Researchers with UTHealth Houston School of Public Health awarded $5 million to study cancer risk among firefighters in Texas

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

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The state of Texas awarded UTHealth Houston School of Public Health $5 million over two years for early detection and research, led by principal investigator Jooyeon Hwang, PhD.

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Credit: UTHealth Houston

The state of Texas awarded UTHealth Houston School of Public Health $5 million over two years for early detection and research, led by principal investigator Jooyeon Hwang, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, on cancer risk among firefighters in Texas. 

Repeated exposure to harmful chemicals in fire smoke, common in the work of firefighters, can cause long-term chronic health problems including cancer, according to previous work by Hwang. Firefighters have a 9% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and a 14% higher risk of dying from cancer, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Between 2019 and 2023, the number of firefighters in Texas diagnosed with cancer increased nearly five times from 19 cases to 91, according to the Texas Commission on Fire Protection annual report. While other studies have looked at cancer risks in firefighters across the U.S., none have focused specifically on Texas, where more than 55,000 firefighters live and work, Hwang said.

“This is a groundbreaking opportunity because we are looking at cadets, active firefighters, and retired firefighters to understand the impacts of firefighting on their lifelong health. Despite the effects of repeated exposure to toxic fire smoke, firefighters remain committed to their profession, driven by a strong sense of purpose and camaraderie,” Hwang said. “Investigating fire smoke carcinogens, cancer biomarkers, and the effect on their long-term health will provide insight and help contribute to developing protective measures for this essential workforce.”

Hwang expressed gratitude for sponsors of the study. “We are thankful to everyone in the Legislature who supported this research,” she said.

UTHealth Houston worked with the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters and the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association on the appropriation request.

“Texas firefighters are grateful for the support of our state Legislature as we all work to prevent occupational cancer and other exposure-related diseases,” said John Riddle, president of the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters. “We are proud of our legislative team in our work with Sen. Brandon Creighton and the UTHealth Houston team, as they all made this a priority this session. Texas firefighters appreciate the support of legislators committed to helping reduce the terrible consequences of occupational cancer in the fire service – including Sen. Creighton, Rep. Jared Patterson, Rep. Stan Kitzman, and Rep. Armando Martinez, particularly Sen. Creighton’s doubling of the funding.”

“This research is deeply personal to every firefighter in Texas,” said Patrick M. “Marty” Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association. “We’ve all lost colleagues and friends to cancer, and we know the risks we face every time we respond to a call. What makes this project so important is that it’s not just about statistics — it’s about finding answers for our past, present and future firefighters. I’m proud to represent the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association in this effort, and we’re grateful to UTHealth Houston and the state lawmakers who made it possible.”

Along with looking at the work history of new, active, and retired firefighters from the Houston Fire Department, the team will take air samples from fires to measure exposure to cancer-causing chemicals. Researchers plan to collaborate with local partners to offer free annual screenings for firefighters to detect early signs of cancer.

“This study is a great first step toward realizing a change in the culture of firefighter safety,” Houston Fire Department fire chief Thomas Muñoz said. “Too many times, I have attended the funerals of dedicated public servants who lost the battle to cancer. I am hopeful that the work being done by UTHealth Houston will pave the way for meaningful change in occupational safety of our members.”

Data from active firefighters in other cities will also be collected.

The ultimate goal is to identify which groups of firefighters are most at risk for cancer and recommend policies and programs that will protect their health. The program will include cancer data from the Texas Cancer Registry and other sources.

The Houston Fire Department is the third-largest fire department in the country, with nearly 4,000 firefighters. According to research by Hwang, from 2022 to 2024, firefighters from 96 stations responded to nearly 25,000 fires across Houston.

Hwang said essential collaborators from the fire department include district chief and chief of the Health and Safety Office Michael A. Marino and Capt. Gabe Dominguez, HPFFA director position 5.

The research builds on previous studies by Hwang, an occupational health researcher and industrial hygienist certified by the board for Global Environmental Health Services. Hwang was most recently lead author on a 2024 paper published in the journal Science of The Total Environment, about identifying potential carcinogenic effects of fire-induced smoke through urinary protein profiles on firefighters.

Co-investigators on the study from the School of Public Health are Kristina Mena, PhD, professor, regional dean, chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, and the Jane Dale Owen Chair in Environmental Health Protection,  and Miryoung Lee, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology. Administrative support will be provided by the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at the School of Public Health. Hwang is deputy director and director of the Industrial Hygiene Program at the center.

 

Community based mentoring in Sierra Leone for pregnant adolescents and their babies doubles survival rates

King's College London

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An innovative community-based mentoring scheme for pregnant adolescent girls in Sierra Leone has been found to save lives, whilst also helping girls return to education.

The pilot trial, published in The Lancet and led by researchers at King’s College London in collaboration with local NGO Lifeline Nehemiah Projects (LNP), reduced a combination of maternal and perinatal deaths by almost half (48%). For every 18 girls mentored, one baby’s life was saved.

Between July 2022 and November 2023, 673 pregnant girls in twelve communities across five districts of Sierra Leone took part in the trial. Girls were assigned to a local mentor to support them during and after their pregnancy.

The mentors provided vital support for the girls, many of whom faced enormous stigma and family abandonment. They helped the girls access antenatal care, meet other pregnant women, reconnect with family and financially support themselves and their babies.

Girls that have taken part in the project have been able to return to school, pursue vocational training in plumbing, electrical installation, hospitality and tailoring or develop their businesses.

The trial is the first to formally evaluate the impact of the 2YoungLives project and demonstrates that it was feasible to run in rural and urban areas of Sierra Leone. LNP started the scheme in 2017 with just three mentors and nine mentees. By 2021 the scheme had 24 mentors and had mentored over 300 girls, with no maternal deaths.

In 2021, 2YoungLives became part of a larger project called CRIBS, a global health group funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which aims to reduce maternal mortality and build research capacity in Sierra Leone.

Dr Cristina Fernandez Turienzo, lead author and a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London, said: “This is the first time we have seen just how powerful a locally developed and led community-based mentoring scheme can be for pregnant adolescent girls and their babies - a clear example of why global health research should focus on local solutions to local problems.”

2YoungLives founders Mrs Lucy November and Mangenda Kamara from LNP, are keen to highlight that the clinical results of the trial don’t reveal the full extent of the social impact of the scheme.

Lucy November, a Midwife Research Fellow in the Department of Women & Children's Health at King’s College London, said: “The trial goes far beyond clinical results, as it has helped these girls to thrive beyond their pregnancy. The business start-up fund provided a sustainable income, allowing them to eat well during pregnancy and saving for their babies. And many of the girls were able to return to school or followed vocational training after giving birth.”

Maternal mortality in Sierra Leone has steadily fallen in recent years, from being one of the worst in the world to better than the average rates in sub-Saharan Africa.

However, despite a reduction of almost 40 per cent in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from 1,165 per 100,000 live births in 2013 to 443 per 100,000 live births in 2020, Sierra Leone still remains one of the countries with the highest MMR in the world.

And even when mother and baby both survive, poverty and school exclusion mean that girls rarely get back on their pre-pregnancy trajectory with education and its associated economic benefits.

The researchers also recommend capitalising on learning from this pilot study to conduct a larger trial before scaling up in Sierra Leone and elsewhere including high income countries.

Professor Jane Sandall CBE, Professor of Social Science and Women's Health at King’s College London, said: “Many of the interventions in the scheme could also have a reciprocal benefit for communities in the UK. In particular, it could help groups of women who are poorly served, maybe they don’t speak English or find care hard to access."

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Journal

The Lancet

Subject of Research

People

Article Publication Date

18-Jun-2025

 

Scientists find three years left of remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C

University of Leeds

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19 June 2025, Bonn – The central estimate of the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C is 130 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) (from the beginning of 2025). This would be exhausted in a little more than three years at current levels of CO2 emissions, according to the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change study published today in the journal Earth System Science Data, and the budget for 1.6°C or 1.7°C could be exceeded within nine years.  

 

Prof. Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study, said: “Our third annual edition of Indicators of Global Climate Change shows that both warming levels and rates of warming are unprecedented. Continued record-high emissions of greenhouse gases mean more of us are experiencing unsafe levels of climate impacts. Temperatures have risen year-on-year since the last IPCC report in 2021, highlighting how climate policies and pace of climate action are not keeping up with what’s needed to address the ever-growing impacts.” 

 

This year’s update of key climate system indicators carried out by a team of over 60 international scientists included two additional indicators, sea-level rise and global land precipitation, to give a total of 10 indicators1. This information is crucial for decision-makers seeking a current, comprehensive picture of the state of the global climate system.   

 

In 2024, the best estimate of observed global surface temperature rise was 1.52°C, of which 1.36°C can be attributed to human activity2. The high level of human-induced warming and its high warming rate are due to global greenhouse gas emissions remaining at an all-time high in recent years.  

 

According to the study, 2024’s high temperatures are “alarmingly unexceptional”, given the level of human-caused climate change. This human influence is at an all-time high and, combined with natural variability in the climate system (which causes temperatures to vary naturally year-to-year), has pushed global average temperature rise to record levels.  

 

While reaching 1.5°C of global temperature rise in a single year does not mean there has been any breach of the landmark Paris Agreement – for that, average global temperatures would need to exceed 1.5°C over multiple decades – these results do reaffirm how far and fast emissions are heading in the wrong direction. And the impacts will only stop worsening when CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation reach net zero. 

 

When analysing longer-term temperature change, best estimates show that between 2015-2024 average global temperatures were 1.24°C higher than in pre-industrial times, with 1.22°C caused by human activities, meaning that, essentially, our best estimate is that all of the warming we have seen over the last decade has been human-induced.   

  

Human activities have resulted in the equivalent of around 53 billion tonnes of CO2 (Gt CO2e) being released into the atmosphere each year over the last decade, primarily due to increasing emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. In 2024, emissions from international aviation – the sector with the steepest drop in emissions during the pandemic – also returned to pre-pandemic levels. 

 

GHG emissions have also led to higher levels of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Combined with declines in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) leading to planet-cooling aerosols, the outcome is that the planet is continuing to heat up. The damage caused by aerosols to human health far outweighs any minimal cooling ‘gains’, and there are other short-lived GHGs that can and should be tackled alongside CO2, such as methane (CH4), that could provide a short-term cooling compensating for the aerosol decline. 

 

Human activities have also been affecting the Earth's energy balance. Surplus heat accumulating in the Earth’s system at an accelerating rate is driving changes in every component of the climate system. The rate of global heating seen between 2012 and 2024 has about doubled from the levels seen in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to detrimental changes of vital components, including sea level rise, ocean warming, ice loss, and permafrost thawing.   

 

Dr. Karina Von Schuckmann, Senior Advisor, Ocean Science for Policy at Mercator Ocean International said: “The ocean is storing about 91% of this excess heat driven by greenhouse gas emissions, which leads to ocean warming. Warmer waters lead to rising sea levels and intensified weather extremes, and can have devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. In 2024, the ocean reached record values globally.”  

 

Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level has also increased by around 26 mm, more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8 mm per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century.  

 

Dr. Aimée Slangen, Research Leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research said: “Since 1900, the global mean sea level has risen by around 228 mm. This seemingly small number is having an outsized impact on low-lying coastal areas, making storm surges more damaging and causing more coastal erosion, posing a threat to humans and coastal ecosystems. The concerning part is that we know that sea-level rise in response to climate change is relatively slow, which means that we have already locked in further increases in the coming years and decades.” 

 

IPCC’s last assessment of the climate system, published in 2021, highlighted how climate change was leading to widespread adverse impacts on nature and people, with rapid and deep reductions in GHGs emissions needed to limit warming to 1.5°C. 

 
Prof. Joeri Rogelj, Research Director at the Grantham Institute and Climate Science & Policy Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London said: “The window to stay within 1.5°C is rapidly closing. Global warming is already affecting the lives of billions of people around the world. Every small increase in warming matters, leading to more frequent, more intense weather extremes. Emissions over the next decade will determine how soon and how fast 1.5°C of warming is reached. They need to be swiftly reduced to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.” 

 

Other key findings: 

• Human-caused warming has increased at a rate of around 0.27°C/decade (2015-2024). 

• The most recent decade (2015-2024) was 0.31°C warmer than the previous decade (2005-2014). These changes, although amplified somewhat by the exceptionally warm years in 2023 and 2024, are broadly consistent with warming rates over the last few decades. 

• The rapid warming over the last few decades has resulted in record extreme temperatures over land, with average maximum temperatures reaching 1.9°C over the decade 2015-2024 and rising at a substantially faster rate than global mean surface temperature.   

 

- ENDS -   

Notes to editors: 

• For media enquiries, please contact climate@leeds.ac.uk 

• Press pack available at this link 

• How to cite the paper: Forster et al., 2025. DOI accessible here 
   

The press conference will be held on June 19, 2025, at 09:30 am (CEST) in Nairobi 4, Main Building, in Bonn, Germany. It will be broadcast at this link. Panelists: 

• Prof. Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds 

• Dr. Karina Von Schuckmann, Senior Advisor, Ocean Science for Policy at Mercator Ocean International  

• Dr. Anna Pirani, Senior Research Associate of the research division “Risk assessment and adaptation strategies”, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) 

• Dr. William Lamb, Senior Scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 

 

1) Full list of indicators: 

• Greenhouse gas emissions  

• Greenhouse gas concentrations and emissions of short-lived climate forcers  

• Effective radiative forcing  

• Earth energy imbalance  

• Observations of global surface temperature change  

• Human-induced temperature change 

• Remaining carbon budget for policy-relevant temperature thresholds 

• Maximum land surface temperatures  

• Global land precipitation  

• Global mean sea-level rise 

 

2) The study calculated 1.52°C as the best estimate of observed global surface temperature in 2024. This number differs from the 1.55°C given by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2024 report. This is owed to slightly distinct selections from the available datasets included. The number has varied by similar amounts in past years. Future work will aim to harmonise the approaches. 
 

University of Leeds   

The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 40,000 students from about 140 different countries. We are renowned globally for the quality of our teaching and research.   

We are a values-driven university, and we harness our expertise in research and education to help shape a better future for humanity, working through collaboration to tackle inequalities, achieve societal impact and drive change.    

The University is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, and is a major partner in the Alan Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes www.leeds.ac.uk    

Follow University of Leeds or tag us in to coverage: Bluesky | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram  

 

About the IGCC 

An international team of scientists comes together annually to provide the latest evidence on how the climate system is changing through the Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) initiative. IGCC provides annual updates of key climate indicators reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), following as closely as possible the methods used in IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WG1) report. The report follows the causal chain from GHG emissions to the level of human-induced warming and their impact on the remaining carbon budget, demonstrating how human activity is affecting the physical climate system.  

More information on IGCC can be found on the website. 

IGCC is also working with the Climate Change Tracker to provide a reliable, user-friendly platform for tracking, visualising and understanding these indicators. 

This year’s study has been produced by an international team of 61 scientists, including IPCC Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, and Chapter Scientists, from 54 institutions across 17 countries.  

 

 

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Journal

Earth System Science Data

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the state of the climate system and human influence

Article Publication Date

19-Jun-2025

 

Caution required when heading soccer balls

Non-concussive heading has a small, but detectable, impact on adult brains

University of Sydney

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Heading a soccer ball alters the brain, new research spearheaded by the University of Sydney has found, despite having no immediate impact on cognition.  

The findings of a world-first experiment add to evidence suggesting heading a ball in the world’s most played sport can impact the brain, even when concussion doesn’t occur. The research was published today in the Sports Medicine - Open journal.  

The results signal a need for further research into heading’s long-term effects, its authors say, as the higher risk of dementia among former professional footballers becomes more apparent. They also give cause to investigate protective interventions including nutrition and cannabinoids.  

The study is the first randomised controlled trial measuring the impact of heading using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) on soccer players.  

Under supervision from Professor Iain McGregor in the University’s Faculty of Science, a team of researchers performed brain-related assessments on 15 male, adult soccer players soon after the players headed a soccer ball 20 times in as many minutes. 

Using state-of-the-art MRI facilities at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), the researchers were able to look for regional changes in brain structure, function and chemistry. Blood and cognitive function tests were also performed. The study used a tightly-controlled setting, with balls launched at a constant speed from a machine. Each participant also completed a control condition involving kicking, rather than heading, a ball, allowing researchers to isolate the effects of heading. 

The MRI scans identified subtle but measurable changes. These included altered chemistry in a region of the brain involved in motor control and decreased electrical conductivity across several areas. These findings suggest heading affects the brain’s energy use/needs and how information is transmitted through white matter. 

The blood samples also showed elevated levels of two proteins: GFAP and NFL. These proteins are currently considered some of the best available blood biomarkers of brain injury and future dementia risk. However, the changes associated with heading were much smaller than those typically seen in these conditions. 

No cognitive impairment was observed following heading. 

“This study does not demonstrate heading causes dementia,” said Dr Nathan Delang, who led the research as a PhD candidate at Griffith University and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland.  

“Our take from the higher presence of these proteins, and the study overall, is that heading the ball can cause subtle disruption to brain cells, even without obvious symptoms.  

“Elevated levels of these biomarkers indicate brain cells have been disturbed at a microstructural level. The clinical and long--term significance of such small elevations is still being studied—particularly in relation to how much, and what pattern, of exposure might lead to effects on brain structure and function.” 

Some countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are phasing in restrictions on heading, including banning the practice among young players. Australia has not introduced a such a ban, but discussions are ongoing regarding the safety of heading in youth sports. 

“These findings suggest that even routine, symptom-free heading can produce subtle changes in the brain. The next step is to understand whether these changes accumulate over time, and what that might mean for player health in the long run,” said research co-author Dr Danielle McCartney, from the University of Sydney’s Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics.  

“In the meantime, we’re adding to calls for soccer players to exercise caution and perhaps consider whether extensive heading is necessary, particularly in training.” 

The research for this paper was undertaken at the University of Sydney’s Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics. Dr Delang led the research as a PhD candidate at Griffith University.

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Journal

Sports Medicine - Open

DOI

10.1186/s40798-025-00867-0 

Article Title

The acute effects of non-concussive head impacts on brain microstructure, chemistry and function in male soccer players: A pilot randomised controlled trial.

Article Publication Date

19-Jun-2025

 

Airborne fungal spores may help predict COVID-19 & flu surges

American Society for Microbiology

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Highlights:

• A new study identified that increased levels of fungal spores in the air were strongly linked to surges in cases of influenza and COVID-19

• Monitoring airborne fungal spores could help predict surges of respiratory virus infections, providing an early warning system to public health systems.

Los Angeles, Calif.—Monitoring fungal spores in the outdoor air can predict surges in flu and COVID-19 infections, especially during the fall, according to a new study. The study is presented at ASM Microbe 2025 in Los Angeles, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

“By monitoring the air we breathe, we may be able to better forecast and prepare for seasonal outbreaks of respiratory viral infections,” said presenting study author Félix E. Rivera-Mariani, Ph.D., associate professor of Biochemistry and Special Topics in Biology at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and founder and principal investigator at the RIPLRT Institute, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The researchers wanted to understand the short-term role of environmental exposures—specifically fungal spores and pollen—in triggering or amplifying the incidence of respiratory viral infections such as COVID-19 and influenza. The ecology of Puerto Rico offers a unique natural laboratory due to its consistent and endemic year-round presence of airborne fungi and pollen. Despite the known links between these exposures and asthma or allergies, their role in viral infection trends hasn’t been thoroughly studied.

In the new study, the researchers examined daily data, from 2022 to 2024, in 2 major health regions in Puerto Rico—San Juan and Caguas. The data included the daily incidence of people diagnosed with COVID-19 and flu, and the concentrations of airborne fungal spores and pollen recorded on the same days. The scientists then implemented statistical and machine learning models to see if high levels of these environmental exposures could predict spikes in flu and COVID-19 cases within the same week or the following week (called lag-effect).

They discovered that airborne concentrations of fungal spores— but not pollen—were strongly linked to increases in flu and COVID-19 cases. When airborne concentrations of fungal spores rose, the scientists often saw a jump in infections within a few days. The models were able to predict flu and COVID-19 surges with high accuracy, particularly in the fall season, in both San Juan and Caguas. Pollen didn’t show the same connection nor prediction.

“The findings from our study suggest that monitoring airborne fungal spore levels could help predict short-term outbreaks (spikes) of flu and COVID-19, giving public health systems an early warning signal,” Rivera-Mariani said. “Our findings also highlight the potential role of environmental factors—not just person-to-person spread—in contributing to the incidence of respiratory viral infections. That could open new doors for targeted public health alerts, especially in areas with high outdoor airborne fungi.”

The study’s investigators say that Puerto Rico was an ideal setting for the study, not only because of its high environmental exposure levels, but also because it has active fungal and pollen monitoring stations in downtown Caguas and in San Juan on the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus. “These findings may help inform environmental risk alerts, particularly for vulnerable populations like the elderly or those with asthma and allergic rhinitis,” Rivera-Mariani said.

To follow up on the new findings, Rivera-Mariani and colleagues would like to investigate whether these environmental exposures also correlate with severe outcomes like hospitalizations or deaths, and whether similar patterns exist in other regions beyond Puerto Rico. “We also hope to collaborate with local health agencies to explore incorporating fungal surveillance into existing outbreak forecasting systems,” Rivera-Mariani said.

 

With AI, researchers find increasing immune evasion in H5N1

American Society for Microbiology

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Highlights:

• H5N1 avian influenza virus has been found in mammals and birds, and 1 person in the U.S. has died from an infection.

• New work suggests that the virus is evolving new ways to evade human immune defenses.

• Using artificial intelligence and physics-based modeling, the researchers found weakening binding between defensive antibodies and viral proteins.

• The work shows how AI may help researchers understand how the virus is evolving and look for new antibodies or other therapeutic interventions.

Los Angeles, Calif.—The H5N1 avian influenza virus has infected birds and mammals around the world. As of June 2025, 70 people have been infected, and 1 person has died in the United States. A new analysis suggests that the virus is evolving clever strategies. Using artificial intelligence tools, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) analyzed thousands of viral proteins and found that their bonds to protective antibodies have weakened over time. 

Newer versions of the virus have improved their ability to evade the natural defenses of the human immune system. “The virus has certainly mutated away from what we saw a decade ago,” said UNCC computational biologist Colby T. Ford, Ph.D., who led the study. “They don't even look the same.” 

These adaptations increase the pandemic potential of the virus, he said, and candidate vaccines developed 10 years ago may not be efficacious against the contemporary strains of the virus. “This has the potential to be bad.”

Together with Shirish Yasa, B.S., who worked on the study as an undergraduate and is now a student at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Ford presented the findings at ASM Microbe 2025, the annual meeting of American Society for Microbiology, in Los Angeles. 

The researchers first collected data on more than 1,800 H5N1 proteins. They used AlphaFold 3, an artificial intelligence protein folding system, to predict the complicated structures of the viral proteins. Then, using physics-based modeling systems, they tested how well 11 immune antibodies—collected from both people and mice—attached to the proteins. 

Better bonds mean better protection, said Ford, but the analysis revealed that over the years the binding has been weakening. “Antibody performance is waning as we get to the newer isolates that we're seeing.”

The group has also been using large datasets focused on H5N1 to better connect clades of the virus to specific transmission channels. “We can see that there are distinct clades with very different paths in terms of transmission between hosts,” Ford said. The group recently connected the H5N1 death of a person in Louisiana to a clade that can pass directly from bird to human, without having to go through another animal. 

These analyses show how the virus is finding strategies to evade the immune system, Ford said, but they also show how AI and computational modeling can help researchers track the evolution of the virus and, potentially, design more effective antibodies. In a preprint, the group has described an approach that uses molecular information from new and emerging strains to design effective, targeted treatments. 

“Can we start to generate novel therapeutics based off those strains? The answer is yes, and we can do it fairly quickly with the AI pipeline we’ve built,” Ford said. 
 

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The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of over 37,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences. 

ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, educational opportunities and advocacy efforts. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to all audiences.