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Clinical research blog

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

From discovery to dosing: Trace Neuroscience's UNC13A bet is now in the clinic

When Trace Neuroscience announced on June 22 that first patients had been dosed in the LAUNCH ALS trial, it felt like the right moment to revisit our original p...
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Operation Trailblazer and the clinical trial access gap

On June 23, 2026, the US Department of Health and Human Services launched Operation Trailblazer, a cross-agency initiative coordinated across the FDA, NCI, NCAT...
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What two FDA gene therapy reversals in one week means for rare disease sponsors

In the space of five days, the FDA reversed its position on two rare disease gene therapies it had previously rejected. On June 17, the agency agreed that UniQu...
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Podcast recap: Tim Yu on the rise of N-of-1 genetic medicines

Most genetic medicine is built for populations large enough to support a clinical trial. N-of-1 medicine is built for the opposite case: a single patient whose ...
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FDA gene therapy guidance exposes patient recruitment gap

On June 2, 2026, the FDA released draft guidance that could reshape how gene therapies reach patients. The document, "Leveraging Prior Knowledge in the Developm...
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Podcast recap: What bipolar disorder can teach us about precision medicine infrastructure

Bipolar disorder has long been recognized as highly heritable, yet the biology underlying the condition has remained difficult to resolve. The genetics are comp...
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New study data shows a better way to find patients with liver disease and what it means for clinical trials

Finding patients who qualify for a clinical trial has always been one of the hardest parts of running one. In liver disease, particularly MASLD, it is especiall...
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Podcast recap: Vincent Dion on hijacking DNA repair machinery to treat Huntington's disease

More than three decades after the Huntington's disease gene was cloned in 1993, there is still no approved therapy that alters the course of the disease. Recent...
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Reducing screen failure starts with better trial design

When a clinical trial misses its enrollment targets, the instinct is often to look at recruitment through more channels, more outreach, and a bigger advertising...
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Podcast recap: Paul Valdmanis on long-read sequencing and the genetics of neurodegeneration

In the most recent episode of The Genetics Podcast, host Patrick Short speaks with Dr. Paul Valdmanis, Associate Professor at the University of Washington, abou...
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