UVA Health researchers report focused ultrasound is nearing a breakthrough for treating brain tumors, Alzheimers and Parkinsons by delivering gene therapies across the blood-brain barrier. New non-viral nanoparticle approaches, led by Richard Price and colleagues, could enable precise, repeatable treatments targeting tumor cells while engaging the immune system, with findings published across three scientific papers.
New NIH support advances UVA’s Biomedical Data Science Innovation Lab, bringing data scientists and biomedical researchers together to accelerate discovery.
UVA researchers have received the first $4 million of a potential $12 million NIH award to build MOSAIC, an open-source computational tool modeling how sex hormones affect drug effectiveness. Led by Jason Papin, the project will test predictions on bacterial vaginosis and fatty liver disease, aiming to accelerate personalized, sex-specific drug development.
UVA researchers led by Jeff Saucerman tested whether AI large language models like GPT, Gemini and Claude can map cellular communication networks and predict disease-related disruptions. While the models identified known biological pathways reasonably well, they predicted disease outcomes accurately less than a third of the time, highlighting AI’s promise and current limitations in biomedical research without human oversight.
UVA researchers led by Evan Scott used nanocarriers to deliver tamoxifen to Schlemm’s canal cells, modifying the Prox1 gene to create the first genetic mouse model with sustained intraocular pressure. This breakthrough identifies Prox1 as a therapeutic target, paving the way for gene therapy that could permanently treat glaucoma without daily eye drops.
Modeled after the reality show where entrepreneurs pitch investors, some of UVA’s top researchers are seeking funding for life-changing medical breakthroughs.
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UVA’s Center for Systems Analysis of Stress-adapted Cancer Organelles (SASCO) recently held its annual symposium, hosting a pair of leading figures in breast cancer research and sharing findings including identification […]
A University of Virginia researcher has received a five-year, $2.1 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop advanced laboratory tissue models that could improve drug testing, deepen scientists’ understanding of disease and reduce the need for animal testing.
Kareem El-Ghazawi, a graduating Ph.D. student in the UVA Department of Biomedical Engineering, found evidence that pericytes play a larger role in Alzheimer’s disease than previously recognized. His findings will be published in Nature’s Communications Biology.
A University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science faculty researcher earned a major new federal grant to develop emerging tools to work with some of the rarest circulating cells in the human body, a step toward better treatments for diseases such as cancer and infection.
The University of Virginia (UVA) today announced the signing of a Master Research Collaboration Agreement with AstraZeneca designed to expedite…
While printing organs may sound like technology of the future, Associate Professor and Copenhaver Fellow in the School of Engineering Liheng Cai has created a method to do so using voxel bioprinting.