Karen O’Leary

Brighton

Senior Editor, Research Analysis at Nature Medicine

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Articles

Gene-edited pig liver successfully transplanted into human

1 week ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 14 April 2025 The first pig liver to be transplanted into a human (in this case, a brain-dead recipient) showed sustained function without rejection — marking another step toward xenotransplantation as a viable approach to addressing the organ-shortage crisis. Since 2022, there have been successful cases in which porcine hearts and kidneys have been transplanted into living and brain-dead humans.
The health consequences of foreign policy sanctions

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 28 March 2025 Foreign aid sanctions reverse progress on child and maternal health and increase mortality rates, according to an analysis of three decades’ worth of data from 113 countries. Sanctions have long been used as a geopolitical tool to help promote human rights and democracy, and to discourage war.
Pharma companies collaborate on secure data sharing for AI

4 weeks ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 26 March 2025 Using a novel federated learning approach, organizations can pool resources to develop better drug-discovery AI models — without sharing any private data. In many fields of research, including drug discovery, the lack of sufficient high-quality data to train models is a major bottleneck in the development of impactful artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
A new way to tackle bacterial vaginosis

1 month ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 18 March 2025 It is not just a woman’s problem; treating male partners of women with bacterial vaginosis resulted in significantly lower recurrence rates than treating women only. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is an imbalance in the bacteria that inhabit the vagina. It affects nearly one third of women globally, which makes it the most common vaginal disorder.
Urgent call to close the gap in medical oxygen access

1 month ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 11 March 2025 The Lancet Global Health Commission on medical oxygen security highlights catastrophic failures of governments and other stakeholders to provide equitable access to this lifesaving resource, and sets out recommendations to close the gap. Each year, 384 million people require medical oxygen.
Treating spinal muscular atrophy in the womb

1 month ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 10 March 2025 An N-of-1 study suggests that prenatal therapy for spinal muscular atrophy — enabled by transplacental passage of risdiplam from mother to fetus — could help prevent symptom onset before birth. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare genetic disorder in which the onset of progressive neurodegeneration begins before birth, owing to loss of the protein SMN.
AI tool reads immune signatures to detect disease

1 month ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 26 February 2025 A machine learning framework — trained on B cell and T cell receptor sequences from thousands of people — can detect a range of infectious and autoimmune diseases. Genes that encode B cell receptors (BCRs) and T cell receptors (TCRs) provide a detailed record of the antigens (both ‘self’ and ‘non-self’) that a human body has responded to — a sort of ‘fingerprint’ of current and prior exposures.
A bispecific antibody delivers new treatment for NRG1 fusion-positive cancers

1 month ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 25 February 2025 In a phase 2 registrational trial, zenocutuzumab showed durable anti-tumor activity across a variety of NRG1 fusion-positive cancer types, providing a new treatment for patients with few alternative options.
Dual immunotherapy benefits certain patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

2 months ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 21 February 2025 The phase 3 CheckMate 8HW trial shows superior outcomes with nivolumab plus ipilimumab (compared with nivolumab monotherapy) in patients with microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair-deficient metastatic colorectal cancer. Additional treatment options are needed for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer whose tumors exhibit mismatch repair deficiency or high microsatellite instability.
Engineered heart muscle reinvigorates failing hearts

2 months ago | nature.com | Karen O’Leary

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT 18 February 2025 Heart muscle grafts engineered from induced pluripotent stem cells enhanced cardiac function in rhesus macaques with heart failure, while encouraging data from a single patient support ongoing clinical evaluation.