunity that notched significant wins in 2025, in both basic research and in the clinic.
In October, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for their discoveries in the field of autoimmunity. As has become typical for the scientific Nobel Prizes, the award-winning research is by now several decades old. But the discoveries were the basis for ongoing research into how to prevent autoimmunity that notched significant wins in 2025, in both basic research and in the clinic.
Driven by a deeply antiscientific political agenda, the current U.S. government is not just sabotaging some of the most groundbreaking technology that has been developed in the past decades. It is also destroying the country’s past successes, such as measles elimination and the reduction of hepatitis B infections in infants to near zero.
In 2025, science saw its breakthroughs, which BioWorld will be covering as part of our end-of-the-year wrap-up. But the biggest science story of 2025 is not about any scientific advance. It is the politicized destruction of U.S. science, and the dismantling of a scientific ecosystem that has been the envy of the world since it emerged after Germany destroyed its own pre-eminence in the 1930s.
The cardiomyositis that is a rare adverse effect of mRNA-based COVID vaccines is due to immune cell activity as a result of increased levels of the chemokines CXCL10 and interferon-γ (IFN-γ). Blocking CXCL10 and IFN-γ could prevent muscle cell damage in cell culture, and cardiomyositis in animal models. The findings, reported in the Dec. 10, 2025, issue of Science Translational Medicine, suggest a way of mitigating the risk of cardiomyositis.
Investigators at the Netherlands Hubrecht Institute have developed a novel gut organoid model, and used it to gain insight into the functions on human microfold (M) cells. Their experiments, which were published in the Dec. 10, 2025, issue of Nature, showed that M cells present gluten-derived antigens to T cells, which suggests a role for this cell type in the onset of celiac disease.
Investigators at the Netherlands Hubrecht Institute have developed a novel gut organoid model, and used it to gain insight into the functions on human microfold (M) cells. Their experiments, which were published in the Dec. 10, 2025, issue of Nature, showed that M cells present gluten-derived antigens to T cells, which suggests a role for this cell type in the onset of celiac disease.
Researchers at the Institut Pasteur have developed a vaccine that spurred the production of autoantibodies to immunoglobulin E antibodies, protecting vaccinated mice from anaphylaxis.
