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Clinical research blog

Explore our blog for insights into the big questions in precision medicine and clinical research.

Precision medicine's execution deficit is an accountability problem

A genetically-defined trial can be designed correctly and still stall. The protocol names the right molecular subtype, the endpoints are sound, and the therapeu...
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Why precision medicine trials fail on the way from protocol to patient

Precision medicine clinical trials are designed by some of the most capable scientists in drug development. The biomarker hypotheses are well-reasoned, the endp...
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Decentralized trials expand access and diversity at Mayo Clinic

On July 20, 2026, Mayo Clinic reported peer-reviewed evidence that decentralization changes who takes part in clinical research. In a study published in JAMA Ne...
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Podcast recap: Carl Anderson on building the world's most detailed genetic map of inflammatory bowel disease

Most people with inflammatory bowel disease do not carry one broken gene. They carry risk spread across many genes and regulatory regions at once, which is why ...
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Why polygenic risk scores miss diverse populations

On 20 July 2026, The New York Times reported that the genetic risk tools entering clinical use do not perform equally well across populations. Polygenic risk sc...
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Podcast recap: Pradeep Natarajan on the blood mutations underlying cardiovascular risk

Most people accumulate cancer-associated blood mutations as they age, and quietly, without ever developing cancer. A growing body of evidence now links those mu...
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Podcast recap: Christopher Walsh on how somatic mosaicism rewrites the story of neurodegeneration

For decades, the dominant framework for understanding neurodegenerative disease has centered on inherited risk genes. A growing body of single-cell genomics res...
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The All of Us milestone shows precision medicine’s next infrastructure challenge

The NIH’s All of Us Research Program has become the world’s largest integrated genomic and electronic health record database. Its June 30 data release includes ...
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Podcast recap: Yentli Soto Albrecht on turning a fatal diagnosis into a cure strategy

The C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion is the most common genetic cause of both ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Carriers face roughly a 50% chance o...
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Who tells patients when a gene therapy program pauses?

When a gene therapy sponsor pauses a clinical program, the operational machinery responds within hours. The medical monitor convenes a safety review. Regulatory...
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