Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Sneakers to Scrubs mentorship program shows data-backed promise

University of Chicago

image:
Darlington Nwaudo, MD, left, a fifth-year orthopaedic surgery resident, shows Sneakers to Scrubs students how to apply a cast. (Ray Abercrombie)
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Credit: Ray Abercrombie

A new study highlights the promising early impact of Sneakers to Scrubs (S2S), a medical pathways program founded by Black medical students and former athletes to address the severe underrepresentation of Black men in medicine.

Data showed that in just its first year, S2S engaged over 2,000 Black male youths through sports-centered mentorship and more than 60 educational events. True to the program's name, S2S volunteers who wear scrubs host training sessions on topics such as concussion awareness and first aid, and to discuss a wide range of medical careers.

“We wanted to create an actionable and realistic way to help address the significant underrepresentation of Black men in medicine,” said Jameel Alausa, a fourth-year student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and the co-founder and CEO of S2S.

The study, published in Academic Pediatrics, found that early S2S efforts significantly boosted participants' awareness of medical careers, helped connect them to mentors and role models, and drove their enrollment in established medical pathway programs.

Breaking cycles of underrepresentation

Black men make up an estimated 7% of the U.S. adult population, but they represent only 2.6% of practicing physicians.

That gap has real consequences: Research has indicated that when Black patients receive care from Black doctors, communication improves, trust deepens, and engagement increases, all of which can lead to better health outcomes.

Underrepresentation can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy, the study authors said. That's because many Black male youths lack Black male physician role models who can make the career path seem realistic and attractive.

In 2023, Alausa and a group of Chicago-area medical students — including several former Division I and professional athletes — launched S2S with the goal of connecting Black youths from middle school through college to medical careers.

“Given our own backgrounds as high-level athletes, we recognized that sports could be a powerful platform for connecting with young Black men,” said Alausa, a co-author of the study. “We wanted to leverage that shared interest to provide exposure, mentorship, and opportunities in medicine that many participants may not otherwise have access to.”

Real relationships enable connections to programs

The S2S program is organized into three tiers — Explore Med (middle school), Experience Med (high school) and Excel in Med (college and postbaccalaureate) — and layers mentorship, tutoring, trainings and workshops onto activities that already draw in Black male student-athletes.

Mentors are medical students, residents and attending physicians who share both clinical and athletic backgrounds.

The program also serves as an on-ramp to three established pathways initiatives at UChicago: the Health Professionals Recruitment and Exposure Program (HPREP); Medical Careers Exposure and Emergency Preparedness (MedCEEP); and the Daniel Hale Williams Medical Bootcamp (DHWMB).

After S2S launched, Black male enrollment in all three programs jumped significantly.

Co-founder Marcus Allen, a former NBA player and fourth-year Pritzker student, said the growth reflects the power of building relationships before pitching a career path.

“You just have to build trust in the community,” said Allen, who is also a co-author of the study. “S2S started with me and Jameel going to nearby high schools, playing pickup basketball and then afterward talking about medicine with the kids we met.

"First and foremost, these guys have to know we have their best interests at heart.”

What participants are saying

As part of the research assessment, the team also conducted qualitative interviews with randomly selected participants from S2S summer events. Nine of the 10 said they had gained a better understanding of medical careers.

“I was so focused on sports and not focused on anything else, but being with this program made me start to think about medicine as a future option,” one participant said.

Four participants singled out the value of having Black male role models, and others described how athletics helped them stay safe and academically engaged.

As a next step, the team is analyzing two to three years of longitudinal survey data on how S2S participants' confidence and perceptions of medicine shift over time.

To S2S co-founder Solomon Egbe, a fourth-year Pritzker student, the takeaways from this early evaluation are multilayered.

“For educators — medical and otherwise — our findings emphasize that meeting students where their interests lie can be a powerful tool for engagement,” Egbe said. “For practicing medical professionals, our results show that mentorship and representation matter. Using their platform to encourage the next generation can be just as influential as taking care of patients.”

A replicable model

Since the study period closed, S2S has expanded to organize programming in Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland and Milwaukee. The Chicago offerings now include a summer camp now in its third year and a program called Athletes for Academics (A4A), which pairs math and science tutoring with athletic programming for middle schoolers on the South Side.

The work aligns closely with UChicago Medicine's broader community investment on the South Side, including the Southland RISE initiative, which in June 2026 awarded $150,000 to S2S and 14 other community organizations running summer programs that blend mentorship, career pathways and safe spaces for youth — with many using sports and the arts as an entry point.

For Allen, the academic community has an essential role to play in sustaining that momentum.

“This is a niche program, but at the end of the day, it's a model that can be used across the board,” he said. “Medical students have a similar interest with young student-athletes, and incorporating medicine and different career opportunities within that space is doable — not just in Chicago, but across the United States, in the communities that need it most.”

The long-term goal is straightforward: more Black men wearing white coats and scrubs.

“Sneakers 2 Scrubs: An Innovative Approach to Addressing Underrepresentation of Black Males in Medical School Pipeline Programs” was published in Academic Pediatrics in July 2026. Co-authors are Marcus Allen, Jameel Alausa, Ahmed Abdel Naby, Johari Shuck, Abdullah Pratt, Elbert Huang and Nathaniel Glasser.

Journal

Academic Pediatrics

DOI

10.1016/j.acap.2026.103416

Article Title

Sneakers 2 Scrubs: An Innovative Approach to Addressing Underrepresentation of Black Males in Medical School Pipeline Programs

Engineers develop a smart shoe that could help track changes in how people walk

A Rutgers prototype, which needs no batteries, counts steps, estimates calories burned, and tracks movement with 95.4% accuracy

Rutgers University

Rutgers engineers have developed a smart shoe that automatically analyzes how a person walks, a technology that someday could help monitor people with Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and other movement disorders.

The prototype analyzes movement with 95.4% accuracy while counting steps and estimating calories burned.

The research, led by Simiao Niu, a biomedical engineer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, was published in Science Advances.

What makes the shoe unusual is that it powers the analysis with energy generated from the wearer’s footsteps. It has no battery to recharge.

“When you are walking or running, you automatically have biomechanical energy available, so you can harvest this energy,” said Niu, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Rutgers School of Engineering.

A shoe was a natural target, he said, because walking produces the information the researchers want to analyze and the energy needed to study it.

“When you sit down, there is no energy available, but you don’t need gait monitoring,” Niu said.

A device embedded in the sole produces electricity from the pressure and friction of each step. The process, known as the triboelectric effect, is related to the static electricity created when different materials rub together.

The electricity arrives in irregular bursts that the electronics cannot use directly. The researchers designed a power-management circuit that converts it into a useful form, increasing the usable energy by as much as 120 times compared with a conventional method.

When studying walking information, scientists use “gait” to describe a person’s pattern of walking, including balance, speed, stride, and rhythm. Changes can offer clues about disease progression, fall risk or rehabilitation.

“Gait is one of the most significant biomarkers for a lot of diseases,” said Niu.

Doctors often evaluate gait by watching a patient walk briefly in a clinic or laboratory. A wearable device could eventually measure movement over longer periods as people go about their daily lives.

“If you are able to use what I call the ‘worry-free shoes’ we’ve developed, patients can just wear them, and the shoes can automatically collect their gait pattern,” Niu said.

With further development and clinical testing, similar shoes might one day assess fall risk, detect unusual walking patterns or follow recovery after a brain or spinal cord injury. The design also might be adapted to monitor heart activity, biochemical signals or other aspects of health.

The white athletic shoes conceal electronics in the heels. The current version is an early prototype, not a medical device, Niu said. It cannot yet diagnose disease, predict a fall, or determine whether a treatment is working, but it shows basic walking patterns can be analyzed without a rechargeable battery.

That could address a weakness in existing health wearables, he said. Smartwatches and other devices can gather large amounts of information, and artificial intelligence (AI) can turn those measurements into useful findings. But AI requires energy. As wearables become more intelligent, they may drain their batteries faster.

Niu calls this problem the “energy-intelligence bottleneck.”

“We want to solve the fundamental bottleneck in current wearable devices,” Niu said. “We are developing a smart wearable with integrated AI functionality that can harvest energy on its own, so you don’t need to worry about charging.”

Niu encountered the problem while working at Apple, where he helped develop an electrocardiogram sensor for the Apple Watch. Monitoring stops when a health device is removed for charging, and users may forget to put it back on.

“Once you put it onto the charger, you typically forget about it, and then you don’t wear it,” Niu said. “Those wearables cannot monitor your health if you just leave them in your drawer.”

An accelerometer measures the foot’s movement along three axes, labeled x, y and z. A tiny processor uses AI to analyze patterns in those measurements and classifies each 15-second segment as one of four activities: slow walking, fast walking, running, or climbing stairs. It displays the results on a screen attached to the shoe.

The analysis occurs inside the wearable, an approach known as “edge AI.” Because the shoe doesn’t continuously send raw information to a phone, computer, or cloud server, it requires significantly less energy.

Making the AI algorithm small enough to fit the tiny processor’s limited memory was another challenge. The original model examined 21 characteristics of movement and achieved 98.1% accuracy, but required more memory than the shoe’s processor could hold.

The team found that the variation in movement along the three axes provided most of the information the AI algorithm needed. The smaller model achieved 95.4% accuracy while running about 15 times faster and using about one-sixth as much current.

The sensor and AI algorithm together consume 86 microwatts, a fraction of the power used by many wearable AI systems. In laboratory tests, even slow walking generated enough electricity to keep the complete system operating.

Fuying Dong, a Rutgers biomedical engineering doctoral student and the first author of the study, said the project required the team to treat the shoe as one connected system.

“The idea of how to co-design the whole system is the best thing I learned from this project,” Dong said. “You break a huge project into smaller pieces, finish them one by one, and try to figure out what’s the biggest story behind it.”

The prototype was developed using data from four healthy volunteers ages 23 to 26. So far, the AI algorithm has been trained and tested only on the activities included in the study. It hasn’t been tested in older adults, people with movement disorders, or patients undergoing rehabilitation.

Niu, Dong, and Chi Han are inventors on a Rutgers provisional patent application related to the technology.

Explore more of the ways Rutgers research is shaping the future.

Simiao Niu, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Rutgers School of Engineering (at right), and doctoral student Fuying Dong work in the lab on a smart shoe powered by the wearer’s footsteps.

Credit

Veronica Mendez/Rutgers University

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aeh9625

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

A biomimetic, ultralow-power edge-AI-empowered and self-sustaining gait analysis system

Article Publication Date

19-Aug-2026

COI Statement

S.N., F.D., and C.H. are inventors on a U.S. provisional patent application related to this work, titled “Wearable Gait Analysis System and Method” (U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/897,241; filed 10 October, 2025; Rutgers Reference No. P2025–279-01). The current assignee is Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Meet a scientist who’s dedicated decades to solving one of prosthetics’ biggest problems

Frontiers

image:
Prof Joan Saunders. Image supplied by Prof Saunders and should be credited to her.
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Credit: Prof Joan Sanders

What inspired you to become a researcher?

I was inspired to become a researcher by my curiosity about why a medical challenge, like poor prosthesis fit, happens. The excitement of turning the explanation for one of those problems into something that actually helps patients with prosthetics is something I find rewarding.

I strive to develop technology that enhances the patient-prosthetist relationship, technology that enhances the humanity of medical care. The unique high-quality sensors, mechanisms and strategies my lab created are foundations. I believe what prosthetists and patients learn from our tools will enhance the care prosthetists deliver to their patients.

Can you give a short overview of your academic career so far?

My career began at the intersection of biomechanics and prosthetic care, measuring pressure and shear stress inside transtibial sockets. My group pioneered this area using techniques we developed ourselves. That led me into the cell biology of skin adaptation, understanding how residual limb tissue reorganizes under sustained mechanical load, and later into biomaterials and tissue-engineered vascular constructs for patients whose skin could not tolerate a prosthesis.

For the past 12 years, my focus has been squarely on solving one of prosthetics' most persistent problems: socket fit. My team has developed sensor systems and automated adjustable sockets that quantify true socket fit in real time, replacing guesswork with data. That work is now reflected in six patents and more than 20 published papers, all pointing to the same conclusion: adjustable, sensor-informed sockets meaningfully improve limb fluid volume stability and socket fit.

What kind of prosthetics do you develop? Are they aimed at particular kinds of injuries?

My research primarily focuses on lower limb transtibial prosthesis users, people who have had an amputation because of a traumatic injury like a motor vehicle accident, a medical complication, or some other cause. Some of our research has focused on military service members’ traumatic injuries, figuring out ways to make prostheses for them that work as well or even better than the limbs they are intended to replace, helping them stay in active service.

Can you tell us about the research you're currently working on?

Right now, I'm focused on advancing our next generation of adjustable socket and sensing technology, refining our ability to ‘sense’ socket fit continuously and translating that data into tools practitioners can use every day. Working alongside our clinical collaborators and manufacturing partners, our team is pushing these sensing platforms from research prototypes toward products that give clinicians quantitative insight into how a socket outside the clinic is actually performing on a patient's limb.

How do advances in the lab translate into better prostheses for patients?

Our sensors give prosthetists something they've never reliably had: an objective window into socket fit. Instead of relying only on a patient's subjective report or a clinician's best guess, sensor-integrated adjustable socket technology lets practitioners see the fit of the socket changing outside the clinic and respond immediately. That will allow patients to have a closer relationship with their prosthetist, which is the basis of good care. I believe this will be the foundation of commercial sockets that adapt to prosthesis users’ socket size changes in real time, relieving patients of the burden of continually thinking about managing their prosthesis.

In your opinion, why is your research important?

Because it closes the gap between what we assume is happening inside a socket and what's actually happening. Integrating sensing technologies shown to enhance socket fit into 3D printed sockets in a fast, accurate, cost-effective way addresses the barriers in fabrication and fitting that have limited remote patient monitoring in the past. This data is packed with opportunities for clinical discovery and knowledge enhancement. Prosthetists and researchers could use it to explore relationships between socket fit, socket design, prosthesis use, clinical performance, or patient history.

Are there any common misconceptions about this area of research? How would you address them?

A common misconception is that the patient-prosthesis system is purely mechanical, in other words that changing one variable produces a predictable effect. It doesn't work that way; people adapt differently, and limb volume and tissue change hour to hour. That variability is why our sensor and adjustable socket work matters: instead of relying on static assumptions, these tools let practitioners see and respond to a patient's actual, changing fit outside the clinic in real time.

How has open science benefited the reach and impact of your research?

Sharing our work openly has broadened who engages with it. More clinicians, patients, and researchers understand the challenges people with limb loss face, and that has brought in collaborators from other fields with tools we hadn't considered.

What do you think are the most important advances that have happened in your field, over your career?

Energy storage and return componentry, online education, adjustable socket technology, 3D-printing, better measurement techniques, and understanding of limb fluid volume management. Adjustable, sensor-enabled, 3D-printed sockets are, I believe, the advance with the most room left to grow.

What are some of the areas of research you'd like to see tackled in the years ahead? Are there new techniques or materials you're particularly excited about?

I'd like to see our field close the distance between promising sensor technology and everyday clinical use. My focus going forward is fine-tuning our ability to ‘sense’ socket fit with enough precision and simplicity that practitioners can rely on it in routine care. Working with the prosthetics industry, we're aiming to design tools that help practitioners create excellent-fitting sockets from the start, flag when a socket may be developing a fit issue, and give practitioners quantitative insight into how patients are actually using and living with their prosthesis day-to-day. I see this as just the first step toward a generation of data-driven, adjustable prosthetic care.

Journal

Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences

DOI

10.3389/fresc.2026.1805115

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Quick Fabrication of 3D-Printed Prosthetic Sockets with Embedded Sensors to Track Limb Motion

Article Publication Date

21-Sep-2026

Toxic metals found in Maui residents months after 2023 wildfires, UH study finds

University of Hawaii at Manoa

The health consequences of catastrophic wildfires that burn through towns and cities may extend far beyond the period when flames are extinguished and smoke disappears, according to new research from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Maui Wildfire Exposure Study (MauiWES).

A study of 1,400 Maui adults 6–18 months after the August 2023 wildfires found substantially elevated concentrations of several metals in participants’ urine, and also discovered that greater amounts of metals accumulated in the body was associated with abnormal lung function. Researchers measured 24 metals while assessing pulmonary function through standardized breathing tests at the same visit. The findings were published on September 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Compared with U.S. biomonitoring data, Maui participants had markedly higher concentrations of several metals, including antimony at nearly 40 times, manganese at 3.8 times, barium at 2.3 times and arsenic at 2.2 times U.S. reference values. Across three complementary statistical approaches, higher combined metal exposure was associated with several measures of abnormal lung function. Arsenic, cadmium, copper and antimony were among the metals that contributed most strongly to those patterns.

The researchers emphasize, however, that the elevated metal burden likely reflects a complex mixture of exposures rather than a single source. Some exposures may have existed before the wildfire because of Hawaiʻi’s geology, historic agricultural and industrial land use, diet and other environmental factors. The disaster may then have introduced new contaminants while also disturbing and remobilizing pollutants already present in soil, dust and the built environment.

Because pre-fire biomonitoring data are not available, the current study cannot determine precisely how much of the measured burden came directly from the wildfire versus chronic, persistent or other ongoing exposures. Longitudinal biomonitoring and environmental sampling will be critical to disentangling those pathways.

“The biggest message is that exposure may not end when the smoke clears,” said Ruben Juarez, MauiWES co-director and UHERO–HMSA Distinguished Endowed Professor of Health Economics at UH Mānoa. “What we are likely seeing is a complex combination of exposures—some that may have been present for years and others that may have been generated or remobilized by the wildfire. When a disaster burns through a community, it can fundamentally change how contaminants move through the environment. The next scientific challenge is to disentangle those sources and understand which exposures persist, where they come from and what they mean for long-term health.”

A different kind of wildfire

Much of what is known about wildfire health effects comes from studying smoke generated by burning vegetation. But fires such as those that devastated Lahaina represent a fundamentally different type of disaster.

Wildland–urban interface fires can burn homes, vehicles, electronics, treated lumber, electrical systems and other infrastructure, generating complex mixtures of contaminants while simultaneously disturbing pollutants accumulated in soil from earlier agricultural, industrial or other land uses. Those materials may remain in ash, settled dust, soil and debris or be redistributed across the landscape during cleanup and recovery. Potential pathways of continued exposure include resuspended fine particles, contact with contaminated dust and debris and indirect environmental exposure even after visible smoke has dissipated.

“We have traditionally thought about wildfire exposure primarily through the lens of smoke,” said Alika Maunakea, MauiWES co-director and professor at the UH Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine. “But when an entire community burns, we are dealing with a much more complicated exposure environment. The biology is telling us that we need to understand not only what was in the air during the fire, but what was already present in the landscape, what the disaster may have mobilized, and what is actually getting into people’s bodies during the months and years that follow.”

Exposure was not confined to Lahaina

The study also identified substantial geographic differences in both metal exposure and pulmonary health across Maui.

Lahaina residents showed a distinct metal profile, including relatively elevated concentrations of arsenic and cadmium, while Wailuku/Kahului residents had the highest median concentrations of copper, iron and molybdenum. Kula and Kihei showed different metal profiles as well, underscoring that there was no single uniform exposure pattern across the island.

Pulmonary impairment also varied across Maui. Among interpretable breathing test results, Wailuku/Kahului exhibited some of the highest prevalence of abnormal lung-function measures, while Lahaina also showed substantial pulmonary impairment and Kula generally showed the lowest burden.

Those patterns suggest that the exposure landscape after a major disaster may be more complicated than simply comparing people inside and outside a burn zone. Researchers believe the measured metal mixtures may reflect overlapping contributions from wildfire-generated material, contaminants remobilized by the disaster, historically contaminated soils, local land use, geology and other ongoing environmental sources. Determining the relative contribution of each pathway is now a major focus of the research.

Implications far beyond Maui

The findings from Maui have implications beyond Hawaiʻi. As destructive fires increasingly reach developed communities, researchers say disaster-response systems may need to look beyond short-term measurements of smoke and particulate matter. Future responses could include longer-term environmental monitoring, human biomonitoring, respiratory surveillance and targeted assessment of soil, ash and settled dust, particularly in places with histories of agricultural or industrial contamination.

New NIH study will disentangle legacy and disaster-related exposures

The next phase of research will investigate the sources of the metal contaminants. In September 2026, UH announced a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to investigate pollutants left behind by decades of agricultural and industrial activity in Hawaiʻi and examine whether wildfires and other disasters can remobilize those contaminants, creating new pathways of human exposure.

The project is led by Maunakea, Juarez and Alison Lee of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. It will follow approximately 1,000 Hawaiʻi residents over five years and combine environmental measurements, biological samples and cardiopulmonary assessments. The research will help distinguish persistent background exposures, legacy contamination and disaster-related exposures, while examining how those different sources contribute to heart and lung health over time.

Together, the studies shift the scientific question from simply “What did the wildfire release?” to a broader one: “How does a disaster transform an existing environmental contamination landscape and change what people are exposed to?”

Connecting participants with information, care

Researchers emphasized that the study is designed not only to document health effects, but also to connect participants with information and care. MauiWES participants receive access to their individual health results, opportunities to discuss those findings and referrals when screening identifies potential health concerns. The study will continue following families over time to understand how health changes during Maui’s recovery.

“We know these findings may be difficult for families who have already been through so much,” Juarez said. “Our responsibility is not simply to publish the science. It is to help people understand what we are finding, return information to the community, connect people with care when they need it, and continue learning alongside Maui as the community recovers.”

Resources for Maui residents

Research about the wildfires may raise health questions or bring back difficult memories. Maui residents can access the following resources:

Current environmental conditions and advisories: The Hawaiʻi Department of Health maintains a Maui Wildfire Environmental Monitoring Data Portal with current information on air, soil, ash and debris, coastal waters and other environmental monitoring.
Medical and behavioral health resources: The Hawaiʻi Department of Health Maui Wildfire Response site provides medical, mental health and recovery resources, including materials in multiple languages.
Emotional or crisis support: Hawaiʻi CARES 988 provides free, confidential support 24 hours a day. Call or text 988. Local counselors can assist with mental health, crisis and substance-use concerns.
Help finding community services: Aloha United Way 211 connects Hawaiʻi residents with health care, housing, food, financial assistance, mental health services and other local resources. Dial 211 or visit the statewide resource directory.
MauiWES participants: Participants can access individual health results through the MauiWES participant portal. Send questions about the study to mauiwes@hawaii.edu.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2613208123

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Climate-amplified wildland–urban interface disasters create persistent internal metal mixtures associated with pulmonary impairment

Article Publication Date

28-Sep-2026

Experimental mRNA therapy dramatically extends treatment window for acetaminophen overdose in preclinical models

University of Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH – When a patient arrives at the hospital with an acetaminophen overdose, it’s often a race against the clock. The only FDA-approved antidote for overdose-related liver injury, N‑acetylcysteine, must be administered within hours to be effective.

But in a new study published today in PNAS, researchers used a novel approach in an animal model that could eventually help buy more time for these patients. A team of University of Pittsburgh researchers identified a previously unrecognized liver-protection pathway—and harnessed it with an experimental mRNA therapy that reduced liver injury in mice, even when given at a much later point in time than the currently available antidote.

Acetaminophen, the generic form of Tylenol, is among the most widely used medications to manage pain and fever. While safe when taken as directed, it becomes dangerous when misused, such as when people accidentally take multiple over-the-counter medications that contain this drug.

“Acetaminophen overdose is a very common cause of emergency room visits for liver failure,” said Wen Xie, M.D., Ph.D., Joseph Koslow Endowed Chair and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Pitt School of Pharmacy and senior author of the study. “It’s a serious clinical problem.”

Because acetaminophen overdose damages the liver through intense oxidative stress, the researchers focused on SRXN1, a protein that’s known to help cells reverse oxidative damage. Although SRXN1 had been studied in other diseases, its role in acetaminophen-induced liver injury had never been explored.

The researchers analyzed liver samples from patients who had died of acetaminophen overdose and found that SRXN1 levels increased during the injury process. To understand whether the protein was merely associated with liver damage or actively protecting against it, they genetically engineered two strains of mice, one lacking SRXN1 and another boosting it. When exposed to overdose, the mice who lacked the protein experienced significantly more severe liver injury—while the mice with elevated SRXN1 were protected.

Using advanced protein-mapping techniques, the team discovered that SRXN1 protects another protein, called USP7, which in turn stabilizes HO-1, a well-known antioxidant-defense molecule. Together, this SRXN1-USP7-HO-1 pathway comprises a newly identified protective mechanism that helps liver cells survive acetaminophen-induced oxidative stress.

To harness this mechanism and advance the treatment of acetaminophen overdose, the researchers used lipid nanoparticles—the same delivery technology that helped make mRNA COVID-19 vaccines possible—to package SRXN1 mRNA, and administered them in mouse models of acetaminophen overdose.

In these experiments, the treatment remained effective when administered to the mice six hours after an overdose. By comparison, the currently available antidote provides complete protection when given one hour after overdose in mice, partial protection at two hours and no protection beyond that point.

Xie stresses that, though the work is in its preclinical stages—and human application is many steps beyond—the findings represent the first step in a promising new direction.

“What really gets me excited is the therapeutic potential. To my knowledge, this is the first study showing that we can dramatically extend the therapeutic window through lipid nanoparticle delivery of mRNA coding for a protective protein,” he said.

“We learned from the COVID vaccines that mRNA can act very quickly, and that's exactly what we need for an acute event like overdose.”

Other authors on the study were Mengyun Ke, Jong-Won Kim, Meishu Xu, Jingyuan Wang, Lingyi Liu, Syamprasad NP, Bin Yang, Xiaofei Wang, Huatian Li, Songrong Ren and Song Li, all of Pitt; and Kate S. Carroll, of Florida Atlantic University.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (DK135538, ES030429 and DK145468).

Human liver samples were acquired through the Cells Tissues & Models Core of the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center, supported by NIH grant 1P30DK120531.

# # #

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy

The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy has been developing leaders who have been driving the future of pharmacy for over 135 years. We investigate, discover and create ways to improve patient health and, through partnerships, change practice and improve efficiency of care. Pitt Pharmacy ranks in the top 10 in NIH-funded research and in the top 15 in U.S. News and World Report among schools of pharmacy. The School of Pharmacy leads the way in education, personalizing education and getting students to expert faster. Chartered in 1878, the School of Pharmacy is among the oldest pharmacy schools in the country.

www.upmc.com/media

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2620180123

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Desulfinylation of the deubiquitinase USP7 by SRXN1 attenuates oxidative acute liver injury

Article Publication Date

28-Sep-2026