A pioneering new study published in Nature Microbiology, led by J. Oriol Sunyer, professor of immunology and pathobiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine, and a team of researchers at Penn Vet and the University of New Mexico, has uncovered a surprising new player in gut health: an antibody called secretory immunoglobulin M (sIgM).

While another antibody, secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA), has long been known for helping balance the bacteria in our intestines, this new research shows that sIgM may be just as vital—if not more so—in protecting gut health and maintaining overall well-being.

Secretory immunoglobulins—immunoglobulins found in the mucosal surfaces or linings of various organs and tracts of vertebrates—modulate the colonization, composition, and metabolism of the gut microbiome. While sIgA and secretory immunoglobulin T (sIgT) are considered the key immunoglobulins involved in the maintenance of microbiome homeostasis in the gut of mammals and fish, respectively, Sunyer and his colleagues challenged this paradigm by demonstrating that sIgM plays a crucial and non-redundant role in the regulation of gut microbiota and metabolism.

Research led by Sichuan University in China has revealed that bedtime antihypertensive medication dosing improves nocturnal blood pressure control over morning dosing in patients with hypertension.

Hypertension is a major global health challenge. In China, nearly 300 million individuals live with elevated blood pressure and fewer than 17% achieve adequate control. Nocturnal pressure is often the most difficult to manage and can be a better predictor of heart attack and stroke than daytime readings.

Previous studies have examined the optimal timing for antihypertensive medication with conflicting evidence and substantial variability in study outcomes.

After centuries of mapping the human body in ever-finer detail, scientists are still making discoveries. Here we are, in 2025, and a previously unknown cellular structure that could be vital to our health has just been added to the anatomy books.

The membrane-bound organelle appears to play a huge role in helping cells sort, discard, and recycle their contents. It’s called a hemifusome, and a team of scientists says it could shed new light on disease.

“This is like discovering a new recycling center inside the cell,” said biophysicist Seham Ebrahim of the University of Virginia. “We think the hemifusome helps manage how cells package and process material, and when this goes wrong, it may contribute to diseases that affect many systems in the body.”

Tumors can destroy the blood vessels of muscles even when the muscles are nowhere close to the tumor. That is the key finding of a new study that my colleagues and I recently published in the journal Nature Cancer.

Muscle loss in cancer patients is a major health problem, but the exact causes of how precisely tumors affect muscles remain an active area of research.

Scientists in my lab were curious whether one explanation for the muscle loss in cancer patients could be that the cancer impairs the blood vessels that are necessary to supply nutrients and oxygen to muscles. Healthy blood vessels ensure that blood containing oxygen and nutrients is transported from the heart to all tissues and organs in the body, and then circulates back to the heart. Unhealthy blood vessels lose the ability to circulate sufficient blood and develop leaks, with nutrients seeping into the tissue prematurely and thereby cutting off the supply of nutrients to tissues that are further downstream.