Clinical Trials
1660
175 active
Approvals
0
Total approvals
Agencies
0
Regulatory bodies
Founded
1740
Unknown
8
0.5%
Completed
1105
66.6%
Enrolling By Invitation
28
1.7%
Not yet recruiting
32
1.9%
No Longer Available
1
0.1%
Terminated
117
7.0%
Recruiting
183
11.0%
Suspended
9
0.5%
Withdrawn
62
3.7%
Active, not recruiting
115
6.9%
No approval data available
- An international research team identified the EFEMP1 p.Arg140Trp variant as the cause of a previously unrecognized inherited retinal degeneration affecting peripheral and night vision. - The newly described condition, provisionally termed EFEMP1-associated late-onset retinal degeneration (L-ORD), was found in three unrelated families across multiple countries. - Rod photoreceptor dysfunction can be detected before visible structural retinal damage, providing a functional marker at a stage when photoreceptor cells remain intact. - Researchers do not yet know how widespread the variant is and say larger studies are needed to determine its prevalence and patient population size.
- Penn Medicine has received a $50 million gift from businessman Stanley C. Middleman to support early-stage research into cancer, autoimmune diseases and infectious diseases. - The donation establishes the Middleman Fund and renames Penn's expanded 3600 Civic Center Blvd. building as the Middleman Center, housing the Colton Center for Autoimmunity. - The 217,000-square-foot, $376 million expansion added seven floors with as many as 37 labs, plus a High-Throughput Institute for Discovery and a Biosafety Level 3 lab. - Penn aims to shorten the path from laboratory discovery to market, building on its pioneering work in CAR T cell therapy and mRNA research.
- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that SGLT2 inhibitors directly activate the enzyme PANK1 in heart cells, boosting coenzyme A production and improving energy metabolism. - The study, published in Science, potentially solves a longstanding gap in understanding why these diabetes-derived drugs reduce hospitalizations and deaths in heart failure patients. - Activating PANK1 alone reproduced many of the drugs' benefits, while blocking the pathway largely eliminated them, supporting PANK1 as a major driver of the therapeutic effect. - The findings open the door to developing drugs that directly target PANK1, potentially capturing heart benefits while avoiding side effects such as urinary tract infections and diabetic ketoacidosis.
- USC's Viterbi School of Engineering is launching its inaugural undergraduate artificial intelligence degree, teaching students to build AI systems and apply them to fields including drug discovery, robotics, and agriculture. - UCLA is opening what officials describe as the nation's first freestanding Department of Digital Humanities, with a new bachelor's degree integrating AI and digital tools into disciplines such as sociology, archaeology, and history. - Both institutions are responding to market demand, with USC expecting roughly 50 new students annually and UCLA projecting eventual enrollment of 150 to 300 students in the major. - Educators emphasize that ethics coursework is essential, as campuses grapple with concerns about cheating and fears that heavy AI use may erode critical thinking.
- A bioengineered chewing gum containing the antiviral protein FRIL reduced HPV levels by 93% in saliva and 80% in oral rinse samples from head and neck cancer patients. - A modified version with the antimicrobial peptide protegrin nearly eliminated Porphyromonas gingivalis and Fusobacterium nucleatum while preserving beneficial oral bacteria. - The findings, published in Scientific Reports, support advancing these therapies to clinical trials as adjuvants or prophylaxis for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. - Researchers highlight that conventional treatments like radiation can disrupt the oral microbiome, whereas this gum selectively targets carcinogenic microbes.
- TRF2, long known as a telomere-capping protein, also functions as a genome-wide transcriptional regulator that preserves muscle stem cell identity during tissue repair. - Knocking out TRF2 in mouse muscle stem cells does not trigger cell death but causes loss of lineage identity, leading injured muscle to repair with fibrotic scar tissue and fat. - In Duchenne muscular dystrophy mouse models, TRF2 removal from muscle stem cells accelerates muscle degeneration, increases fibrosis, and significantly shortens survival. - TRF2 binds non-telomeric regulatory regions enriched with G-quadruplex DNA structures, offering potential new therapeutic targets for muscular dystrophies and insights into muscle cancer resistance.
- The MUTTON-HF trial showed that eight weeks of culturally tailored Navajo meals reduced all-cause hospitalizations or ER visits by 28% compared to usual care among 206 heart failure patients. - All-cause hospitalizations were cut by more than half (12.3% vs. 26.0%), and heart failure-specific hospitalizations dropped nearly 70% (3.8% vs. 13.0%). - Participants receiving tailored meals lost an average of 6.3 pounds more and experienced significant reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. - The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is the first randomized clinical trial to evaluate an Indigenous Food is Medicine intervention for cardiovascular health.
- Penn researchers developed a lipid nanoparticle platform that co-delivers p53 mRNA and the antifungal drug ciclopirox to treat oral squamous cell carcinoma, published in Advanced Materials. - The dual therapy simultaneously kills cancer cells and reprograms the tumor microenvironment to be less immunosuppressive, showing reduced tumor burden and extended survival in preclinical models. - More than 70% of OSCC cases involve p53 mutations, and the five-year survival rate remains approximately 50% with standard treatments often causing permanent functional impairment. - The platform offers a tunable delivery vehicle that could be customized for different tumor profiles, though further preclinical validation is needed before clinical testing.
- Use of GLP-1 receptor agonists was associated with a 37% higher risk of alopecia compared with SGLT-2 inhibitors and 68% higher risk versus DPP-4 inhibitors in adults with type 2 diabetes. - Absolute rates of alopecia remained low, ranging from roughly 3 to 9 per 1,000 person-years across all drug-class groups in the University of Pennsylvania study published in The BMJ. - A separate nference preprint found higher alopecia rates with tirzepatide (4.24%) compared with semaglutide (3.33%), with the difference persisting regardless of weight loss magnitude. - Researchers suggest the association may involve mechanisms beyond rapid weight loss, including hormonal changes and baseline endocrine risk factors, warranting individualized patient counseling.
- Verismo Therapeutics has secured a novel CLDN6-targeted binder through a research collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, expanding its KIR-CAR platform into a second solid tumor antigen program. - CLDN6 is a clinically validated solid tumor target with limited expression in healthy adult tissues, already being pursued via CAR-T, ADC, and bispecific antibody modalities. - The new preclinical program complements the clinical-stage SynKIR-110 targeting mesothelin, which recently reported early signals of tumor reduction in the STAR-101 Phase 1 trial. - Verismo's multi-chain KIR-CAR platform is designed to overcome persistence and T-cell exhaustion limitations that have hindered conventional CAR-T therapies in solid tumors.
