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Scores of researchers have produced new tools that can deliver genes and selectively activate them in hundreds of different cell types in the brain and spinal cord, a breakthrough that scientists hope advances them toward developing targeted therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. The discoveries, made through the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN initiative, show with unprecedented clarity and precision how neural cells work together, but also how diseases disrupt their tight choreography. The insight offers the promise that doctors may one day treat diseases by manipulating dysfunctional cells. (Johnson, 5/28)

Academic achievement among adolescents may be affected by early childhood lead exposure at much lower levels than previously assumed, according to a new study. Just a small climb in blood concentrations of this toxic metal — still within the range currently deemed acceptable by public health agencies — was associated with worse performance on standardized tests, scientists found in the study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health. “Children’s exposure to lead has long been recognized as harmful to their health and neurodevelopment,” wrote the University of Iowa research team. (Udasin, 5/28)

An investigational blood test for human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer significantly outperformed current testing methods in a direct comparison involving patient blood samples. ... The overarching goal of the research is to develop a test with sufficient sensitivity to use across multiple clinical settings and scenarios. Currently, available testing technology works well in clinical situations involving larger tumor burden, such as initial diagnosis or diagnosis of clinical relapse, but not as well in low-tumor-burden settings. (Bankhead, 5/28)

Use of the investigational non-opioid analgesic resiniferatoxin appeared to improve pain control in patients with advanced cancer who had intractable pain, though all patients experienced adverse events (AEs), according to an interim analysis of a first-in-human phase I trial. (Bassett, 5/28)

Healthy people who regularly smoked marijuana or consumed THC-laced edibles showed signs of early cardiovascular disease similar to tobacco smokers, a new small study found. (LaMotte, 5/28)

A survey of Medicare-certified home healthcare (HHC) agencies reveals minor improvements and problematic declines in infection prevention and control (IPC) staff training, less frequent IPC policy reviews, and fewer agencies with intensive policies for antibiotic stewardship, intravenous (IV) and central catheter infections, and pneumonia since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Van Beusekom, 5/28)

As the old saying goes, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” But according to a new study, the bugs have been nipping humans since they emerged from caves around 60,000 years ago, making them possibly the “first true urban pest.” Evidence of our symbiotic relationship with the blood-sucking parasites could now inform predictive models for the spread of pests and diseases as cities explode in population, researchers said in the study published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters. (Aggarwal, 5/28)