News | Graduate School of Medical Sciences

How Food Shortages Reprogram the Immune System’s Response to Infection

When food is scarce, stress hormones direct the immune system to operate in “low power” mode to preserve immune function while conserving energy, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. This reconfiguration is crucial to combating infections amid food insecurity.

“Both famine and infectious disease have been with us throughout our evolutionary history and often occurred at the same time. Yet little is known about how nutrition affects the immune system,” said senior author...

Extreme Risk Protection Order Laws Reduce Firearm Suicides

A new study found that laws temporarily restricting access to firearms for individuals at high risk of harming themselves or others reduced firearm suicides without a shift to other suicide methods, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

Dr. Yunyu Xiao

In 2023, more than half of all suicide deaths in the United States involved firearms. To address this crisis, “red flag” laws—also...

Gut Bacteria May Tip the Balance between Feeding Tumors and Fueling Immunity

A new study reveals how bacteria in the gut can help determine whether the amino acid asparagine from the diet will feed tumor growth or activate immune cells against the cancer, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. This casts the gut microbiome—the trillions of microorganisms living in the intestine—as a central player in the body's response to cancer and to modern cancer treatments like immunotherapies.

Dr. Chunjun (CJ) Guo...

Image of spatial transcriptome analysis in the gut

Discovery Illuminates How Inflammatory Bowel Disease Promotes Colorectal Cancer

A chain of immune reactions in the gut—driven by a key signaling protein and a surge of white blood cells from the bone marrow—may help explain why people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have a higher risk of colorectal cancer, according to a preclinical study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The findings point to new possibilities for diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of IBD.

The study began with a focus on TL1A, an inflammatory immune signaling protein known to be...

illustration of the lymphatic system in a woman

Weill Cornell Medicine Receives Funding to Develop Diagnostic Toolbox for Lymphatic Disease

Weill Cornell Medicine has received a $5.2 million, initial two-year award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Lymphatic Imaging, Genomics, and pHenotyping Technologies (LIGHT) program to develop a comprehensive and innovative approach to diagnosing lymphatic disease. LIGHT is led by ARPA-H Program Manager Kimberley Steele, M.D., Ph.D.

The lymphatic system is a network of vessels, nodes and organs that drains excess fluid from tissues, filtering out waste...

Americans View Opioid Overdose as a Crisis that Needs to Be Addressed

Approximately 88% of adults view opioid overdose deaths as a very serious problem with high agreement across political groups, according to a national survey conducted by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. However, political differences over who is responsible will shape the country’s next phase of drug policy.

Historically, Americans have viewed people who use opioids as primarily responsible for the overdose crisis, with conservatives especially emphasizing...

Scientists Identify Pre-Cancerous States in Seemingly Normal Aging Tissues

A new single-cell profiling technique has mapped pre-malignant gene mutations and their effects in solid tissues for the first time, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center.

The research, published Dec. 31 in Cancer Discovery, demonstrates a practical method for simultaneously measuring specific DNA mutations and gene activity in thousands of individual cells from human tissue. The technique is expected to be useful for studying pre-...

immunofluorescent image of gut cells and neurons

Pain-Sensing Neurons Kick-Start Immune Responses

Pain-sensing neurons in the gut kindle inflammatory immune responses that cause allergies and asthma, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine. The findings, published Jan. 7 in Nature, suggest that current drugs may not be as effective because they only address the immune component of these conditions, overlooking the contribution of neurons.

“Today’s blockbuster biologics are sometimes only 50% effective and when the treatments do work, they sometimes lose their efficacy...

illustration of stem cells differentiating into B cells

B Cells Transiently Unlock Their Plasticity, Risking Lymphoma Development

Immune cells called B cells make antibodies that fight off invading bacteria, viruses and other foreign substances. During their preparation for this battle, B cells transiently revert to a more flexible, or plastic, stem-cell-like state in the lymph nodes, according to a new preclinical study from Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The results could help explain how many lymphomas develop from mature B cells rather than from stem cells, as many other cancers do, and guide researchers in...

Research Matters: How Folate Deficiency May Alter Genes to Promote Cancer

Video of Folate deficiency: How it can rewrite your genes and fuel cancer Genetic alterations lie at the heart of cancer development, but scientists may have been overlooking a powerful driver of these changes—the everyday nutrients that feed our cells. “Most efforts have focused on known carcinogens—like tobacco smoke or radiation,” said Dr. John Blenis, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Professor in Cancer Research in pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “But metabolism has been...

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