9 medical breakthroughs that gave us hope in 2025
From custom gene editing to a discovery that could help stop pancreatic cancer before it starts, these advances offer a glimpse at the future of human health.
Despite a year marked by budget cuts and shrinking research teams, science delivered some remarkable wins in 2025. Breakthroughs across medicine reshaped how we understand human health—and, in some cases, changed how care is provided today.
Scientists uncovered surprising new ways to prevent diseases and to boost cancer treatments. They’ve created an atlas of the human body, edited a gene for a single child, and improved care for conditions ranging from food allergies to menopause to cervical cancer and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). These are nine of the year’s most impressive discoveries.
1. A non-hormonal revolution in menopause care
More than 80 percent of women experience hot flashes and night sweats during the transition to menopause, and many report that the symptoms are bad enough to impact their daily life. Hormone therapy remains the most effective treatment, but many women can’t take it—especially if they’ve had breast or uterine cancer, deep vein thrombosis, or other conditions.
(Is it possible to cure hot flashes? We may be getting closer.)
Two new non-hormonal treatments for moderate to severe hot flashes now offer relief for those previously left without options. Lynkuet (elinzanetant), approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this year, joins Veozah (fezolinetant), which received authorization two years earlier.
The daily pills target the temperature-regulating neurons in the brain’s hypothalamus, after scientists discovered that these nerve cells are susceptible to the estrogen fluctuations of menopause.
2. An allergy rescue for kids without a needle
Fast, easy access to epinephrine can be lifesaving for children with severe allergies. This year brought a needle-free alternative. Neffy, a new prescription nasal spray, marks the first major update to epinephrine delivery for children in more than three decades.
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Food allergies affect one in 13 kids, and a quick dose of epinephrine during a severe reaction stops the inflammatory chain reaction that could lead to anaphylaxis-related hospitalizations or death. But many kids—and their caregivers—hesitate to administer an auto-injector such as EpiPen.
Neffy is approved for children ages four and older who weigh from 33 to 65 pounds. The medicine is absorbed into the body thanks to a novel technology that temporarily loosens the space between nasal cells, allowing the drug to be rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. Experts expect that this easily administered medicine will help more children during an allergic emergency.
3. Giant leaps in regenerative medicine
The long-standing sci-fi dream of regenerating or regrowing human body parts edged closer to reality.
Scientists studying how amputated salamanders regrow their limbs pinpointed an enzyme that fine-tunes levels of retinoic acid, a molecule essential to regeneration. They also identified a gene that controls the appendage’s size and development. Because humans have the same molecular ingredients, the findings offer a rough blueprint that could one day guide limb regrowth in people recovering from traumatic injuries.
(Axolotls can regrow limbs. Could they one day help us do the same?)
Other advances brought regenerative medicine into new territory. Researchers developed the first implantable patch that strengthened the heart’s wall in monkeys. Lab-grown stem cells were coaxed to become heart muscle and connective tissue before they were implanted and integrated into the heart. This technology is an early but promising approach for people with heart failure.
Scientists also used stem cells to create functioning ureter tissue. This is the first time this structure, which carries urine from the kidneys to the bladder, was built from these programmable cells, a previously missing piece in the quest to regenerate the renal system.
4. Better sexually transmitted infection screens
More than two million Americans are diagnosed annually with a sexually transmitted infection (STI)—but many others have the disease and don’t know it. That gap matters: delayed diagnoses and care can cause infertility or chronic pelvic pain, as well as the continued spread of the disease.
This year brought significant improvements to how several common STIs are detected. Screening for the human papillomavirus (HPV), the STI that can cause cervical cancer, has traditionally involved getting swabbed by a healthcare provider in their office, typically alongside a Pap smear.
(This common infection that affects millions of women is actually an STI.)
A new tool, the Teal Wand, lets women collect these vaginal cells at home, after a brief virtual visit to obtain a prescription. Women then ship the sample to a lab for analysis. Experts say giving people the ability to self-sample could significantly increase screening rates.
Another at-home option, the Visby test, also debuted this year and does not require a prescription. It screens for gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis. Users can collect a sample of cells and insert them into a small test device, which displays results in 30 minutes on the product’s app.
5. Gene editing for one
The gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, which won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020, has transformed treatment for conditions such as sickle cell disease. But this year, doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia used the technology in an unprecedented way. They designed a custom gene for a single patient, a baby boy born with a rare genetic and life-threatening metabolic disorder.
Soon after birth, Baby KJ was diagnosed with a genetic mutation that damaged a crucial enzyme in the urinary system, causing toxic ammonia to dangerously build up in his bloodstream. About half of infants with this condition die shortly after birth; others survive only after receiving a liver transplant.
In this case, the doctors identified a single genetic flaw in the baby’s genes and developed a personalized fix, which was administered to the boy at seven and eight months. The CRISPR tool used lipid nanoparticles—tiny fat-based spheres—to ferry genetic instructions into the liver, prompting the organ’s cells to produce the enzyme needed to correct the mutation. Early results show the treatment drastically improved the child’s health and may eventually cure him.
Other hospitals have since begun work on their own custom gene-therapy programs, a technology that could ultimately cure millions of people with rare diseases, one person at a time.
6. Simple, effective HIV prevention
Human immunodeficiency virus, the microbe that causes AIDs, remains a major global health challenge. In the United States, more than 100 people are diagnosed daily. Although pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications—available as daily pills or periodic injections—are highly effective, uptake remains low. Only a third of people in the U.S. who could benefit from PrEP, people who are sexually active with someone with HIV or whose status is unknown, currently take it, and even fewer do so globally.
(An HIV-prevention drug is widely available. Yet at-risk women are getting left behind.)
This year, the FDA approved a new option that could help close that gap: Yeztugo (lenacapavir), a twice-yearly injectable PrEP developed by Gilead Sciences. Studies show that, when given every 6 months, the shots prevent nearly all transmission of HIV.
The World Health Organization calls the approval a “milestone,” noting it will help overcome key barriers to AIDs prevention, including the need for frequent visits with healthcare personnel and the stigma associated with taking a daily prevention medicine. (The drug, along with other medications, also helps manage HIV in those already affected, although it is not a cure.)
7. Vaccines that fight more than infection
Vaccines have proven effective tools for protecting against viruses, including COVID-19, shingles, flu, and other diseases. But new research shows that these shots may deliver broader benefits, including preventing heart attacks and dementia and improving patients’ response to certain cancer therapy.
People who got the herpes zoster vaccination, used to prevent shingles, reduced their risk of stroke by 16 percent and heart attack by 18 percent, according to a review of 19 studies presented at a major cardiology conference this summer. The same shot also lowers the odds of developing dementia by up to a third in the following three years, other researchers determined.
(This routine vaccine could save your life in an unexpected way.)
Meanwhile, people with advanced lung and skin cancer who took a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within three months of starting immunotherapy treatment for their malignancy improved the medicine’s response to the tumors and lived longer than those who didn’t.
Scientists can’t say for sure why getting vaccinated has these additional benefits. Still, they note that lingering viruses, such as Epstein-Barr, have been linked to dementia and other long-term health complications, such as lupus, and that revving up the immune system could boost immunotherapy.
8. Stopping pancreatic cancer before it starts
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest malignancies, in part because it’s often diagnosed only after it has reached an advanced stage. Fewer than 13 percent of patients survive five years after diagnosis.
In 2025, scientists made progress toward detecting—and potentially preventing—the disease much earlier. In studies using lab mice and human cells, scientists found that blocking the FGFR2 protein, which turbocharges early pancreatic cancer cells, prevents them from becoming cancerous in certain situations.
Because drugs that inhibit this protein are already available, researchers hope to test this approach in high-risk individuals, including those with a family history of the disease. Human trials are still needed, but the work offers early insight into how pancreatic cancer might one day be intercepted before it forms.
9. Creating an atlas of the human body
Our understanding of the human body took a huge step forward this year when British researchers reached the goal of completing more than a billion medical scans from 100,000 volunteers. The project—part of the U.K. Biobank, one of the world’s most comprehensive health databases—includes magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasounds, and other detailed scans of the brain, heart, bones, joints, torso, and blood vessels.
Researchers also took physical measurements, blood samples, and genetic material, along with assessments of lifestyle and environmental exposures. All data has been made anonymous. The next step is for several hundred thousand participants to return up to seven years later for additional scans, providing evidence of how the body changes over time.
The biobank has already powered thousands of scientific studies. In one example, scientists learned from more than 40,000 scans that when the heart shows signs of disease, the brain often does as well, suggesting that protecting cardiovascular health could help lower the risk of dementia.
