Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) have pinpointed a cellular target that could enhance the way osteoporosis and other metabolic bone diseases are diagnosed and treated. The findings, published recently in JCI Insight, reveal that circulating osteoclast precursor cells (cOCPs) play a pivotal role in bone loss. The study is also the first of its kind to establish a connection between cellular biomarkers and osteoporosis, offering a potential pathway for earlier detection and more effective therapies.

Opioid misuse and specifically opioid use disorder (OUD), continues to represent a significant U.S. public health threat, with more than 6 million Americans aged 12 and older meeting the criteria for OUD in 2022. Efforts to ease the crisis have included the development of genetic testing to identify individuals most at risk for OUD.

People genetically susceptible to Huntington’s disease often see their movement, mood, and cognition decline slowly over time. The cause is related to expansion of repeating DNA units, in which specific strings of genetic code—in this case, a series of cytosine-adenine-guanine nucleotides, or CAG, on one strand of the DNA and cytosine-thymine-guanine, or CTG, on the complementary strand—begin to repeat over and over, expanding to as many as 40 to 120 copies.

Genetic differences that contribute to how long a person will live and their risk of Alzheimer’s disease have been identified by researchers at UCL and the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI).