HealthTech is transforming healthcare through AI, mobile applications, wearable devices, telemedicine, and big data analytics. While these advances offer enormous potential to improve patient outcomes and operational efficiency, they also raise complex legal and regulatory challenges – spanning intellectual property, data privacy, licensing, corporate governance, funding, taxation, and litigation.
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Allen Institute scientists are learning why vaccines can trigger a weaker response in older adults, around age 65, and what can be done to improve them. These insights open the door to designing more effective vaccines.
In the largest study of its kind, published in Nature, scientists discovered that T cells undergo profound and specific changes as we age. These changes, far from being random or a byproduct of chronic disease and inflammation, are a fundamental feature of healthy aging and will happen to all of us as we get older.
“We were surprised that inflammation is not driving healthy aging. We think inflammation is driven by something independent from just the age of a person,” said Claire Gustafson, PhD, assistant investigator at the Allen Institute and one of the lead authors of the study. “This is important because there’s been research showing similar findings that inflammation and aging don’t go hand in hand, and your immune system is just changing with age.”
The changes also point to why vaccines, including the annual flu shot and COVID-19 boosters, tend to be less effective in older adults.
The changes scientists discovered
T cells are a critical part of our immune system that help “train” B cells, to produce antibodies in response to viruses and vaccines. But this study found that memory T cells in older adults undergo a dramatic shift toward what is known as a “Th2-like” state, which is a change in gene expression that fundamentally alters how these cells respond to threats. Researchers found this shift directly affects B cells’ ability to generate strong antibody responses. In other words, the flu shot might still deliver the right viral components, but if the memory T cells aren’t functioning properly, the body struggles to respond effectively.
How this could lead to better vaccines
With this insight, doctors may be able to use a person’s immune profile to predict how well they’ll respond to a vaccine. Now that scientists can pinpoint how T cells become less effective with age, they can also start designing new vaccine formulas or immune-boosting treatments to address these issues.
Since T cells in older adults function differently, scientists could reformulate vaccines to compensate specifically for age-related cellular changes rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. Gene-editing tools like CRISPR could also be used to reprogram a person’s T cells before vaccination, essentially re-programming older immune cells to make them respond to vaccines like younger cells do—like CAR-T cell therapy that reprograms immune cells to fight cancer.
Researchers say this work goes beyond just vaccines and reveals how our immune systems change in all of us as we get older and how our bodies fight age-related disease and viruses. It also opens the door to interventions like new therapies to restore key immune cells.
How researchers made the discovery
Scientists tracked more than 96 healthy adults ages 25–65 for over two years in collaboration with Benaroya Research Institute. The researchers then used cutting-edge techniques like single-cell RNA sequencing, proteomics, and spectral flow cytometry to profile the immune system of these individuals over time. The scientists then used this data on the immune system to create a detailed Human Immune Health Atlas, an online resource mapping 71 different immune cell types and how they change over time, and why those changes matter. Then, they applied this Atlas to study over 16 million individual immune cells from healthy adults 25–90+ years of age, offering an unprecedented tool for researchers worldwide to better understand, and support, the aging immune system. This online resource is the largest of its kind and freely available to researchers worldwide.
“This research illustrates how working collaboratively can make a significant impact on our understanding of the immune system, both now and in the future,” said Jane Buckner, MD, president of the Benaroya Research Institute. “It was made possible through the combined efforts of several Seattle-based research institutions, dedicated scientists, clinicians and research coordinators, as well as the individuals who generously volunteered their time, samples, and health information.”
The significance of this work extends beyond aging research and provides a roadmap for understanding how immune dysfunction develops over time, offering concrete targets for intervention and potentially transforming how we approach immune health across the entire human lifespan.
“There’s so much more information to be gained by looking at this dataset we’ve produced,” said Gustafson. “My hope is that it will be used for a long time to enable other researchers to look more deeply and find more insights into human immunity.”
The study is the largest global analysis of in-flight medical events
Photo by Daniel Eledut on Unsplash
With nearly five billion people flying each year, medical emergencies in the air may be more common than most realise and they can be deadly.
A new study led by Duke Health researchers analysed more than 77, 00 in-flight medical events reported to the world’s busiest airline medical support centre. The findings show that while most incidents are minor, thousands of passengers required hospital care after landing, and hundreds died or triggered aircraft diversions.
The study, published in JAMA Network Open, was conducted in partnership with MedAire, an aviation and maritime health and safety solutions company, which also provided the data for analysis. The paper offers a rare look into how airlines respond to medical crises and why some flights are forced to divert.
“It gives us a real-world snapshot of what happens when someone gets sick in the sky and how starkly the options differ from those in a hospital,” Rotta said.
Researchers reviewed medical calls from 84 airlines across six continents, covering over 3.1 billion passenger boardings between January 2022 and December 2023.
They found that one in every 212 flights involved a medical emergency. Of those flights, about 8% of passengers were taken to the hospital after landing, and 1.7% of the total medical events were so serious they caused the plane to divert.
The most common reasons for diversion were suspected strokes, seizures, chest pain, and altered mental status. Cardiac arrest occurred in 293 cases, with survival rates far lower than on land.
Medical volunteers (often physicians) assisted in nearly one-third of emergencies. Their involvement was linked to a higher likelihood of diversion, likely because they were called upon during more serious events.
“It’s humbling to practice medicine in the air,” said Rotta, who became interested in the topic after being called upon as medical volunteer during several flights. “You’re working with limited equipment, no lab tests and no backup. Even minor issues can become major challenges.”
Rotta emphasised that airlines are generally well-prepared, especially in the US, where regulations require defibrillators and basic medical kits. However, he noted that not all airlines partner with ground-based medical support centres, an approach he believes is essential.
“Airplanes aren’t hospitals, and we shouldn’t expect them to be,” he said. “But having expert guidance from the ground can make all the difference when someone’s life is at risk.”
The findings could help shape airline policies, improve crew training and inform passengers with chronic conditions about how to prepare for travel.
Doctors who use artificial intelligence at work risk having their colleagues deem them less competent for it, according to a recent Johns Hopkins University study.
While generative AI holds significant promise for advancing health care, a new study finds its use in medical decision-making impacts how physicians are perceived by their colleagues. The research shows that doctors who primarily rely on generative AI for decision-making face considerable scepticism from fellow clinicians, who correlate their use of AI with a lack of clinical skill and overall competence, resulting in a diminished perceived quality of patient care.
The research included a diverse group of clinicians from a major hospital system, involving attending physicians, residents, fellows, and advanced practice providers. Results of the study were published in Nature Digital Medicine.
Stigma stunts better care
The findings may indicate a social barrier to AI adoption in health care settings, which could slow advances that might improve patient care.
“AI is already unmistakably part of medicine,” says Tinglong Dai, professor of business at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and co-corresponding author of the study. “What surprised us is that doctors who use it in making medical decisions can be perceived by their peers as less capable. That kind of stigma, not the technology itself, may be an obstacle to better care.”
The study, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, involved a randomised experiment where 276 practicing clinicians evaluated different scenarios: a physician using no AI, one using AI as a primary decision-making tool, and another using it for verification. The research found that as physicians were more dependent on AI, they faced an increasing “competence penalty,” meaning they were viewed more sceptically by their peers than those physicians who did not rely on AI.
“In the age of AI, human psychology remains the ultimate variable,” says Haiyang Yang, first author of the study and academic program director of the Masters of Science in Management program at the Carey Business School. “The way people perceive AI use can matter just as much as, or even more than, the performance of the technology itself.”
Skipping AI equalled more respect
According to the study, peer perception suffers for doctors who rely on AI. Framing generative AI as a “second opinion” or a verification tool partially improved negative perceptions from peers, but it did not fully eliminate them. Not using GenAI, however, resulted in the most favourable peer perceptions.
The findings align with theories that suggest perceived dependence on an external source like AI can be seen as a weakness by clinicians.
Ironically, while GenAI’s visible use can undermine a physician’s perceived clinical expertise among peers, the study also found that clinicians still recognise AI as a beneficial tool for enhancing precision in clinical assessment. The research showed that clinicians still generally acknowledge the value of GenAI for improving the accuracy of clinical assessments, and they view institutionally customized GenAI as even more useful.
The collaborative nature of the study led to thoughtful suggestions for GenAI implementation in health care settings, which are crucial to balance innovation with maintaining professional trust and physician reputation, the researchers note.
“Physicians place a high value on clinical expertise, and as AI becomes part of the future of medicine, it’s important to recognise its potential to complement – not replace – clinical judgment, ultimately strengthening decision making and improving patient care,” said Risa Wolf, co-corresponding author of the research and associate professor of pediatric endocrinology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with a joint appointment at the Carey Business School.
A new study, led by clinical researchers from Imperial’s Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, has uncovered a link between a pregnant woman’s blood group and her risk of spontaneous premature birth, which the team hopes could in future lead to more personalised approaches to preventing early labour.
“The treatments we currently offer to prevent preterm birth have barely changed in decades. This research opens the door to more targeted, biologically-informed interventions.”
Dr Lynne Sykes Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction
The findings, published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, draw on more than 74 000 anonymised maternity records from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and data from high-risk pregnancies. The team found that women with blood groups B and O were associated with a higher risk of spontaneous preterm birth, while those from blood group A were associated with a lower risk.
The clinical researchers believe this is because women with blood group A are more likely to carry higher proportions of a protective bacterium and show less inflammation, both associated with healthy pregnancies.
The research also found that the blood group associations vary depending on underlying risk factors, including previous cervical surgery or a history of late miscarriage or premature birth. In women whose only risk factor was previous cervical surgery, blood group B was associated with a higher likelihood of preterm delivery. In contrast, in women with a history of late miscarriage or prior premature birth, blood group O was associated with the highest risk.
The team used advanced microbiome analysis on a subset of 596 high-risk women to investigate possible biological mechanisms at work. They found that women with blood group A were more likely to carry higher proportions of Lactobacillus crispatus, a ‘good’ bacterium associated with healthy pregnancies. In contrast, women of blood group B and O were more likely to harbour a more diverse bacterial signature. In women with blood group O, a direct link was observed between this bacterial signature, inflammation, and spontaneous preterm birth.
Speaking about the findings, Dr Lynne Sykes, lead researcher and Clinical Associate Professor at Imperial College London, and Consultant Obstetrician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Although we did not establish causation, we have identified a genetic link that can influence the risk of spontaneous premature birth in women. This could potentially impact women in the future by identifying risk earlier in pregnancy and by offering more tailored interventions. While we need further research, the prospect of moving towards personalised care in this area is hugely exciting.”
Next steps
The team demonstrated that blood group sugars are secreted into the vaginal fluid and that binding of these sugars can occur to key good and bad bacteria found in the vagina. However, one important limitation of the study was that researchers did not have “secretor status” data for participants, a genetic factor that affects whether blood group sugars are secreted in vaginal fluid. 80% of the population are “secretors”, whereas 20% do not secrete blood group sugars, so future studies that incorporate this information may strengthen the findings.
The research suggests that the ABO blood group, routinely tested early in pregnancy, could be used to help stratify preterm birth risk, especially when considered alongside other clinical factors. Importantly, the team accounted for ethnicity, known to affect both blood group prevalence and preterm birth risk, ensuring these results were not driven by population differences.
Dr Sykes added: “What excites me most is the opportunity this presents for truly personalised medicine in pregnancy, something that has been sorely lacking in our field. The treatments we currently offer to prevent preterm birth have barely changed in decades. This research opens the door to more targeted, biologically-informed interventions.”
The study also lays the groundwork for new therapeutic approaches. A clinical trial beginning this autumn, funded by March of Dimes in the US, will explore whether probiotic treatment with Lactobacillus crispatus (Lactin-V) can help reduce premature birth in high-risk women – and whether response to the treatment may vary by blood group.
