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December 20, 2022

The Biggest Health and Biology Breakthroughs of 2022

From reviving dead pig organs to measuring viruses in our poop, here are some of the most intriguing medical advances of the year

By Tanya Lewis

A healthcare worker administers COVID-19 booster shots at a vaccination clinic in April 2022 in San Rafael, California.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It’s been a rough year, especially on the health beat. The COVID pandemic continued to bulldoze its way through the population, causing surges in cases and related deaths. Somewhat forgotten viruses such as mpox , flu and RSV reared their head unexpectedly. And the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a nearly 50-year-old right to reproductive freedom established by Roe v. Wade .

But it wasn’t all bad news in 2022. In fact, biology and medicine saw exciting advances across fields as diverse as epidemiology, human evolution and artificial intelligence. Here are some of the discoveries that gave us hope for humanity and the future of human health.

We Got Updated Versions of COVID Vaccines

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The development of COVID vaccines within a year of the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease, is undoubtedly one of the greatest medical achievements in recent memory. Two of the most effective vaccines, developed using mRNA technology, were proved to significantly protect against severe disease and death from SARS-CoV-2. But the virus continued to evolve, and newer variants began to find a way around human immune defenses. Fortunately, vaccine manufacturers developed new shots to target both the Omicron variant and the original strain. Early data suggest these “bivalent” vaccines effectively boost protection against the virus—all the more reason to make sure everyone in your family is up-to-date with their shots.

Discoveries in Human Evolution Won a Nobel Prize

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Pääbo for his discoveries involving the genetic relationships among our hominin ancestors. Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist and director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, pioneered methods for reconstructing ancient DNA. He and his colleagues sequenced the genome of Neandertals and discovered a new hominin species, Denisovans. The research led to the surprising revelation that early humans interbred with these now extinct species. These primeval trysts gave us traits that persist in some people today, including an ability to survive at high altitude and a vulnerability to infections such as COVID.

Scientists Revived Dead Pigs’ Organs

In a feat that sounds like something out of the pages of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , a team of scientists at Yale University developed a perfusion system that restored vitality to pigs’ organs after the animals had died. The system—known as OrganEx—pumped a mixture of blood and nutrient-rich fluid through each animal’s circulatory system. (The animals didn’t regain consciousness.) The technology holds the potential to keep more human organs alive longer for transplants.

Researchers Found Secrets in Our Poop

It sounds gross, but human waste contains a cornucopia of useful information for infectious disease scientists. Wastewater tracking systems enabled researchers to spot COVID cases and new SARS-CoV-2 variants in regions before they caused surges. By monitoring sewage, scientists also detected the virus that causes polio —a disease that has been declared eradicated in much of the world—in sewage systems in New York State and the U.K. This type of monitoring could also reveal spikes in opioid use or in levels of antibiotic-resistant microbes, scientists say.

We Learned That Indoor Air Quality Matters

Before the COVID pandemic, most of us probably didn’t give much thought to the air we breathe indoors. Over the past few years, though, it’s become clear that SARS-CoV-2 frequently spreads through airborne droplets, which can build up inside indoor spaces and make us sick. Fortunately, we can reduce that risk by ventilating buildings and filtering the air we breathe . And cleaner indoor air has other benefits: it reduces the risk of respiratory diseases in general, and it may even help us think more clearly.

AI Solved One of the Biggest Problems in Biology

One of the hardest problems for biologists is predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their amino acid sequence. But earlier this year an AI program built by the Google-owned company DeepMind, called AlphaFold, solved the 3-D structures of about 200 million proteins . These structures are already enabling scientists to unlock mysteries in biology, and they could help lead to new pharmaceutical drugs and more sustainable crops.

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The 10 biggest science stories of 2022 – chosen by scientists

From moon missions to fast-charging batteries and AI-sourced antibiotics, in no particular order, the year’s significant scientific developments

1. The Dart and Orion missions

The year opened with a bang. Or rather, it didn’t. The successful film Don’t Look Up , in which a comet is found to be on a collision course with Earth, had been released just before Christmas 2021. In the bleak days of post-festive gloom, the news media were on an adrenaline high, chasing any and every story about potential asteroid collisions to cheer us all up. Five asteroids were to pass close to the Earth in January alone! Happily for the health and wellbeing of humanity, none was predicted to come within a whisker of hitting the planet. Nonetheless, the possibility of an asteroid colliding with Earth is a reality – the globe is covered in craters from previous impacts, and it is well known that 65m years ago, dinosaurs became extinct following the impact of an asteroid about 10km across. Can anything be done about saving us from this existential extraterrestrial threat? Fortunately, the international space community has taken the first steps towards reducing the risk of an asteroid catching us unawares. The joint Nasa- Esa mission Dart (Double Asteroid Re-Direction Test) was an ambitious attempt to alter the trajectory of a small asteroid (Dimorphos) as it orbited a slightly larger asteroid (Didymos), by sending a spacecraft to crash into it. In October, we learned that the mission had been even more successful than anticipated, and that the orbit of Dimorphos had changed – showing that we could, if given sufficient time, alter the path of an asteroid if it were on a collision course with Earth.

As well as asteroid activity, our moon has been in the news, as a destination of choice for a new generation of astronauts. This year, it is 50 years since the Apollo 17 mission, the last time a human set foot on the moon. So it is a cause for celebration that Artemis, another joint Nasa-Esa programme, has started its operation to return people to the moon. The first phase of the mission, the Orion capsule, was launched in mid-November, and successfully returned to Earth last week. The capsule is designed to hold up to six astronauts – though there were none on board this maiden flight around the moon. We can now look forward to a series of increasingly complex flights of Orion – culminating in a crew of astronauts landing on the moon as soon as 2025.

Monica Grady

Monica Grady is professor of planetary and space sciences at Open University

2. Covid’s boost to immune research

Vaccine technology has seen an unprecedented acceleration in innovation that could soon be benefiting us in a host of ways. A vaccine works by delivering an “infection” signal (something from the germ) and an “alert” signal (to wake the immune response up). As our knowledge of immunology has increased, so too has our capacity to innovate in the vaccines that deliver those signals. Designing any new vaccine takes a long time, significant investment and a lot of eager volunteers, all of which was accelerated during the pandemic, resulting in a host of novel developments.

The autumn Covid-19 booster shots we have just been offered are one such example – these bivalent vaccines target the original strain of Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) alongside the Omicron variant. Bivalent vaccines have advantages over the original vaccines as they both top up and broaden our immunity . But what if you could broaden your immunity further – to not just two but multiple strains of virus? So-called multivalent vaccines for Covid-19 and flu are looking very promising. Another approach we could soon see is the use of sniffable or inhalable vaccines – mucosal vaccines . These are already used in China to tackle Covid-19 and may offer long-term protection against respiratory viruses. They are also much more appealing for those of us who are needle-phobic. If these new developments deliver on their promise, then one day soon the calls for annual shots could be a thing of the past. Sheena Cruickshank

Sheena Cruickshank is professor of biomedical sciences and public engagement at the University of Manchester

3. AI reveals new antibiotics

Over the course of the past few years, AI has transformed the field of molecular biology. The revolution started with the AlphaFold algorithm, which rapidly predicts the complex three-dimensional structures of proteins, thus aiding the understanding of protein functions and the identification of drug targets. This year, AI has achieved another breakthrough, this time at the other end of the drug discovery pipeline: several groups in 2022 have reported the first successful applications of AI to identify novel antibiotic drugs.

Antimicrobial resistance is a major global threat. This year, the global research on antimicrobial resistance report published in the Lancet indicated that, worldwide, 4.95m deaths were associated with drug-resistant bacteria in 2019, making untreatable infections one of the leading causes of death.

Developing new drugs that overcome resistance and replenish our arsenal of effective antimicrobials is a continuous struggle. And that is where AI is now beginning to make a major contribution. For example, Yue Ma and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences used machine-learning techniques originally developed for natural language processing to identify antimicrobial peptides encoded by the genome sequences of microbes in the human gut. The algorithm identified 2,349 potential antimicrobial peptide sequences. Of these, 216 peptides were synthesised by chemical methods, and 181 of them were shown to have antimicrobial activity. This is an impressive success rate, which would not have been possible without the aid of AI.

Even more strikingly, almost half of the peptides discovered were entirely new, without obvious sequence similarity to known antimicrobials, thus increasing the chances of circumventing existing resistance mechanisms. Animal experiments showed that three of the new peptides could be used for the safe and effective treatment of bacterial pneumonia in mice. Studies such as this are good news, promising an unprecedented rapid route towards novel treatment options for some of the scariest pathogenic threats we currently face. Eriko Takano

E riko Takano is professor of synthetic biology at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology

4. Early weather warnings

In 2022, science was able to see a hurricane hitting the coast of the US before it even formed out at sea. We could visualise the Brisbane River spreading out into Australian homes before a drop of rain had fallen. And we put firefighters on action stations before the spark was lit that burned southern France. We now have the technology to see many of these natural hazards coming, days in advance.

And yet 2022 has been full of lethal events. In Europe, more than 20,000 people died from record-breaking heat this summer, hitting more than 40C (104F) across England for the first time. In August, one third of Pakistan was underwater during a monster monsoon season, killing 1,700 people . Global heating is making these types of disasters worse.

This is why the key scientific story from the past year is not cutting-edge research or hi-tech engineering, but the push by the UN secretary general António Guterres for the world to have equal access to early warnings . Alerting people to danger, so they can take action, is the best way to prevent tragedy. We need equal access to skills and systems that were pioneered years ago. Critical, too, is the leadership to share information and act on the warnings that ensue. Hannah Clo ke

Hannah Clo ke is professor of hydrology at Reading University

5. Inclusive inroads

This year saw a small but important advance in the treatment of sickle cell disease, a group of inherited disorders that cause red blood cells to become sickle shaped and can lead to anaemia. A drug developed to treat an enzyme deficiency (pyruvate kinase) was found to improve anaemia and reduced acute episodes of severe pain in sickle cell disease. While the research is still in its early phases, the researchers point out that their breakthrough came from looking at the characteristics of people with sickle cell disease rather than focusing only on their red blood cells. This development has been found to benefit people with other conditions and brings hope to millions of people worldwide, but predominantly in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and South America.

This was also the year when Nasa’s Artemis mission, which aims “to land the first woman and first person of colour on the moon” by 2025, put female torsos Helga and Zohar into space to test the effects of radiation on the grounds that women appear to be at a greater risk from space radiation than men. This may seem unremarkable, but it was only in 2022 that a Swedish research team designed a new crash test dummy representing an “average woman” , rather than a scaled-down version of the male dummy that is the size of a 12-year-old girl.

Developments such as these excite hope of inclusive science where gender, ethnicity and location neither privilege nor exclude. Ann Phoenix

Ann Phoenix is professor of psychosocial studies at the UCL Institute of Education

6. Elite mathematicians

The Fields medal recognises outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work. Often described as the Nobel prize of mathematics, it is awarded every four years to recipients under the age of 40.

Congratulation to Prof James Maynard, who was awarded a Fields medal this year for his “spectacular contributions” to analytic number theory, “which have led to major advances in the understanding of the structure of prime numbers and in Diophantine approximation”.

One of his standout proofs was to prove the following: there are infinitely many prime numbers whose decimal representation does not contain the digit 7.

Such a simple statement to understand but not very easy to prove. Maynard joins an elite list of British mathematicians who have won the medal.

Congratulations also to one of the other Fields medallists, the Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska , the second woman to win the award. The mathematician Henry Cohn stated: “Viazovska manages to do things that are completely non-obvious that lots of people tried and failed to do.” She was cited for many mathematical accomplishments, in particular her proof that an arrangement called the E8 lattice is the densest packing of spheres in eight dimensions. Nira Chamberlain

Prof Nira Chamberlain is president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications

7. Soft cell, hard cell…

When we think about what influences how the cells inside our bodies develop, we often think of biological or chemical factors. But physical forces – what’s known as the “mechanical” environment – can be just as critical to a cell’s journey. The ability of cells to sense and respond to their mechanical environment has been known for several decades: for example, stem cells grown on soft jelly-like gels will become different cell types compared with stem cells grown on stiff glass-like surfaces.

Early signs of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s are often associated with changes in cell stiffness. However, it has been difficult to measure the stiffness of cells and organs inside our bodies, and how they change during development and disease. Tools to measure cell mechanical properties have relied on applying forces to the cell – essentially poking or cutting a cell and seeing how it responds. This is often invasive and damaging, and isn’t easily performed on living cells or organs inside animals, let alone humans.

This year, two research groups, one from Germany , and one from the US , published separate studies demonstrating groundbreaking improvements in a method to measure cell-stiffness, known as Brillouin microscopy. This optical method is non-damaging, allowing you to “see” the stiffness of a material without having to touch it. Developments in this technique this year have significantly advanced imaging speed and resolution, and reduced photo-damage, making the method now widely applicable for observing changes in cell mechanical properties in living animals.

This method will provide a powerful tool for early diagnosis of diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s. It will also revolutionise how scientists can measure and track the mechanical changes of our cells during normal development, and critically improve our understanding of the importance of mechanical forces in biology. Yanlan Mao

Yanlan Mao is professor of developmental biophysics at University College London

8. Quantum entanglement untangled

“Spooky action at a distance.” That’s what Albert Einstein called quantum entanglement, which is when two quantum particles have to be considered as a single entity, since influencing one of them affects the other even when they are far apart.

In October this year, the three pioneers of quantum information science, Alain Aspect of the University of Paris-Saclay, John Clauser of JF Clauser & Associates, and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna were awarded the Nobel prize in physics for their contributions to understanding quantum entanglement.

There are many reasons to enjoy this long overdue award. For the sheer beauty of providing new insights into an exciting area of fundamental phenomena. For laying the groundwork for breakthroughs in quantum computers to carry out complex calculations that would be impossible on a conventional computer, and in quantum encryption that could allow secure communications. For spurring more experiments to address one of the great questions of science – how to reconcile quantum mechanics with Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

And finally, for demonstrating another example of the importance of curiosity-driven basic science leading to real-world applications that could change the way we live and work. Saiful Islam

Saiful Islam is professor of materials science at Oxford University

9. Nature positive

A huge moment for biodiversity is still ongoing as I write: the much-delayed 15th meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, which will set a course for nature recovery from now until 2050. These international agreements feed into national legislation, such as the UK’s Environment Act. Alongside this, companies are making bold commitments to become “nature positive”, meaning that their activities should, overall, lead to nature being in a better state.

Nature-positive commitments need to translate into real, measurable – and attributable – recovery of nature. This is very challenging, though, partly because many products have tortuous supply chains so that the companies themselves don’t always know what the biodiversity impact of their activities is. For example, nickel is a crucial component of our daily lives, being used in the production of stainless steel. Yet how often do we stop and think about where the nickel in our cutlery or electric car batteries has come from, and how producing it has affected the environment?

One impact is the clearance of forests in areas where nickel ore is mined. Ambatovy nickel mine, the biggest mine in Madagascar, is one of a growing number of businesses to have made a commitment to leave nature in no worse a state as a result of its operations. The mine compensated for its forest clearance by putting measures in place to stop clearance of forest by local people for agriculture elsewhere. This year, Katie Devenish and colleagues at Bangor University published a paper looking at whether they had succeeded. Using sophisticated methods to separate out the effects of the mine’s activities from other factors leading to forest loss, the researchers demonstrated that the mine was on track to prevent at least as much deforestation as it had caused. The study is a model for how scientists can carry out thorough and independent evaluations of companies’ environmental commitments, reducing the temptation to greenwash.

We need many more studies like this, that link the esoteric world of high-level policy-making to realities on the ground, in all sectors from mining, to food, to transport and infrastructure. Then we will have a much better chance to hold our governments and companies to account, and reverse the loss of nature, wherever it takes place. E J Milner-Gulland

EJ Milner-Gulland is a professor of biodiversity at Oxford University

10. Battery charge

It’s one of the greatest unappreciated stories of our time: the incredibly rapid improvements in battery technology that will form the foundation of an electrified world as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

Of course there are questions. What about the costs? Will batteries ever really store enough energy for their size to power something like a large plane? And where will we get all the rare metals necessary to build them?

That’s why my story of the year is the October Nature paper by Chao-Yang Wang and co-authors , describing a way to charge energy-dense batteries incredibly quickly – in just a few minutes. It really highlights the phenomenal speed at which battery chemists, engineers and technologists are rising to the challenge. If you can charge a car battery in 10-12 minutes, charging more frequently becomes much less of a problem, allowing for smaller batteries that are cheaper and less resource-intensive to make.

We are also seeing huge progress in battery technologies based on cheap, abundant sodium instead of expensive and relatively rare lithium, as well as methods to make all these batteries far easier to recycle.

The basic principles of a battery haven’t changed, but the potential of the newest versions is astonishing and getting better all the time. Helen Czerski

Helen Czerski is a research fellow at the department of mechanical engineering , University College London

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Science News

These are the most popular  science news  stories of 2022.

Previously excavated bodies of two ritually sacrificed Inca children, including this girl still wearing a ceremonial headdress, have yielded chemical clues to a beverage that may have been used to calm them in the days or weeks before being killed. The discovery ranked among Science News ' most-read stories of 2022.

Johan Reinhard

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By Science News Staff

December 22, 2022 at 7:00 am

Science News drew over 13 million visitors to our website this year. Here’s a recap of the most-read news stories and long reads of 2022.

Top news stories

1. a special brew may have calmed inca children headed for sacrifice.

The mummified remains of two Inca children ritually sacrificed more than 500 years ago contain chemical clues to their final days and weeks. On the journey to the Peruvian mountain where they were sacrificed, the children may have chewed coca leaves and drunk a beverage with antidepressant-like ingredients to soothe their nerves ( SN: 6/4/22, p. 10 ).

2. A ‘mystery monkey’ in Borneo may be a rare hybrid. That has scientists worried

An unusual monkey first spotted six years ago appears to be a cross between a female silvered leaf monkey ( Trachypithecus cristatus ) and a male proboscis monkey ( Nasalis larvatus ). The possible cross-genera pairing has scientists worried because such matings are usually a sign that species are facing ecological pressures ( SN: 6/18/22, p. 11 ).

3. What experts told me to do after my positive COVID-19 at-home test

After Science News intern Anna Gibbs came down with COVID-19, she turned to health experts to figure out how to report her case to public health officials and how long she needed to isolate ( SN Online: 4/22/22 ).

4. All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites

Here’s more evidence that life’s precursors could have come from space. All five of the nucleobases that store information in DNA and RNA have been discovered in meteorites. This year, scientists reported detecting cytosine and thymine in fallen space rocks , completing the list ( SN: 6/4/22, p. 7 ).

5. Humans may not be able to handle as much heat as scientists thought

For years, it was thought the human body can tolerate heat up to a “wet bulb” temperature — a measure combining humidity and air temperature — of 35° Celsius (95° Fahrenheit). But experiments hint that the threshold may be several degrees lower ( SN: 8/27/22, p. 6 ).

Science News joins TikTok

TikTok became one more way we tell stories, as we premiered our first TikTok video — a tribute to the “bambootula” tarantula. Find out what makes this spider so peculiar and discover other amazing science tidbits @sciencenewsofficial .

@sciencenewsofficial This is the only known tarantula to call bamboo home. #spiders #tarantula #science #biology #sciencetok ♬ original sound – sciencenewsofficial

Top feature stories

1. tardigrades could teach us how to handle the rigors of space travel.

Tardigrades can withstand punishing levels of radiation, the freezing cold and the vacuum of outer space. Researchers are learning the death-defying tricks of these hardy microscopic animals to better prepare astronauts for long-term voyages ( SN: 7/16/22 & 7/30/22, p. 30 ).

2. Muons spill secrets about Earth’s hidden structures

Just like doctors use X-rays to see inside the human body, scientists are using muons , a type of subatomic particle, to peer inside Egyptian pyramids, volcanoes and other hard to penetrate structures ( SN: 4/23/22, p. 22 ). 

3. Multiple sclerosis has a common viral culprit, opening doors to new approaches

Evidence is mounting that Epstein-Barr virus somehow instigates multiple sclerosis. Understanding the link between the virus and MS may lead to better treatments for the neurological disorder. Vaccines against the virus may even prevent MS altogether ( SN: 8/13/22, p. 14 ).

4. The discovery of the Kuiper Belt revamped our view of the solar system

In 1992, two astronomers discovered a doughnut-shaped region far beyond Neptune, dubbed the Kuiper Belt, that’s home to a swarm of frozen objects left over from the solar system’s formation. By studying these far-off objects over the last 30 years, scientists have gained new insights into how planets form ( SN: 8/27/22, p. 22 ).

5. Clovis hunters’ reputation as mammoth killers takes a hit

Ancient Americans may have been big-game scavengers rather than big-game hunters. Some recent analyses suggest that Clovis stone points were more likely tools for butchering large carcasses than weapons for taking down mammoths and other large animals ( SN: 1/15/22, p. 22 ).

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Experts Forecast Cancer Research and Treatment Advances in 2022

The year 2021 defied our expectations in a variety of ways. 

The delta and omicron COVID-19 variants imposed unprecedented challenges on the health care system and threatened our hopes of an end to the pandemic, but widespread vaccine distribution provided protection, preventing an estimated 36 million cases and 1 million deaths in the United States. As omicron called into question the efficacy of existing vaccines, tests, and treatments, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided new options, in the form of emergency use authorizations for the first two oral COVID-19 drugs, nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid) and molnupiravir (Lagevrio). 

Aside from the pandemic, supply chain delays and worker shortages sparked frustration, but the national unemployment rate gradually fell to its lowest percentage since February 2020. Through a year of harsh weather conditions ranging from ice storms to wildfires to hurricanes and tornadoes, the United States doubled down on initiatives to battle climate change . 

In spite of the year’s setbacks, the field of cancer research also made progress. The FDA approved 16 new oncology drugs —including two to treat genetic conditions that cause high rates of tumor formation—as well as two cancer detection agents that help physicians better identify certain tumors during imaging or surgery. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act , saw marked progress in many areas of cancer research , and helped provide cancer patients with reliable information about their COVID-19 risks and vaccine efficacy . 

As in previous years , we have asked a panel of experts to reflect on the progress made in 2021 and forecast their predictions for cancer research in the year 2022. We spoke with AACR President-Elect Lisa Coussens, PhD, FAACR , about basic research; AACR board member and co-editor-in-chief of Cancer Discovery Luis Diaz Jr., MD , about precision immunotherapy; co-editor-in-chief of Cancer Prevention Research Michael Pollak, MD , and deputy editor of Cancer Prevention Research Avrum Spira, MD , about cancer prevention; and AACR board member and former Annual Meeting Program Chair John Carpten, PhD, FAACR , about cancer disparities. 

Priorities for Basic Research in 2022 

“There isn’t a drug on the market that doesn’t have its origins in a basic science discovery,” said Lisa Coussens, PhD, FAACR , chair of the department of Cell Development and Cancer Biology at Oregon Health and Science University, when asked about the ways that laboratory science has shaped the landscape of cancer care. “We can’t lose sight of the importance of basic research at any step in the pipeline toward advancing cancer medicine and improving outcomes for our patients.” 

Basic science—fundamental research about the way cells and molecules function and interact—spans applications from protein chemistry to cell genomics to animal models. Such discoveries help researchers determine, for example, which proteins can be targeted with drugs to fight a disease, or which biomarkers might help determine a patient’s prognosis or course of treatment.  

An important priority for improving our knowledge of cancer cell biology, Coussens explained, is to better understand how cells shift between different states, especially in response to a disease or therapy. 

“We need to understand nuances between different tissue states within our body, and how they respond to changes in their environment,” Coussens said, noting that this is true in healthy organs as well as in evolving tumors, where single cell types typically steer disease processes but are dependent on cues from the multiple cell types surrounding them. 

“Understanding those nuances will lead to bigger discoveries about how to target cell state changes so we can return cells back to normal control mechanisms,” she continued. 

Tumor cells are not the only cells that might change their patterns of gene expression and metabolism during the course of cancer progression and treatment, however. Other cells that surround and interact with the tumor, such as fibroblasts and immune cells, play a vital role in determining how the tumor behaves. 

“A full understanding of tumor ecosystems includes the neoplastic cells—the ‘bad guys’ with mutations—as well as the normal host cells that are recruited or co-opted to help tumor cells survive and disseminate,” Coussens said. 

Emerging classes of therapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, leverage elements of the tumor microenvironment to kill cancer cells. In order to develop more drugs targeting these cancer support systems, researchers need to learn more about how tumors interact with their surroundings. 

“I think the next years will bring a major focus on understanding communication networks between all the different types of cells in tumor ecosystems,” Coussens said, adding that a basic understanding of cell communications could produce benefits beyond the scope of cancer. “Basic discoveries about tumor ecosystems can have far-reaching impacts on autoimmune diseases, chronic inflammatory diseases, and how individuals respond to therapies that are designed to treat Alzheimer’s, for example,” she explained. 

Coussens believes that many of these discoveries will be driven by the expanded use of technology and data science. Since the turn of the century, rapid advances in genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have created an abundance of biological data from patients, animal models, and cell lines. Designing computational programs capable of integrating these data and determining how to analyze them in meaningful ways has been a constant source of innovation over the past 20 years. 

Coussens emphasized that continued progress in this area could significantly shape basic research in the coming years. 

“The biggest impact we’re seeing right now is with the emergence of technology development and computational data sciences,” Coussens said. “I think the greatest advances we will see over the next several years will be emerging out of team science embracing technology, data science, and biology.” 

As technological advances spur more integration between different disciplines, Coussens predicts that collaboration will become more crucial than ever.  

“Science has changed—we no longer do science in isolation,” she said. “The best science today, I think, comes out of multidisciplinary team science. I’m a biologist, but I now need to be able to communicate with data scientists, epidemiologists, and chemists.” 

Coussens expressed that young investigators entering the field should consider this new paradigm when planning their training. “The more you can round out your education in a multidisciplinary way, the better. You need to be able to communicate your science with people who don’t necessarily speak your field’s language.” 

Part of her advice hinged on trainees finding strong mentors who can help guide them toward these opportunities, especially as they recover from lost time and funding resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. “Invest your time and energy in identifying mentors who care about who you are and the trajectory of your career. Find mentors who you will grow to respect and love,” she said. 

Overall, Coussens was optimistic about the state of basic research moving forward. 

“The basic science discoveries we’re going to see in the next five years will reshape the medical landscape for years to come,” she said. 

PRIORITIES FOR Precision Immunotherapy IN 2022 

The art of deciding which cancer therapies to give a patient, based on their individual tumor characteristics, has evolved over the past several decades, according to Luis Diaz Jr., MD , head of Solid Tumor Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board. Such decisions were first made based on protein markers expressed by the tumor, then by genetic changes in the tumor’s DNA. Now, Diaz said, a precise understanding of tumor characteristics can predict which patients may benefit most from immunotherapy. 

“One example has been PD-L1 overexpression, either on the tumors themselves or on the surrounding cells,” Diaz said. “Another is mismatch repair deficiency, which seems to prime cells to become very sensitive to immunotherapy.” 

This is just one of the ways that the fields of precision medicine and immunotherapy have grown to complement each other in recent years. As Diaz noted, antibodies targeting PD-1 or PD-L1 have become an effective therapy for patients whose tumors express these immunosuppressive markers. 

The treatment of patients with CAR T cells—immune cells which are harvested from a patient’s body, engineered to target tumors, and returned to the patient’s bloodstream—represents an even more patient-specific approach to immunotherapy. 

But these therapies are not appropriate for all cancer types, and many patients who receive these therapies eventually relapse, creating a need for the expansion of immunotherapy types and indications. 

Diaz believes researchers can improve the efficacy of immunotherapy by offering it earlier in a patient’s course of treatment. 

“In many cases, we’re testing new therapies on patients for whom all standard therapies have already failed,” he said. “As we move forward, we need to begin to treat earlier in the diagnosis.” 

Diaz emphasized that treating advanced cancer poses far more challenges than intervening in early-stage disease or preventing tumor formation altogether. “If we can begin to bring targeted therapy and immunotherapy into the prevention space, I think we’ll see a profound impact,” he said. 

A different approach to improving immunotherapy efficiency is to reach more patients by making cell-based immunotherapies, such as CAR T, effective against a broader range of tumor types, including solid tumors.  

To overcome these hurdles, Diaz said, “The priority needs to be in maximizing specificity and minimizing toxicity.” 

Solid tumors, Diaz explained, are often heterogeneous. An immune response against a single target may kill some of the tumor, but cancer cells that don’t express the target may continue to grow and evade the immune system. Researchers have designed CAR T cells that target multiple tumor cell markers, but more targets also increase the likelihood of harmful side effects.  

“It’s a mathematical problem we can’t solve very easily,” Diaz said. “We need some clever new ideas.” 

Boosting the number of people who receive immunotherapy also involves addressing accessibility issues, especially for patients in rural or underresourced communities. Diaz speculated that the increase in remote care options resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic might provide a blueprint for the decentralization of clinical trials, paving the way for large cancer centers to collaborate with community hubs. 

He emphasized that one way to promote decentralization is to encourage more clinical trial ownership from clinicians rather than pharmaceutical companies. “I’d like to see our investigators becoming the initiators of more trials to be run at large cancer centers and elsewhere,” Diaz said.  

He noted that clinical trial decentralization will pose some challenges, such as standardizing procedures and supplies and ensuring that quality does not suffer. However, he was optimistic that it would eventually improve care. “I think it will make clinical development move faster than it ever has before,” he said. 

Targeting new populations and tumor types with immunotherapy, however, will only benefit patients whose tumors mount an immune response. Some tumors—deemed immunologically “cold”—expertly evade the immune system, and the mechanisms underlying that process are complex. 

“We need a better understanding of what makes tumors immunogenic so we can harness that knowledge to make cancers more immunogenic,” Diaz said. 

He noted that research into the interface between immune cells and cancer cells has done a great job of producing the therapies on the market today, but that advancing precision immunotherapy will require those efforts to continue. 

“As exciting as everything is that we’re doing, we need to do so much more,” Diaz said. “What’s popular right now is probably only the tip of the iceberg.” 

Priorities for Cancer Prevention in 2022 

“The most transformative impact we could have on cancer care would be to prevent cancer from happening in the first place,” said Avrum Spira, MD , a professor of medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine, and bioinformatics at the Boston University School of Medicine and global head of the Lung Cancer Initiative at Johnson & Johnson. 

Spira and his colleagues study how physicians can better detect early-stage lung cancer or signs of precancerous changes in the lungs. He also studies how to intervene in these early stages to prevent disease progression. 

“Researchers have found molecular alterations in late-stage cancer and used that information to develop new targeted therapies and immunotherapies that are transforming the treatment of advanced-stage disease,” Spira said. “It’s absolutely critical to move that fundamental molecular understanding to early-stage and even premalignant disease.” 

Understanding what drives benign cells into a tumorigenic state is an important component of this process, Spira emphasized. Drawing on the success of large-scale programs such as The Cancer Genome Atlas , the Human Cell Atlas , and the Human Tumor Atlas Network , dedicated to fully characterizing the blueprints of the human body, researchers have embarked on the development of a Pre-cancer Atlas . 

“Within the Human Tumor Atlas Network, researchers are forming large coalitions for multiple different cancer types to develop a temporal and spatial atlas of the cellular and molecular changes associated with the transition of a premalignant lesion to a fully-blown invasive cancer,” Spira said. “I think, in 2022, we’re going to see a proliferation of those types of studies, generating a vast amount of cellular and molecular data from premalignant tissue across many cancer types.” 

Spira believes such an atlas will benefit patients in two key ways: the development of biomarkers that can help predict which precancerous lesions will advance to cancer, and the identification of drug targets to stop the progression. 

“For most cancer types, we don’t know what those early events are, and therefore, we have no effective way to intercept the disease process,” he said. “I think in 2022, we will begin to understand these events and gain unprecedented insight into targeted approaches aimed at intercepting premalignancy.” 

Spira elaborated more on the need for biomarkers, which may not only identify patients at an elevated cancer risk but may also determine which patients with abnormal imaging results may need a biopsy. The most effective biomarkers, he stressed, would be the ones detectable via noninvasive tests. 

“I’m excited about the future of blood-based tests looking at nucleic acids,” Spira said. “The technologies are evolving very rapidly to the point where they can now detect very small amounts of DNA or epigenetic changes that are circulating in the blood, and they can screen people across multiple cancer types.” 

While blood-based liquid biopsies have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, Spira also drew attention to other emerging noninvasive tests with the potential to have a significant impact on early cancer detection, such as urine markers of urologic cancer, stool markers of colon cancer, and nasal brushings to assess lung cancer risk. 

Spira hopes these noninvasive tests can be integrated with each other and with imaging results to give the best possible assessment of a patient’s risk. “That’s a complicated space, but I think this convergent approach is one that will advance significantly in 2022,” he said. 

Even noninvasive tests, however, can only benefit patients who are able to access them. Spira pointed out a few ways the field adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic that could continue to be leveraged moving forward. 

“We need to find ways to get screening to patients as opposed to them having to come to the hospital,” Spira said. He highlighted advances such as remote clinical trial management, as well as mobile CT and radiology units, set up in large vans or trucks that can drive to various neighborhoods to perform screening. Used during COVID-19 to promote social distancing and minimize virus exposure, such units could be used in the future to help people catch up on screenings missed during the pandemic, especially in areas with poor health care access. 

Spira also noted that the pandemic placed a spotlight on behavioral risk factors that increased COVID-19 susceptibility and the risk for severe disease, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, and physical inactivity. He pointed out that, often, these same behaviors contribute to cancer risk. 

“This has become a teachable moment,” Spira said. “I think we can encourage the public to alter some cancer-causing behaviors that are also related to virus susceptibility.” 

Michael Pollak, MD , a professor of oncology and medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies cancer prevention through the lens of reducing risk, also emphasized addressing lifestyle behaviors that affect multiple health conditions. 

“An important trend for 2022 may be the concept of healthy lifestyle behaviors integrated across diseases,” Pollak said. “We have to recognize that some of the activities and lifestyles and approaches to cancer risk just contribute to overall good health.” 

While many behavioral factors are known to broadly increase risk of several cancers, Pollak noted that risks vary in unique ways among different individuals.  

“Oncologists are used to personalization of treatments,” he said. “We try to find out what treatment would be particularly useful for one patient as compared to their neighbor. In prevention, we may discover an analogy to that customization.” 

He explained that an individual assessment of risk may make the message of behavioral intervention more personal. “If you hear your doctor saying that, in your particular case, the way your body is put together, your weight especially increases your risk for cancer, it may help motivate some people.” 

Pollak believes risk assessment can be further personalized beyond the level of the individual, down to the level of discrete cell types. “We’re used to thinking of a person’s cancer risk as if the person was homogeneous, but carcinogenesis takes place at the cellular level,” he said. “We need to know what’s going on differently in the different cells that might determine risk on a per-cell basis.” 

Pollak mentioned the Pre-cancer Atlas as an important vehicle for realizing this goal. “With the Pre-cancer Atlas, we’ll learn more about the cellular composition and subcellular features that lead to carcinogenesis,” he said, noting that such a granular understanding of tumor formation could pave the way for improved therapies. 

“We really won’t be able to prevent every cancer, but even if we confine our goals to preventing the subset of cancers that are preventable, that’s estimated to be about half of all cancers,” Pollak concluded. “Even acknowledging the limitations, the potential gains are absolutely enormous.” 

Priorities for Cancer Disparities in 2022 

The past two years have presented health care challenges beyond COVID-19, encompassing financial and access-related struggles that affected many facets of medicine, including cancer care. Many individuals have had to delay routine cancer screenings, alter the course of treatment, or miss follow-up appointments as a result of the pandemic. 

Such problems were more pronounced in some communities than others. 

“The pandemic has definitely impacted our opportunities to move forward toward eliminating disparities in all areas of cancer research,” said John Carpten, PhD, FAACR , chair of the department of Translational Genomics at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board. “As we consider gaps in cancer screening and cancer diagnosis, many challenges were further exacerbated in underrepresented minority communities during the pandemic.”  

Carpten also pointed out the disproportionate challenges minority cancer researchers faced during COVID-19. “Many underrepresented minority investigators, who may have already had challenges in terms of access to funding, were also impacted severely by the pandemic,” he said. “This is especially true for early-stage investigators and postdoctoral fellows who were unable to be in their laboratories to perform research.” 

Although the issue of lost time and funding due to the pandemic may be difficult to solve, Carpten believes that other initiatives to support underrepresented minority researchers—especially trainees and early-career investigators—will positively influence health disparities research in 2022. 

Carpten specifically listed diversifying the biomedical workforce as a key priority for tackling health disparities. “Increasing underrepresented minority faculty members will increase the number of mentors who will then be able to train more underrepresented minorities and fellows,” he said. 

He mentioned the National Institutes of Health (NIH) FIRST program , a funding opportunity provided to institutions to promote the hiring of early-career investigator cohorts from diverse backgrounds in support of their career development. Providing a supportive environment and sufficient resources to these investigators, Carpten said, can make significant strides toward ensuring a successful career trajectory in academic research. 

“We believe that this is going to be a huge component in the growth of underrepresented minorities in the area of biomedical research, specifically cancer research,” he said. 

Encouraging diversity of researchers, however, is only one step where meaningful interventions can occur. Another is the broader inclusion of diverse patients and samples in cancer research, especially of patients recruited into clinical trials. 

“We need to understand the broader impact of new therapies for all people, preferably prior to approvals, to ensure that we have the most accurate picture relative to effectiveness and toxicity profiles across representative groups of patients,” Carpten said. 

Diversity in preclinical studies, including patient-derived samples, genetic data, and model systems, is also key to understanding the biological basis of cancer health disparities. 

“Whether it’s understanding the influence of genetic factors on cancer risk or understanding how collections of mutations that occur in cancer cells differ across individuals from different groups, it will be very important for us to continue increasing representation of the reagents, models, and data that we use,” Carpten said. 

“Ensuring that we understand how biological changes impact cancer initiation, progression, and growth across an array of models will provide additional information so that we can really capture the full complexity of cancer,” he added. 

Carpten also encourages working to address the cultural, social, and access-related issues underlying cancer health disparities by striving harder to engage with the community. 

“We need to advance our relationships with various stakeholders, especially in terms of community engagement, outreach, and involvement,” Carpten said. “If we don’t build better relationships with the community, get their feedback, understand their issues, and work together to address them, I think we’ll continue to have challenges.” 

As observed during the pandemic , improving community engagement can help health care providers build trust with their patients, bring care to broader geographic areas, and better understand the needs of the populations disparities researchers are working to serve. 

“I really look forward to working with my colleagues in academia, industry, and the government, but most importantly, with our colleagues in the community,” Carpten concluded. “Their voice really needs to be heard and will be key in achieving cancer health equity.” 

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December 20, 2022

2022 Research Highlights — Basic Research Insights

Noteworthy advances in fundamental research.

With NIH support, scientists across the United States and around the world conduct wide-ranging research to discover ways to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Groundbreaking NIH-funded research often receives top scientific honors. In 2022, these honors included  two NIH-supported scientists who received Nobel Prizes . Here’s just a small sample of the NIH-supported basic research insights in 2022. For more health and medical research findings from NIH, visit  NIH Research Matters .

Printer-friendly version of full 2022 NIH Research Highlights

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Understanding Alzheimer’s disease

NIH-funded research enhanced our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and suggested new treatment strategies. Scientists found that the gene  APOE4 , which has long been linked to an increased risk of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease,  disrupts cholesterol management in the brain and weakens insulation around nerve fibers . A drug that promotes cholesterol transport led to improved learning and memory in mice with the gene. Blocking a hormone called FSH also reduced Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice. Boosting a type of immune cell that helps clear waste products in the brain did, too. Other researchers found that higher blood levels of certain antioxidants, but not others , were associated with a reduced risk of a person developing Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.

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Obesity alters response to anti-inflammatory treatment 

Obesity is thought to impact the immune system. Researchers found that a treatment for severe skin inflammation that works well in lean mice made the condition worse in obese mice. This, they found, was because of differences in immune cells between the lean and obese mice. The results highlight how obesity can alter the immune response. Treatments for inflammatory conditions may thus need to account for body composition.

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How the microbiome impacts health and disease

Researchers found several new ways that the microbiome—the collection of bacteria and other microbes living in and on our bodies—affects human health. People who ate a high-fiber diet, which promotes healthy gut microbes, lived the longest after immunotherapy for melanoma. Meanwhile, changes in gut microbes caused by high sugar intake led to weight gain and early signs of diabetes in mice. Other researchers found that viruses can play a role in inflammatory bowel disease . And COVID-19 was found to disrupt the gut microbiome in ways that may increase the risk of secondary infections. Researchers also discovered how a bacterium that lives on the skin helps protect the skin from water loss and damage .

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Genetic driver of some cases of lupus identified  

The causes of autoimmune diseases such as lupus are complex and not well understood. Scientists sequenced the whole genome of a 7-year-old girl with a rare case of severe childhood lupus. They found a gene mutation that caused autoimmune attack when engineered into mice. Blocking a protein controlled by this gene stopped lupus from developing in the mice. This suggests a potential new approach for treating some people with the disease.

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How mosquitoes find us

NIH-funded researchers increased our understanding of how mosquitoes locate their hosts. One group found that human and animal odors evoke activity in different areas of the mosquito brain. This explains how certain mosquitoes can distinguish humans from other animals. Another group found that people with higher levels of certain compounds on their skin were more attractive to mosquitoes . These findings could guide the development of better mosquito control strategies to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses.

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Brain cells that control sickness symptoms

When you get an infection, both physiological and behavioral changes occur that help to get rid of the infection. These symptoms are governed by the brain, rather than the immune system, but it hasn’t been clear how. Researchers identified a group of neurons in mice that trigger sickness symptoms in response to infections. The findings may one day lead to better ways to reverse these symptoms when they become dangerous to a person’s health.

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Understanding how sound suppresses pain

Studies have shown that music and other kinds of sound can help reduce acute and chronic pain in people. How the brain produces this pain reduction has been less clear. Scientists identified brain circuits in mice through which sound can blunt pain. These circuits connect the auditory cortex to the thalamus. The findings could lead to the development of safer methods for treating pain in people.

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How infections helped shaped human evolution

Two studies revealed how ancient infections affected human evolution. Researchers identified genetic variants that helped the immune system fight the Black Death —the fourteenth-century bubonic plague pandemic that killed up to half the population in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. But this quick burst of immune system evolution may also have had the lasting side effect of increasing susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. In another study, researchers found that stretches of viral DNA long embedded in the human genome can produce proteins that help block infection by viruses . Further identification and study of these protective virus-based proteins could provide new insights for fighting viral infections.

2022 Research Highlights — Human Health Advances >>

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2022

In our annual ritual, we pored over hundreds of educational studies and pulled out the most impactful—from a new study on the sneaky power of sketchnotes to research that linked relationships and rigor.

This past year didn’t feel normal, exactly, but compared with the last few trips around the sun, well—it sufficed. In 2021, when we sat down to write our annual edition of the research highlights, we were in the throes of postpandemic recovery and wrote about the impact of a grueling year in which burnout and issues of mental and physical health affected educators everywhere.

This year, we crossed our fingers and turned to best practices once again, reviewing hundreds of studies to identify the most impactful and insightful educational strategies we could find.

What turned up?

We found evidence that sheds new light on the misunderstood power of brain breaks, took a close look at research that finds a surprising—even counterintuitive—rationale for teachers to focus on relationships, and located both the humor and the merit in asking kids to slither like a snake as they learn about the “sss” sound of the letter S .

All that, and a lot more too, in our once-a-year roundup that follows.

1. There’s No Conflict Between Relationships and Rigor

Observers sometimes assume that teachers who radiate empathy, kindness, and openness are “soft” and can be taken advantage of by students. But new research shows that when you signal that you care about kids, they’re willing to go the extra mile, giving you the flexibility to assign more challenging school work.

That’s the main takeaway from a 2022 study that examined teaching practices in 285 districts, comparing relationship-building strategies with the flexibility that teachers had in assigning challenging and complex work. The researchers found that the most effective teachers build their classrooms by getting to know their students, being approachable, and showing that they enjoy the work—and then deftly translate emotional capital into academic capital.

“When students feel teachers care about them, they work harder, engage in more challenging academic activities, behave more appropriately for the school environment, are genuinely happy to see their teacher, and meet or exceed their teacher’s expectations,” the researchers conclude.

2. Highlighting Isn’t Very Effective Until Teachers Step In

Students often highlight the wrong information and may rely on their deficient highlighting skills as a primary study strategy, leading to poor learning outcomes, a new analysis of 36 studies suggests. As little as two hours of tutoring, however, can dramatically improve their capabilities.

The researchers determined that “learner-generated highlighting” tended to improve retention of material, but not comprehension. When students were taught proper highlighting techniques by teachers, however—for example, how to distinguish main ideas from supporting ideas—they dramatically improved their academic performance. Crucially, “when highlighting is used in conjunction with another learning strategy” like “graphic organizers or post-questions,” its effectiveness soars, the researchers said.

The need for explicit teaching may be linked to changing reading habits as students graduate from stories and fables to expository texts, which require them to navigate unfamiliar text formats, the researchers note. To bring kids up to speed, show them “examples of appropriate and inappropriate highlighting,” teach them to “highlight content relatively sparingly,” and provide examples of follow-on tactics like summarizing their insights to drive deeper comprehension.

3. A Landmark Study Strikes a Resounding Note for Inclusion

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act called for greater inclusion—mandating that students with disabilities receive support in the “least restrictive environment”—one goal was to ensure that educational accommodations didn’t interfere with the students’ social and emotional development in classrooms full of their peers. The law also confronted age-old prejudices and established a binding legal obligation in favor of inclusion.

But thus far, rigorous evidence of the academic benefits has been thin.

Now a new large-scale study appears to put the matter beyond dispute. When researchers tracked nearly 24,000 adolescents who qualified for special education, they discovered that spending a majority of the day—at least 80 percent—in general education classes improved reading scores by a whopping 24 points and math scores by 18 points, compared with scores of their more isolated peers with similar disabilities.

“Treat the general education classroom as the default classroom,” the researchers firmly state, and push for separate accommodations only when all other options have been exhausted.

4. Sketchnotes and Concept Maps Work—Even Better Than You Might Think

Simple concept maps, sketchnotes, and other annotated jottings—akin to doodling with a purpose—can facilitate deeper comprehension of materials than more polished drawings, a new study finds.

Representational drawings, such as a simple diagram of a cell, may help students remember factual information, the researchers explain, but they “lack features to make generalizations or inferences based on that information.” Organizational drawings that link concepts with arrows, annotations, and other relational markings give students a clearer sense of the big picture, allow them to visualize how ideas are connected, and provide a method for spotting obvious gaps in their understanding. On tests of higher-order thinking, fifth graders who made organizational drawings outperformed their peers who tried representational drawings by 300 percent.

To reap the benefits in class, have students start with simple diagrams to help remember the material, and then move them up to sketchnotes and concept maps as they tease out connections to prior knowledge.

5. Brain Breaks Are Misunderstood (and Underutilized)

Conventional wisdom holds that the development of a skill comes from active, repeated practice: It’s the act of dribbling a basketball that ultimately teaches the basketball star.

But recent studies reveal that the intervals between practice sessions are at least as crucial. In 2021, researchers used brain scans to observe neural networks as young adults learned how to type. During breaks, the brains of the participants appeared to head back to the keyboards, unconsciously replaying the typing sequences over and over again at high rates of speed as they flipped the material between processing and memory centers dozens of times in the span of 10 seconds. The researchers concluded that brain breaks play “just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill.”

In 2022, we learned that the kinds of breaks make a difference, too. One study compared in-classroom breaks like drawing or building puzzles with outdoor breaks like running or playing in sandboxes. In a nod to the power of movement—and free time—it was the kids playing outside who returned to class ready to learn, probably because indoor games, like indoor voices, required children to engage in more self-regulation, the researchers speculated. Meanwhile, an analysis examining “green breaks” —brief strolls in a park or visits to a school garden—concluded that students who partook in the activities performed better on tests of attention and working memory.

Depriving kids of regular breaks, it turns out, is a threat to the whole proposition of learning. To commit lessons to memory, the brain demands its own time—which it sets aside to clean up and consolidate new material.

6. On Classroom Design, an Argument for Caution—and Common Sense

When it comes time to decorate their classrooms, teachers often find themselves on the horns of a dilemma: Should they aim for Pinterest-worthy interior design or opt for blank walls on the strength of research that emphasizes the risks of distracting students?

A study published in February this year argues for minimalism. Researchers tracked the on-task behavior of K–2 students and concluded that visually ”streamlined” classrooms produced more focused students than “decorated” ones. During short read-alouds about topics like rainbows and plate tectonics, for example, young kids in classrooms free of “charts, posters, and manipulatives” were paying attention at significantly higher rates.

But it might not be a simple question of more or less. A 2014 study confirmed that posters of women scientists or diverse historical figures, for example, can improve students’ sense of belonging. And a recent study that observed 3,766 children in 153 schools concluded that classrooms that occupied a visual middle ground—neither too cluttered nor too austere—produced the best academic outcomes. A 2022 study reached similar conclusions.

Classroom decoration can alter academic trajectories, the research suggests, but the task shouldn’t stress teachers out. The rules appear to be relatively straightforward: Hang academically relevant, supportive work on the walls, and avoid the extremes—working within the broad constraints suggested by common sense and moderation.

7. For Young Children, the Power of Play-Based Learning

Children aren’t miniature adults, but a bias toward adult perspectives of childhood, with its attendant schedules and routines, has gradually exerted a stranglehold on our educational system nonetheless, suggests the author and early childhood educator Erika Christakis.

How can we let little kids be little while meeting the academic expectations of typical schools? A new analysis of 39 studies spanning several decades plots a middle path for educators, highlighting the way that play gently guided by adults, often called play-based learning, can satisfy both objectives.

Teachers of young students can have a “learning goal” in mind, but true play-based learning should incorporate wonder and exploration, be child-led when possible, and give students “freedom and choice over their actions and play behavior,” the researchers assert. Interrupt the flow of learning only when necessary: gently nudge students who might find activities too hard or too easy, for example. The playful approach improved early math and task-switching skills, compared with more traditional tactics that emphasize the explicit acquisition of skills, researchers concluded.

To get the pedagogy right, focus on relationships and ask questions that prompt wonder. “Rich, open-ended conversation is critical,” Christakis told Edutopia in a 2019 interview —children need time "to converse with each other playfully, to tell a rambling story to an adult, to listen to high-quality literature and ask meaningful questions.”

8. A Better Way to Learn Your ABCs

Getting young kids to match a letter to its corresponding sound is a first-order reading skill. To help students grasp that the letter c makes the plosive “cuh” sound in car , teachers often use pictures as scaffolds or have children write the letter repeatedly while making its sound.

A new study suggests that sound-letter pairs are learned much more effectively when whole-body movements are integrated into lessons. Five- and 6-year-olds in the study spent eight weeks practicing movements for each letter of the alphabet, slithering like a snake as they hissed the sibilant “sss” sound, for example. The researchers found that whole-body movement improved students’ ability to recall letter-sound pairings and doubled their ability to recognize hard-to-learn sounds—such as the difference between the sounds that c makes in cat and sauce —when compared with students who simply wrote and spoke letter-sound pairings at their desks.

The approach can make a big difference in the acquisition of a life-changing skill. Educators should “incorporate movement-based teaching” into their curricula, giving special consideration to “whole-body movement,” the researchers conclude.

9. Why Learners Push the Pause Button

Some of the benefits of videotaped lessons are so self-evident that they hide in plain sight.

When teaching students foundational concepts, a video lesson equipped with a simple pause button, for example, may allow students to reset cognitively as they reach their attentional limits, a 2022 study concluded. Pause buttons, like rewind buttons, are also crucial for learners who encounter “complex learning materials,” have “low prior knowledge,” or exhibit “low working memory capacities.”

Increasingly, the intrinsic value of targeted video lessons is borne out in research. In a feature on Edutopia , we looked at research suggesting that video learning supported self-pacing and flexible, 24/7 access to lessons; that questions embedded in videos improved academic performance, increased note-taking, and reduced stress (see these 2015 and 2020 studies); and that video versions of lectures tended to “make content more coherent ” to students.

To modernize their classrooms, teachers might record their most important lessons and make them available to students as study aids so they can pause, rewind, and review to their hearts’ content.

10. An Authoritative Study of Two High-Impact Learning Strategies

Spacing and retrieval practices are two of the most effective ways to drive long-term retention, confirms an authoritative 2022 review spanning hundreds of studies on the topic—and students should know how and why the strategies are effective.

In the review, researchers explain that students who prefer techniques like reading and rereading material in intense cram sessions are bound to fail. Instead, students should think of learning as a kind of “fitness routine” during which they practice recalling the material from memory and space out their learning sessions over time. Teaching kids to self-quiz or summarize from memory—and then try it again—is the crucial first step in disabusing students of their “false beliefs about learning.”

The effect sizes are hard to ignore. In a 2015 study , for example, third-grade students who studied a lesson about the sun and then reread the same material scored 53 percent on a follow-up test, the equivalent of a failing grade, while their peers who studied it once and then answered practice questions breezed by with an 87 percent score. And in a 2021 study , middle school students who solved a dozen math problems spread out across three weeks scored 21 percentage points higher on a follow-up math test than students who solved all 12 problems on the same day.

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Novel Drug Approvals for 2022

Advancing Health Through Innovation: New Drug Therapy Approvals 2022 (PDF - 7 MB) Text version

Helping Guide the Way for New Medicines

Innovative drugs often mean new treatment options for patients and advances in health care for the American public. When it comes the development of new drugs and therapeutic biological products, FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) provides clarity to drug developers on the necessary study design elements and other data needed in the drug application to support a full and comprehensive assessment. To do so, CDER relies on its understanding of the science used to create new products, testing and manufacturing procedures, and the diseases and conditions that new products are designed to treat. 

A Wide Range of Products

Each year, CDER approves a wide range of new drugs and biological products: 

• Some of these products have never been used in clinical practice. Below is a listing of new molecular entities and new therapeutic biological products approved by CDER and organized by calendar year. This listing does not contain vaccines, allergenic products, blood and blood products, plasma derivatives, cellular and gene therapy products, or other products approved by the  Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research .
• Others are the same as, or related to, previously approved products, and they will compete with those products in the marketplace. See  Drugs@FDA  for information about all of CDER’s approved drugs and biological products. 

New Molecular Entities (NMEs)

Certain drugs are classified as new molecular entities (“NMEs”) for purposes of FDA review. Many of these products contain active moieties that FDA had not previously approved, either as a single ingredient drug or as part of a combination product. These products frequently provide important new therapies for patients. Some drugs are characterized as NMEs for administrative purposes, but nonetheless contain active moieties that are closely related to active moieties in products that FDA has previously approved. FDA’s classification of a drug as an “NME” for review purposes is distinct from FDA’s determination of whether a drug product is a “new chemical entity” or “NCE” within the meaning of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. 

*The listed “FDA-approved use” on this website is for presentation purposes only. To see the FDA-approved conditions of use [e.g., indication(s), population(s), dosing regimen(s)] for each of these products, see the most recent FDA-approved Prescribing Information (click on the Drug Name).

As populations age, Alzheimer’s and dementia are becoming more prevalent. A new drug could offer hope

As populations age, the number of cases of dementia rises. Image:  Unsplash/centelm

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• A new drug, lecanemab, has been shown to reduce the decline in memory and thinking associated with Alzheimer's.
• As populations age, dementia cases are on the rise, with 10 million new people diagnosed each year.
• Dementia is a collective term for a group of diseases or brain injuries that can lead to a change in cognitive functioning as well as other symptoms like lack of emotional control.

It is one of the biggest diseases of our time: 10 million new cases of dementia are diagnosed every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). More than 55 million people worldwide live with a form of dementia and it is the seventh leading cause of death among all diseases.

Now a new drug is offering a glimmer of hope after years of searching for a treatment. In clinical trials, lecanemab has been shown to slow the cognitive decline associated with the disease. The drug attacks the protein clumps in the brain that many think are the cause of the disease.

Although dementia patients are currently offered drugs, none of them affect the progression of the disease which is why scientists in the field are so excited about this latest development. Alzheimer's Research UK called the findings "a major step forwards" .

But while this is undoubtedly positive news, the body also points out that the benefits of the drug were small and came with significant side effects. In addition, lecanemab has been proven to work in the early stages of the disease, so would rely on doctors spotting it before it had progressed too far.

With the number of dementia cases expected to rise to 78 million by 2030 and 139 million in 2050, according to the WHO, the race is on for scientific developments and research that will help us understand, treat and possibly prevent the disease.

A global impact

As populations age, the number of cases of dementia rises. While the deterioration of cognitive functioning is not caused by age itself, it does primarily affect the older generation. For many elderly people it also results in disability and loss of independence - which can have psychological, social and economic implications for them and their families, carers and society more broadly.

The estimated global cost of dementia to society was placed at $1.3 trillion in 2019, and is expected to rise to $2.8 trillion by 2030, WHO says.

Alzheimer’s Diesease, a result of rapid ageing that causes dementia, is a growing concern. Dementia, the seventh leading cause of death worldwide, cost the world $1.25 trillion in 2018, and affected about 50 million people in 2019. Without major breakthroughs, the number of people affected will triple by 2050, to 152 million.

To catalyse the fight against Alzheimer's, the World Economic Forum is partnering with the Global CEO Initiative (CEOi) to form a coalition of public and private stakeholders – including pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotech companies, governments, international organizations, foundations and research agencies.

The initiative aims to advance pre-clinical research to advance the understanding of the disease, attract more capital by lowering the risks to investment in biomarkers, develop standing clinical trial platforms, and advance healthcare system readiness in the fields of detection, diagnosis, infrastructure and access.

What is dementia?

Dementia is a collective term for a group of diseases or injuries which primarily or secondarily affect the brain. Alzheimer’s is the most common of these and accounts for around 60-70% of cases. Other types include vascular dementia , dementia with Lewy bodies (abnormal protein clumps) and a group of diseases that contribute to frontotemporal dementia. It can also be triggered by strokes, excessive use of alcohol, repetitive head injuries, nutritional deficiencies, or follow some infections like HIV, the Alzheimer’s Society explains.

The different forms of dementia can often be indistinct and can co-exist.

Different people are affected in different ways, depending on the underlying cause. But the syndrome is usually progressive and can affect a range of functions, including memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language and judgement.

Changes in mood and ability to control emotions often accompany these cognitive variations.

Can it be treated?

There is no cure for dementia, although there are numerous treatments being worked on and at clinical trial phase. Dementia care currently focuses on early diagnosis, optimizing health and wellbeing and providing long-term support to carers.

Besides age, there are a number of other risk factors, which if avoided, can decrease the chances of dementia and slow its progression. Preventative steps include being physically active, not smoking, avoiding the harmful use of alcohol, as well as maintaining a healthy diet, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Other risk factors associated with dementia include depression, social isolation, low educational attainment, cognitive inactivity and even air pollution .

What is the impact?

People with dementia rely heavily on informal care - i.e., friends and family. These carers spent on average five hours a day looking after people living with dementia in 2019, according to WHO figures. Informal care is thought to cover half of the overall financial burden of dementia.

There is also a disproportionate impact on women. They account for 65% of all dementia-related deaths, and also have a greater number of years affected by the disease. Women also typically provide the majority of informal care - covering over two-thirds of the carer hours for people living with dementia.

What are the latest developments?

The fact that dementia is only diagnosed once symptoms appear means that by the time people take part in clinical trials the disease is often quite well advanced. This can hamper the development of drugs. However, research analyzing data from the UK Biobank has indicated there are a collection of signals that could indicate a problem years before dementia is currently being diagnosed .

Other scientists postulate that, rather than being a disease of the brain, Alzheimer’s is in fact a disorder of the immune system within the brain . They believe research should instead focus on drugs targeting auto-immune pathways .

On a less positive note, researchers found that people who have recently received a dementia diagnosis, or diagnosed with the condition at a younger age, are at an increased risk of suicide . This underlines the importance of a strong support network, particularly among those newly diagnosed.

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As Recommendations for Isolation End, How Common is Long COVID?

Alice Burns Published: Apr 09, 2024

In March 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its recommendations for how people can protect themselves and their communities from respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. Following the lead of some state governments and other countries, the updated recommendations do not instruct people with COVID-19 to isolate after testing positive, in effect treating COVID more like the flu . The new CDC guidance brings a unified approach to the risks from respiratory viruses and reflects the nation’s progress against severe illness from COVID-19. However, as the nation moves further from the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of long COVID remain steady and 7% of all adults—roughly 17 million people—reported currently having long COVID in March 2024. The latest data show that rates of long COVID have remained relatively consistent for the last year, suggesting they may persist indefinitely unless new forms of prevention or treatment are discovered.

This issue brief describes the most recent trends in how many people have long COVID, rates of activity limitations among people with long COVID, and which groups have the highest rates of long COVID.

Among the 60% of U.S. adults who have had COVID, roughly 3 in 10 report having long COVID at some point and roughly 1 in 10 report having long COVID now (Figure 1). When the CDC first started asking about long COVID on the Household Pulse Survey, over one third of adults who had COVID reported having had long COVID. That percentage decreased through October 2023 but rose again in February 2024, nearing three in ten. At any point in time, a smaller percentage of adults currently have long COVID. Since December 2022, in any given month, roughly 10% of adults who have had COVID report having long COVID. The gap between the percent of adults who have long COVID now and the percent who ever have highlights that people are recovering.

An estimated 17 million adults currently have long COVID. There are roughly 250 million adults in the U.S. population , 43 million of whom report ever having had long COVID and 27 million of whom report having had it in the past but not having it currently. Those numbers are on par with the number of people who have cancer ( 17 million in 2020 ) and almost as many as the number with coronary artery disease (over 20 million in 2023 ). Those numbers are all based on self-reported data from the Household Pulse Survey, as reported by the CDC. The Pulse survey is an experimental survey providing information about how the COVID pandemic is affecting households from social and economic perspectives. Its primary advantage is the short turn-around time, but the data may not meet all Census Bureau quality standards. The percentage of people who self-report having had COVID in the survey may differ from rates of COVID from other data sources.

Among adults with long COVID, 79% report having any activity limitations from long COVID and 25% report that long COVID limits their activities “a lot” (Figure 2). The Pulse survey asks adults who report having long COVID whether it limits their day-to-day activities “a lot,” “a little,” or “not at all,” and characterizes the “a lot” responses as “significant.” Most people report activity limitations, but only one in four report long COVID limits their activities a lot. These numbers have changed little since the Pulse survey first started asking about activity limitations in September 2022. It is uncertain how well Pulse respondents represent all U.S. adults. On the one hand, it may be difficult for people with severe limitations to respond to the survey, so the survey may undercount with severe limitations. On the other hand, people who experience long COVID and especially, limitations from long COVID, may be more likely to respond to the survey, so the survey may overcount people those with activity limitations. Understanding the severity of limitations and whether they are permanent is relevant to the uncertainty surrounding how long COVID will affect employment and social engagement. Research has shown lower employment rates among adults with long COVID and although there is still uncertainty about the magnitude of the effects, recent work suggests that the net reduction in the labor force stemming from long COVID is equivalent to about one million workers.

Long COVID is most common among adults who are transgender or who have disabilities, groups that already experience greater difficulties in accessing health care (Figure 3). KFF’s analysis of earlier data on long COVID found higher rates of long COVID among adults who were Hispanic or Latino and those with lower levels of education, which raised questions as to whether long COVID would exacerbate existing disparities in health and employment. As more time has passed—and most adults in the U.S. have now contracted the virus at least once—rates of long COVID show less variation across groups based on race, ethnicity, and educational attainment, although people who are Asian and Black have lower rates of long COVID than those who are White and those who are Hispanic or Latino; and women have higher rates of long COVID than men. There are two groups with notably higher rates of long COVID than others, which include:

• People who are transgender (11% of whom have long COVID), and
• Adults with disabilities (12% of whom have long COVID).

People who are transgender and those with disabilities already face barriers accessing health care—which may contribute to their higher rates of long COVID—but higher rates of long COVID among such groups may also exacerbate such barriers.

Looking ahead, 5% to 10% of adults in the U.S. may continue to experience long COVID at any point in time, but research to improve diagnosis and treatment moves slowly. Although rates of long COVID have stabilized, the 17 million adults with long COVID may experience many employment and material hardships with 4 in 10 reporting food insecurity, 2 in 10 reporting difficulty paying rent or mortgage, and 1 in 10 reporting that they had to stop working for a period of time because of their symptoms. Patients testified about their challenges at a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions hearing in January 2024 , along with leading doctors researching long COVID. The witnesses called for additional federal funding to improve the diagnosis and treatment of long COVID but currently, most federal funding goes through the RECOVER initiative , which has been criticized for the way money was spent and the lack of meaningful breakthroughs. As of spring 2023 , the federal government had spent $1 billion on the RECOVER initiative and still not signed up a single patient to test any treatments. In February 2024 , the Biden Administration dedicated an additional $515 million to the same project. Despite challenges to the RECOVER initiative, researchers recently announced that they are closer to understanding the causes of long COVID, which may allow for improved ways to test for and treat it.

As society moves beyond the pandemic and COVID is increasingly treated as another respiratory virus, groups that are disproportionately more affected by long COVID, may find existing challenges accessing health care to be exacerbated. People with long COVID report statistically higher rates of challenges in accessing and affording health care. The groups with the highest rates of long COVID—adults who are transgender and those with disabilities—also have greater challenges accessing health care even without long COVID and experience higher rates of discrimination by providers. For example, a KFF/Washington Post survey of trans adults found that they had significant issues accessing health care, with nearly half reporting that it was difficult to find a health care provider with whom they could get an appointment with quickly and about half reporting that affordable health care was difficult to find. Beyond difficulties access care, trans adults reported multifaceted discrimination with 17% reporting that they had been denied health care from a provider because of their gender identify. People with disabilities also experience higher rates of discrimination and challenges accessing timely and comprehensive health care, which spurred the National Institutes of Health to designate people with disabilities as a population with health disparities for research purposes in September 2023. Such challenges likely contribute to higher rates of long COVID among adults who are transgender or have disabilities, but also exacerbate the challenges patients experience.

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• Coronavirus
• Public Health

news release

• Long COVID Rates Appear to be Stabilizing, Affecting About 1 in 10 Adults Who Have Had COVID

Also of Interest

• What are the Implications of Long COVID for Employment and Health Coverage?
• Will Long COVID Exacerbate Existing Disparities in Health and Employment?
• Global COVID-19 Tracker

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9 facts about americans and marijuana.

The use and possession of marijuana is illegal under U.S. federal law, but about three-quarters of states have legalized the drug for medical or recreational purposes. The changing legal landscape has coincided with a decades-long rise in public support for legalization, which a majority of Americans now favor.

Here are nine facts about Americans’ views of and experiences with marijuana, based on Pew Research Center surveys and other sources.

As more states legalize marijuana, Pew Research Center looked at Americans’ opinions on legalization and how these views have changed over time.

Data comes from surveys by the Center,  Gallup , and the  2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health  from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Information about the jurisdictions where marijuana is legal at the state level comes from the  National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws .

More information about the Center surveys cited in the analysis, including the questions asked and their methodologies, can be found at the links in the text.

Around nine-in-ten Americans say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use,  according to a January 2024 Pew Research Center survey . An overwhelming majority of U.S. adults (88%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical use only (32%) or that it should be legal for medical  and  recreational use (57%). Just 11% say the drug should not be legal in any form. These views have held relatively steady over the past five years.

Views on marijuana legalization differ widely by age, political party, and race and ethnicity, the January survey shows.

While small shares across demographic groups say marijuana should not be legal at all, those least likely to favor it for both medical and recreational use include:

• Older adults: 31% of adults ages 75 and older support marijuana legalization for medical and recreational purposes, compared with half of those ages 65 to 74, the next youngest age category. By contrast, 71% of adults under 30 support legalization for both uses.
• Republicans and GOP-leaning independents: 42% of Republicans favor legalizing marijuana for both uses, compared with 72% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Ideological differences exist as well: Within both parties, those who are more conservative are less likely to support legalization.
• Hispanic and Asian Americans: 45% in each group support legalizing the drug for medical and recreational use. Larger shares of Black (65%) and White (59%) adults hold this view.

Support for marijuana legalization has increased dramatically over the last two decades. In addition to asking specifically about medical and recreational use of the drug, both the Center and Gallup have asked Americans about legalizing marijuana use in a general way. Gallup asked this question most recently, in 2023. That year, 70% of adults expressed support for legalization, more than double the share who said they favored it in 2000.

Half of U.S. adults (50.3%) say they have ever used marijuana, according to the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health . That is a smaller share than the 84.1% who say they have ever consumed alcohol and the 64.8% who have ever used tobacco products or vaped nicotine.

While many Americans say they have used marijuana in their lifetime, far fewer are current users, according to the same survey. In 2022, 23.0% of adults said they had used the drug in the past year, while 15.9% said they had used it in the past month.

While many Americans say legalizing recreational marijuana has economic and criminal justice benefits, views on these and other impacts vary, the Center’s January survey shows.

• Economic benefits: About half of adults (52%) say that legalizing recreational marijuana is good for local economies, while 17% say it is bad. Another 29% say it has no impact.

• Criminal justice system fairness: 42% of Americans say legalizing marijuana for recreational use makes the criminal justice system fairer, compared with 18% who say it makes the system less fair. About four-in-ten (38%) say it has no impact.
• Use of other drugs: 27% say this policy decreases the use of other drugs like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, and 29% say it increases it. But the largest share (42%) say it has no effect on other drug use.
• Community safety: 21% say recreational legalization makes communities safer and 34% say it makes them less safe. Another 44% say it doesn’t impact safety.

Democrats and adults under 50 are more likely than Republicans and those in older age groups to say legalizing marijuana has positive impacts in each of these areas.

Most Americans support easing penalties for people with marijuana convictions, an October 2021 Center survey found . Two-thirds of adults say they favor releasing people from prison who are being held for marijuana-related offenses only, including 41% who strongly favor this. And 61% support removing or expunging marijuana-related offenses from people’s criminal records.

Younger adults, Democrats and Black Americans are especially likely to support these changes. For instance, 74% of Black adults  favor releasing people from prison  who are being held only for marijuana-related offenses, and just as many favor removing or expunging marijuana-related offenses from criminal records.

Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have legalized small amounts of marijuana for both medical and recreational use as of March 2024,  according to the  National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws  (NORML), an advocacy group that tracks state-level legislation on the issue. Another 14 states have legalized the drug for medical use only.

Of the remaining 12 states, all allow limited access to products such as CBD oil that contain little to no THC – the main psychoactive substance in cannabis. And 26 states overall have at least partially  decriminalized recreational marijuana use , as has the District of Columbia.

In addition to 24 states and D.C.,  the U.S. Virgin Islands ,  Guam  and  the Northern Mariana Islands  have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational use.

More than half of Americans (54%) live in a state where both recreational and medical marijuana are legal, and 74% live in a state where it’s legal either for both purposes or medical use only, according to a February Center analysis of data from the Census Bureau and other outside sources. This analysis looked at state-level legislation in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to pass legislation legalizing recreational marijuana.

About eight-in-ten Americans (79%) live in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary, according to the February analysis. There are nearly 15,000 marijuana dispensaries nationwide, and 76% are in states (including D.C.) where recreational use is legal. Another 23% are in medical marijuana-only states, and 1% are in states that have made legal allowances for low-percentage THC or CBD-only products.

The states with the largest number of dispensaries include California, Oklahoma, Florida, Colorado and Michigan.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published April 26, 2021, and updated April 13, 2023.  

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Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use

Religious americans are less likely to endorse legal marijuana for recreational use, four-in-ten u.s. drug arrests in 2018 were for marijuana offenses – mostly possession, two-thirds of americans support marijuana legalization, most popular.

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SARS-CoV-2 articles from across Nature Portfolio

SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus. It is contagious in humans and is the cause of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

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Vaccination impairs de novo immune response to omicron breakthrough infection, a precondition for the original antigenic sin

Immune imprinting can affect the response to future infection with pathogen variants. Here, Pušnik et. al. demonstrate that previous vaccination with wild-type SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hampers the formation of an immune response to mutated regions of omicron surface proteins following omicron breakthrough infection.

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Detection of SARS-COV-2 variants and their proportions in wastewater samples using next-generation sequencing in Finland

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Maternal hybrid immunity and risk of infant COVID-19 hospitalizations: national case-control study in Israel

Maternal anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies can provide protection against severe COVID-19 in infants, but the relative protection conferred by maternal infection, vaccination, and hybrid immunity is unknown. Here, the authors use data from Israel and show that infants born to mothers with hybrid immunity had lowest rates of COVID-19 hospitalisation.

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Incident allergic diseases in post-COVID-19 condition: multinational cohort studies from South Korea, Japan and the UK

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Long COVID still has no cure — so these patients are turning to research

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Massive public-health experiment sends vaccination rates soaring

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A Conversation With …

Teen Drug Use Habits Are Changing, For the Good. With Caveats.

Dr. Nora Volkow, who leads the National Institutes of Drug Abuse, would like the public to know things are getting better. Mostly.

By Matt Richtel

Historically speaking, it’s not a bad time to be the liver of a teenager. Or the lungs.

Regular use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs among high school students has been on a long downward trend.

In 2023, 46 percent of seniors said that they’d had a drink in the year before being interviewed; that is a precipitous drop from 88 percent in 1979, when the behavior peaked, according to the annual Monitoring the Future survey, a closely watched national poll of youth substance use. A similar downward trend was observed among eighth and 10th graders, and for those three age groups when it came to cigarette smoking. In 2023, just 15 percent of seniors said that they had smoked a cigarette in their life, down from a peak of 76 percent in 1977 .

Illicit drug use among teens has remained low and fairly steady for the past three decades, with some notable declines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2023, 29 percent of high school seniors reported using marijuana in the previous year — down from 37 percent in 2017, and from a peak of 51 percent in 1979.

There are some sobering caveats to the good news. One is that teen overdose deaths have sharply risen, with fentanyl-involved deaths among adolescents doubling from 2019 to 2020 and remaining at that level in the subsequent years.

Dr. Nora Volkow has devoted her career to studying use of drugs and alcohol. She has been the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 2003. She sat down with The New York Times to discuss changing patterns and the reasons behind shifting drug-use trends.

What’s the big picture on teens and drug use?

People don’t really realize that among young people, particularly teenagers, the rate of drug use is at the lowest risk that we have seen in decades. And that’s worth saying, too, for legal alcohol and tobacco.

What do you credit for the change?

One major factor is education and prevention campaigns. Certainly, the prevention campaign for cigarette smoking has been one of the most effective we’ve ever seen.

Some of the policies that were implemented also significantly helped, not just making the legal age for alcohol and tobacco 21 years, but enforcing those laws. Then you stop the progression from drugs that are more accessible, like tobacco and alcohol, to the illicit ones. And teenagers don’t get exposed to advertisements of legal drugs like they did in the past. All of these policies and interventions have had a downstream impact on the use of illicit drugs.

Does social media use among teens play a role?

Absolutely. Social media has shifted the opportunity of being in the physical space with other teenagers. That reduces the likelihood that they will take drugs. And this became dramatically evident when they closed schools because of Covid-19. You saw a big jump downward in the prevalence of use of many substances during the pandemic. That might be because teenagers could not be with one another.

The issue that’s interesting is that despite the fact schools are back, the prevalence of substance use has not gone up to the prepandemic period. It has remained stable or continued to go down. It was a big jump downward, a shift, and some drug use trends continue to slowly go down.

Is there any thought that the stimulation that comes from using a digital device may satisfy some of the same neurochemical experiences of drugs, or provide some of the escapism?

Yes, that’s possible. There has been a shift in the types of reinforcers available to teenagers. It’s not just social media, it’s video gaming, for example. Video gaming can be very reinforcing, and you can produce patterns of compulsive use. So, you are shifting one reinforcer, one way of escaping, with another one. That may be another factor.

Is it too simplistic to see the decline in drug use as a good news story?

If you look at it in an objective way, yes, it’s very good news. Why? Because we know that the earlier you are using these drugs, the greater the risk of becoming addicted to them. It lowers the risk these drugs will interfere with your mental health, your general health, your ability to complete an education and your future job opportunities. That is absolutely good news.

But we don’t want to become complacent.

The supply of drugs is more dangerous, leading to an increase in overdose deaths. We’re not exaggerating. I mean, taking one of these drugs can kill you.

What about vaping? It has been falling, but use is still considerably higher than for cigarettes: In 2021, about a quarter of high school seniors said that they had vaped nicotine in the preceding year . Why would teens resist cigarettes and flock to vaping?

Most of the toxicity associated with tobacco has been ascribed to the burning of the leaf. The burning of that tobacco was responsible for cancer and for most of the other adverse effects, even though nicotine is the addictive element.

What we’ve come to understand is that nicotine vaping has harms of its own, but this has not been as well understood as was the case with tobacco. The other aspect that made vaping so appealing to teenagers was that it was associated with all sorts of flavors — candy flavors. It was not until the F.D.A. made those flavors illegal that vaping became less accessible.

My argument would be there’s no reason we should be exposing teenagers to nicotine. Because nicotine is very, very addictive.

Anything else you want to add?

We also have all of this interest in cannabis and psychedelic drugs. And there’s a lot of interest in the idea that psychedelic drugs may have therapeutic benefits. To prevent these new trends in drug use among teens requires different strategies than those we’ve used for alcohol or nicotine.

For example, we can say that if you take drugs like alcohol or nicotine, that can lead to addiction. That’s supported by extensive research. But warning about addiction for drugs like cannabis and psychedelics may not be as effective.

While cannabis can also be addictive, it’s perhaps less so than nicotine or alcohol, and more research is needed in this area, especially on newer, higher-potency products. Psychedelics don’t usually lead to addiction, but they can produce adverse mental experiences that can put you at risk of psychosis.

Matt Richtel is a health and science reporter for The Times, based in Boulder, Colo. More about Matt Richtel

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How Inclusive Brands Fuel Growth

• Omar Rodríguez-Vilá,
• Dionne Nickerson,
• Sundar Bharadwaj

Years before the Barbie movie phenomenon, leaders at Mattel became concerned that consumer perceptions of the famous doll were out of sync with demographic trends. The company conducted in-depth research to understand how customers felt about Barbie and to determine whether more-inclusive versions presented a strong market opportunity. The findings led to a new inclusion strategy that affected all areas of the brand—product design, distribution, and commercial activities—and coincided with a period of significant growth. Barbie revenues increased 63% from 2015 to 2022—before the boost from the film.

Research shows that in most industries the perception of inclusion can materially change customers’ likelihood to purchase and willingness to recommend products and services.

This article presents a framework for increasing marketplace inclusion in three areas: seeing the market, which is about market definition, market intelligence, and strategies for growth; serving the market, which involves developing products, packaging, and other commercial practices; and being in the market, which looks at advocacy and the customer experience.

They unlock new sources of value by meeting the needs of underrecognized customers.

Idea in Brief

The opportunity.

Research shows that the perception of inclusion can materially change customers’ likelihood to purchase and willingness to recommend products and services.

The Problem

Despite the many business and societal benefits of marketplace inclusion, there is a systematic lack of it across industries.

The Approach

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie grossed more than $1 billion at the box office in about two weeks. Only 53 films have ever hit that mark (adjusted for inflation). The 2023 movie, which features themes of women’s empowerment, multiculturalism, and inclusiveness, was a divergence from the narrow social and demographic representation of the original tall, thin, white doll that Mattel introduced in 1959.

• OR Omar Rodríguez-Vilá is a professor of marketing practice at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and the academic director of education at its Business & Society Institute.
• DN Dionne Nickerson is an assistant professor of marketing at the Goizueta Business School.
• SB Sundar Bharadwaj is the Coca-Cola Company Chair of Marketing at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. LinkedIn: Sundar Bharadwaj

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