A method using free software and a drone with a low-cost camera has made it possible to select drought-tolerant corn plants. The tool contributes to the selection of plants that can better withstand water stress, one of the impacts of climate change on agriculture.

The results of the experiments were published in an article in the Plant Phenome Journal.

The authors are associated with the Genomics for Climate Change Research Center (GCCRC), an Engineering Research Center (ERC) at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.

“Experiments with genetically modified plants are expensive. This method allowed us to assess the plants’ tolerance to drought in a relatively small area, using free software and a simpler RGB camera that captured the parameters of the experiment more effectively than the more expensive multispectral camera,” says Helcio Duarte Pereira, a researcher at the GCCRC.

The method allowed for optimized, faster and cheaper data collection. Conventional methods require manual measurements, sometimes with expensive equipment and slow processes. In addition, some characteristics can only be measured at the end of the plant’s life cycle. With the drone, the work that would otherwise take days can be done in a few hours, allowing plants to be assessed at different stages of growth.

The approach also makes it possible to follow the development of the plants throughout their growth cycle. “The continuous analysis, at different stages of the plant’s life cycle, was essential to understand how they respond to water stress, as well as making it possible to predict how they’d behave in other areas,” explains Juliana Yassitepe, a researcher at the GCCRC and EMBRAPA Digital Agriculture, who coordinated the study.

Water stress parameters

During the dry season of 2023, between April and September, the researchers carried out a series of flights at an experimental site in Campinas. The site was planted with 21 varieties of corn, three conventional and 18 genetically modified to overexpress genes potentially associated with resistance to water stress.

In the experiment, the only treatment difference between the plants was that half received irrigation throughout their lifecycles, while the other half was subjected to drought.

Each flight lasted 10 minutes and yielded 290 images. The researchers selected 13 flights done with the multispectral camera, which captures non-visible spectra such as infrared, and 18 with the RGB camera, which is much cheaper and captures three colors or bands: red, green and blue.

The images were analyzed using free software that allowed the bands obtained in the images to be cross-referenced. To determine what the color differences in the images indicated, the researchers took a series of conventional measurements of the plants on the ground. From there, they were able to define the water stress parameters and calibrate the predictive models.

The results presented from the images from the cheaper camera proved to be more reliable and accurate, making the technology accessible for large-scale breeding programs.

As well as reducing operating costs, the method allows studies to be conducted in smaller areas, which is especially useful in projects with limited resources. “We don’t always have enough seeds to plant in very large areas, which is a bottleneck in this type of research,” says Yassitepe.

The researchers also point out that the drone’s lower flights allow it to obtain high-resolution images, which is justified in smaller experimental areas, helping to obtain more accurate data.

Finally, although it is not the main goal of the group, the breakthrough opens the way for other research groups or startups to develop applications directly aimed at producers or breeding companies.

“There are applications on the market that allow you to assess, for example, the chlorophyll in the plant and thus determine the nitrogen levels. This makes it possible to adjust fertilization as needed,” says Pereira.

For Yassitepe, the indices evaluated in the study can serve as a basis for the development of applications that make automated measurements of water stress in different agricultural or forestry crops.

Antibiotic resistance tends to stabilize over time, according to Sonja Lehtinen, PhD, from the University of Lausanne and colleagues. The team published its study, “The evolution of antibiotic resistance in Europe, 1998–2019,” in PLOS Pathogens.

Antibiotic resistance is a major public health concern, contributing to an estimated five million deaths per year, point out the scientists. Understanding long-term resistance patterns could help public health researchers to monitor and characterize drug resistance as well as inform the impact of interventions on resistance.

In this study, researchers analyzed drug resistance in more than three million bacterial samples collected across 30 countries in Europe from 1998 to 2019. Samples encompassed eight bacteria species important to public health, including Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

They found that while antibiotic resistance initially rises in response to antibiotic use, it does not rise indefinitely. Instead, resistance rates reached an equilibrium over the 20-year period in most species. Antibiotic use contributed to how quickly resistance levels stabilized as well as variability in resistance rates across different countries. But the association between changes in drug resistance and antibiotic use was weak, suggesting that additional, yet unknown, factors are at play.

“The evolutionary dynamics of antibiotic resistance are not well understood, particularly the long-term trajectories of resistance frequencies and their dependence on antibiotic consumption. Here, we systematically analyze resistance trajectories for 887 bug-drug-country combinations in Europe across 1998–2019, for eight bacterial species with a considerable resistance-associated public health burden,” wrote the investigators.

Analytical support for model

“Our analyses support a model in which, after an initial increase, resistance frequencies reach a stable intermediate equilibrium. The plurality (37%) of analyzed trajectories were best described as ‘stable’ (neither increasing nor decreasing). 21% of trajectories were best described as ‘stabilizing,’ i.e., showing a transition from increasing frequency to a stable plateau; 21% as decreasing and 20% as increasing.

“The antibiotic consumption in a country predicts both the equilibrium frequency of the corresponding resistance and the speed at which this equilibrium is reached. Moreover, we find weak evidence that temporal fluctuations in resistance frequency are driven by temporal fluctuations in hospital antibiotic consumption. A large fraction of the variability in the speed of increase and the equilibrium level of resistance remains unexplained by antibiotic use, suggesting other factors may also drive resistance dynamics.”

The study highlights that continued increase in antibiotic resistance is not inevitable and provides new insights to help researchers monitor drug resistance.

“When we looked into the dynamics of antibiotic resistance in many important bacterial pathogens all over Europe and in the last few decades, we often found that resistance frequency initially increases and then stabilizes to an intermediate level,” said Francois Blanquart, PhD, senior author and a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). “The consumption of the antibiotic in the country explained both the speed of initial increase and the level of stabilization.”

“In this study, we were interested in whether antibiotic resistance frequencies in Europe were systematically increasing over the long-term,” added Sonja Lehtinen, PhD, senior author and an assistant professor at the computational biology department at the University of Lausanne. “Instead, we find a pattern where, after an initial increase, resistance frequencies tend to reach a stable plateau.”

Organon acquired regulatory and commercial rights in the United States for TOFIDENCE™, a biosimilar to ACTEMRA®, for intravenous infusion from Biogen. TOFIDENCE, the first approved tocilizumab biosimilar entrant in the U.S. market, was launched in May 2024 and is indicated in certain patients for the treatment of moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis, giant cell arteritis, polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and COVID-19.

“Biosimilars continue to be a key growth driver for Organon, and this acquisition complements our existing business, enabling us to expand our immunology portfolio,” said Kevin Ali, Organon’s CEO. “We believe that by leveraging our commercial expertise and market access capabilities, there is considerable growth potential for this product.”

The agreement includes an upfront payment to Biogen, with Organon assuming the obligation to pay tiered royalty payments based on net sales and tiered annual net sales milestone payments owed by Biogen to Bio-Thera Solutions.

Large growth market

The biosimilars market is forecasted to grow from $29.4 billion in 2023 to $66.9 billion by 2028, driven by a CAGR of 17.8%, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets. The market, focusing on drug classes such as monoclonal antibodies, insulin, erythropoietin (EPO), and anticoagulants, is poised for substantial growth driven by increasing demand for cost-effective treatments amid rising chronic disease rates and the patent expirations of major biologics, noted the report. A key trend cited includes the rapid approval and adoption of biosimilars, particularly in oncology.

Challenges include complex manufacturing processes and regulatory obstacles, which are countered by opportunities in less regulated markets like Asia Pacific, noted the report, which cites players such as Novartis, Pfizer, and Amgen as pivotal in shaping industry dynamics through innovation and strategic expansions.

A genomic study of hydrogen-producing bacteria has revealed entirely new gene clusters capable of producing large volumes of hydrogen.

Vibrionaceae are a family of marine bacteria famous for their bioluminescence, but also notorious for including the cholera pathogen among their number.

Vibrionaceae have not been attractive subjects in biofuel production, but another unique feature of the family—their ability to generate large volumes of hydrogen gas by breaking down a substance called formate into carbon dioxide and hydrogen through fermentation—has now emerged as a potential solution for green energy.

Now, a team including Professor Tomoo Sawabe at the Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University; Ramesh Kumar Natarajan at the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, India; and Fabiano Thompson at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has used genome sequencing to investigate the mechanism behind this biochemical feat.

Their findings are published in the journal Current Microbiology.

The researchers examined all 16 known species of Vibrionaceae, which are often found in symbiotic relationships with deep-sea animals. They focused on the sequence and structure of the Hyf-type formate hydrogenlyase (FHL) gene cluster.

The hydrogenase enzyme from this gene cluster catalyzes the breakdown of formate into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This complex is also found in Escherichia coli, another bacterium which can generate hydrogen through fermentation, though in much smaller amounts than Vibrionaceae.

“These analyses reveal unexpected diversity of FHL gene clusters and relationships between gene clusters and function in hydrogen production ability,” Sawabe explains.

The team discovered two new types of FHL gene clusters among Vibrionaceae, bringing the total number of FHL gene clusters in these bacteria to six. They suggest that this diversity in the structure of the cluster is the result of speciation among the Vibrionaceae as they adapted and evolved to occupy a range of ecological niches.

The study also found differences in hydrogen fermentation and production associated with the different FHL gene clusters. Vibrio tritonius, a marine species, and Vibrio porteresiae, found in mangrove-dwelling wild rice, showed the highest levels of hydrogen production, while Vibrio aerogenes and Vibrio mangrovi showed the lowest.

There was a correlation between levels of hydrogen production and how well the bacteria were able to take up formate back into their cells.

“These genotypes strengthen formate metabolism as a possible key factor in maintaining fermentative hydrogen production in specific groups of vibrios,” Sawabe concludes.

The findings support the researchers’ proposal that some species were driven to evolve higher hydrogen production because of their need to detoxify formate from the environment—what they call the formate detoxification hypothesis.

The findings could also shed light on the evolution of hydrogen fermentation in other bacterial species, such as E. coli.

Scale Biosciences, Inc. (Scale Bio), a leader in highly scalable single cell technologies, today announced its participation in the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s (CZI) Billion Cells Project at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York Affiliate Symposium. Scale Bio joins technology partners 10x Genomics and Ultima Genomics in this landmark effort to generate an unprecedented one billion cell dataset to fuel rapid progress in cell biology through AI model development. This collaboration represents a significant expansion of the data generation capabilities for the Billion Cells Project.

Scale Bio is a demonstrated leader in advancing large-scale single cell studies, having leveraged its QuantumScale technology in its “100 Million Cell Challenge,” supported by CZI, Ultima Genomics, NVIDIA, and BioTuring, which helped lay important groundwork for the broader Billion Cells Project. The integration of Scale Bio’s technology with the Billion Cells Project will further accelerate the generation of high-quality, diverse cellular data to fuel advances in biological understanding.

“At Scale Bio, we are focused on accelerating scientific progress through the power of scale to improve human health. For too long, technological limitations have constrained what’s possible in single cell research,” said Giovanna Prout, President and CEO at Scale Bio. “With our QuantumScale and ScalePlex technologies, we’ve reimagined single cell analysis to drive unprecedented scalability, enabling researchers to conduct experiments previously considered infeasible, overly cumbersome, or too expensive. We are proud to collaborate again with CZI and participating researchers on the Billion Cells Project to push the boundaries of single cell omics, helping to generate data across diverse biological models at the scale needed to power new discoveries and develop impactful AI models. We’re excited to see our technologies contribute to such a monumental initiative.”

“Scale Bio will be a valuable partner to help us achieve our grand scientific challenge of building an AI-based virtual cell model to predict and understand cellular behavior,” said Jonah Cool, PhD, Senior Science Program Officer for Cell Science at CZI. “This collaboration will allow researchers to answer specific biological questions about cells and derive high-quality data with unprecedented scale and accessibility. We hope this partnership with Scale Bio is just the beginning of how innovative technologies can remove barriers to data generation, enabling researchers to build more comprehensive AI models that could provide insights into health and disease.”

Scale Bio’s QuantumScale Single Cell RNA kits, which were made available early to 100 Million Cell Challenge winners, are now commercially available in five configurations to academic and commercial customers around the world. The technology is a dramatic improvement over existing solutions, as it can capture and process up to 4 million cells in one short workflow without specialized partitioning instrumentation. Additionally, leveraging ScalePlex technology, researchers can multiplex up to 9,216 samples or conditions per run, making it uniquely suited for large-scale projects.

“With support from CZI and in partnership with interlocking efforts across HuBMAP and the Human Cell Atlas, we’re working to build a comprehensive cellular map of diseases that affect the inhalation interface—from the oral cavity through the upper airway and into the lung,” said Kevin Matthew Byrd, DDS, PhD, Researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University and recipient of a 100 Million Cell Challenge grant. “Chronic conditions like sarcoidosis and Sjögren’s disease impact this entire cul-de-sac of breathing. Scale Bio’s QuantumScale technology allows us to map millions of cells across these connected niches, uncovering shared mechanisms and opening the door to new diagnostic and therapeutic insights.”

Large-scale single cell analysis projects, such as the CZI Billion Cells Project, are critical to building a comprehensive understanding of cellular diversity. These initiatives accelerate understanding of cellular behavior and gene function while fueling the development of AI models that reflect diverse biology. Once completed, this single cell dataset will bring critical new data and resolution to multiple domains of biology that need comprehensive resources, enabling researchers to train AI models and make transformative discoveries across precision medicine and functional genomics.

SAMBAI, a team funded through the Cancer Grand Challenges initiative, reported that Akoya Biosciences’ PhenoCycler®-Fusion system will be the foundational spatial proteomics technology used to generate data for a biobank and data repository for cancer equity research.

SAMBAI, which stands for “Societal, Ancestry, Molecular and Biological Analyses of Inequalities,” explained that the objective is to understand the mechanisms and contributions of genetics, biology, environmental, and social determinants to cancer risk and outcomes in diverse populations, and to provide foundational knowledge for developing novel approaches to reduce cancer inequities.

SAMBAI will receive up to $25 million from Cancer Grand Challenges to develop the project and focus on assessing disparate cancer outcomes in 40,000 individuals of African descent from Africa, the U.K., and the U.S., and include proteomics, transcriptomics, and other data types.

Teams from Johns Hopkins University, Nottingham University, Glasgow University, and King’s College London will run thousands of samples on the PhenoCycler-Fusion system using panels designed to study breast, pancreatic, and prostate cancers. These three cancers have a disproportionately higher rate of aggressive tumor grade and early onset in the target population.

“We are excited that the PhenoCycler-Fusion is the spatial proteomics technology of choice for analyzing thousands of patient samples as part of this important initiative,” said Brian McKelligon, CEO of Akoya Biosciences. “A study of this size demands the high plex and high throughput of our solutions to generate data at the scale needed. We are honored to play a role in defining the factors that influence disparate outcomes in underserved populations.”

Akoya’s technology is well suited to assess the effect of environmental and societal factors on biology at the molecular level and on the development of cancer at the scale required for this project, according to Melissa Davis, PhD, director of the Institute of Translational Genomic Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and leader of team SAMBAI.

“For the first time in a large population, we plan to bring all of these factors together to understand their interconnectedness and contribution to disparities in health outcomes,” she explained.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most prevalent type of pancreatic cancer, characterized as a highly lethal malignancy that is often preceded by precancerous lesions. These lesions are relatively common, but only a small portion will progress to PDAC.

In a new study published in Cancer Research titled, “FGFR2 Abrogation Intercepts Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Development,” researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have identified a new mechanism to delay KRAS-mutated PDAC development in mice. While KRAS mutations are one of the most common oncogenes, standard targeted therapies leveraging KRAS inhibitors have seen limited success.

Led by David Tuveson, PhD, the Roy J. Zuckerberg professor of cancer research and cancer center director at CSHL, the research team analyzed murine and human pancreatic tissue specimens, and found that fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) expression, a protein that plays a crucial role in cell growth, differentiation, and bone development, was higher in KRAS-mutated precancerous lesions and some KRAS-mutated PDAC, compared with normal tissue. Notably, FGFR2 expression in murine precancerous lesions correlated with an increase in mutant KRAS signaling.

Results showed that FGFR2 gene deletion led to significantly fewer precancerous lesions and delayed PDAC tumor formation compared with mice with an intact FGFR2 gene. In addition, the combined inhibition of FGFR2 and another signaling protein, EGFR, significantly reduced the formation of precancerous lesions in mice carrying mutated KRAS.

“We know that precancerous pancreatic lesions often carry KRAS mutations,” said Claudia Tonelli, PhD, lead author of the study and research investigator at CSHL. “Our observation that FGFR2 expression was associated with increased KRAS signaling suggests that FGFR2 may play a key role in driving the progression of KRAS-mutated precancerous lesions to malignancy,” said Tonelli.

Tonelli also noted that while mutations in the KRAS protein are known to drive pancreatic cancer, they do not appear to be sufficient to promote the transition from precancerous lesions to cancer.  

“Understanding the additional pathways that promote progression from a precancerous pancreatic lesion to a malignant tumor could help identify more viable treatment strategies as well as cancer interception approaches to stop PDAC from developing in the first place,” Tonelli said. 

The findings suggest that targeting FGFR2 could potentially benefit patients at high risk of their precancerous lesions progressing to PDAC. While FGFR inhibitors are clinically available, Tonelli cautioned that their effectiveness in intercepting PDAC would first need to be tested in clinical trials before they could be used for this purpose. 

“Our study provides critical insights into pancreatic cancer development and could guide the development of strategies for the interception and prevention of pancreatic malignancies,” she said. 

Additional projects in Tuveson’s cancer research lab explore changes in redox metabolism associated with pancreatic cancer tumorigenesis, dissect signaling by the Ras oncogene, discover new biomarkers of early pancreas cancer, and identify mechanisms of crosstalk between pancreatic cancer cells and the tumor stroma. 

To dissect molecular changes associated with pancreatic tumorigenesis, the Tuveson lab has generated a large collection of human patient-derived organoid models. By measuring the therapeutic sensitivities of patient-derived organoids, the lab is working to identify novel strategies to treat patients as well as markers of therapeutic response. 

Officials at the Access for All in ALS (ALL ALS) Consortium say they have launched its official website, creating a central hub for information about its initiatives and clinical research studies. ALL-ALS.org is designed to inform and engage researchers, clinicians, and current and prospective study participants.

The ALL ALS Consortium, formed in fall 2023 with funding from the NIH, consists of 35 clinical sites in the United States and Puerto Rico, and is led by researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The consortium has designed and initiated two research protocols, according to Robert Bowser, PhD, CSO and the Betty Van Denburgh Chair of Neuromuscular Disease at Barrow.

ASSESS ALL ALS is for people living with the disease and healthy people who will act as comparators. PREVENT ALL ALS is for people who may be at genetic risk for ALS but do not have any symptoms of the disease. The first study participant was enrolled in July 2024, and since that time, the consortium has recruited over 300 participants across the ASSESS and PREVENT studies.

“We are incredibly excited to hit the exciting milestone of 300 participants enrolled, and we look forward to reaching our next big milestone of 1,000 participants by fall 2025,” said Bowser.

The consortium aims to disrupt the traditional research landscape for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by making its data and samples available to researchers around the world, through both a web-based portal and a central biorepository. These open science practices will help pave the way for transformative discoveries in the field, bringing hope to the ALS community, added Bowser.

Clinical, genomics, and biomarker data

The consortium will collect and publish clinical, genomic, and biomarker data and samples through the PREVENT and ASSESS studies. This will help researchers everywhere investigate the causes of ALS onset, progression, prognosis, and response to therapies, believes James D. Berry, MD, the chief of the division of motor neuron diseases and director of the Neurological Clinical Research Institute at Mass General Hospital.

“The size and scope of ALL ALS, the speed of enrollment, and its geographic reach from across the United States make ALL ALS special,” noted Berry. “And it comes at just the right time. The big data generated by ALL ALS prepares us to leverage new AI models to gain radical new insights into the disease.”

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurological disease that causes the degeneration of motor neurons resulting in progressive weakness. ALS has no cure, yet. It is estimated that more than 30,000 Americans may be living with ALS at any given time.

“Time is of the essence for people living with ALS and those who may be at genetic risk of developing the disease. We are working to discover new drug targets and approaches to quickly identify more effective treatments,” pointed out Berry and Bowser. “It’s our hope the All ALS Consortium will lead us to groundbreaking ALS discoveries, treatments, and even prevention strategies.”

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based drug developer Isomorphic Labs said it has raised $600 million in its first external funding round, with the proceeds expected to accelerate its research and development efforts and advance its next-generation AI drug design engine.

As a result, Isomorphic Labs said, it expects to expand its staff, adding top-tier talent as part of its next phase of growth.

“This funding will further turbocharge the development of our next-generation AI drug design engine, help us advance our own programs into clinical development, and is a significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI,” Isomorphic Labs founder and CEO, Sir Demis Hassabis, PhD, said in a statement.

Speaking with The New York Times, Hassabis added: “This is the No. 1 most beneficial application of AI out there.”

Isomorphic Labs was founded to develop treatments for millions of patients worldwide by applying AI toward reimagining and accelerating drug discovery. Its scientific advisory board includes notables such as Nobel laureate and CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, PhD, and Sir Menelas (Mene) Pangalos, PhD, a former executive vice president at AstraZeneca.

Isomorphic Labs says it is advancing drug design programs across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities. These include oncology and immunology, the primary focuses of Isomorphic Labs’ internal programs. The company’s drug discovery portfolio also includes small molecule programs being developed through collaborations with Eli Lilly ($45 million upfront, up to $1.7 billion in milestones, plus royalties to develop “multiple” targets) and Novartis ($37.5 million upfront, up to $1.2 billion in milestones, plus royalties to develop three targets).

Last month, Novartis and Isomorphic Labs agreed to add three additional programs to their collaboration, on the same financial terms as the original agreement.

“We’ve built a multi-disciplinary drug design team including medicinal chemists, computational chemists, and biologists, working alongside machine learning researchers, machine learning engineers, and software developers,” Pascal Savy, PhD, a research leader in Isomorphic Labs’ Drug Design and Medical Research (DDMR) team, wrote on the company’s blog July 30, 2024.

Sharing knowledge, building models

“Our culture places great emphasis on knowledge sharing between disciplines, fostering a culture of cross-pollination of ideas. We also believe that in order to answer some of the most challenging questions about disease treatment and human health, we have to build a range of predictive and generative models that can support the work of our scientists across multiple expertise,” Savy added.

Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica.

In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show.

A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.”

But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines:

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.”

ProPublica shared the new CDC statement about personal choice and risk with Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. To her, the shift in messaging, and the squelching of this routine announcement, is alarming.

“I’m a bit stunned by that language,” Nuzzo said. “No vaccine is without risk, but that makes it sound like it’s a very active coin toss of a decision. We’ve already had more cases of measles in 2025 than we had in 2024, and it’s spread to multiple states. It is not a coin toss at this point.”

For many years, the CDC hasn’t minced words on vaccines. It promoted them with confidence. One campaign was called “Get My Flu Shot.” The agency’s website told medical providers they play a critical role in helping parents choose vaccines for their children: “Instead of saying ‘What do you want to do about shots?,’ say ‘Your child needs three shots today.’”

Nuzzo wishes the CDC’s forecasters would put out more details of their data and evidence on the spread of measles, not less. “The growing scale and severity of this measles outbreak and the urgent need for more data to guide the response underscores why we need a fully staffed and functional CDC and more resources for state and local health departments,” she said.

Kennedy’s agency oversees the CDC and on Thursday announced it was poised to eliminate 2,400 jobs there.

When asked what role, if any, Kennedy played in the decision to not release the risk assessment, HHS’ communications director said the aborted announcement “was part of an ongoing process to improve communication processes — nothing more, nothing less.” The CDC, he reiterated, continues to recommend vaccination “as the best way to protect against measles.”

“Secretary Kennedy believes that the decision to vaccinate is a personal one and that people should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine,” Andrew G. Nixon said. “It is important that the American people have radical transparency and be informed to make personal healthcare decisions.”

Responding to questions about criticism of the decision among some CDC staff, Nixon wrote, “Some individuals at the CDC seem more interested in protecting their own status or agenda rather than aligning with this Administration and the true mission of public health.”

The CDC’s risk assessment was carried out by its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which relied, in part, on new disease data from the outbreak in Texas. The CDC created the center to address a major shortcoming laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic. It functions like a National Weather Service for infectious diseases, harnessing data and expertise to predict the course of outbreaks like a meteorologist warns of storms.

Other risk assessments by the center have been posted by the CDC even though their conclusions might seem obvious.

In late February, for example, forecasters analyzing the spread of H5N1 bird flu said people who come “in contact with potentially infected animals or contaminated surfaces or fluids” faced a moderate to high risk of contracting the disease. The risk to the general U.S. population, they said, was low.

In the case of the measles assessment, modelers at the center determined the risk of the disease for the general public in the U.S. is low, but they found the risk is high in communities with low vaccination rates that are near outbreaks or share close social ties to those areas with outbreaks. The CDC had moderate confidence in the assessment, according to an internal Q&A that explained the findings. The agency, it said, lacks detailed data about the onset of the illness for all patients in West Texas and is still learning about the vaccination rates in affected communities as well as travel and social contact among those infected. (The H5N1 assessment was also made with moderate confidence.)

The internal plan to roll out the news of the forecast called for the expert physician who’s leading the CDC’s response to measles to be the chief spokesperson answering questions. “It is important to note that at local levels, vaccine coverage rates may vary considerably, and pockets of unvaccinated people can exist even in areas with high vaccination coverage overall,” the plan said. “The best way to protect against measles is to get the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”

This week, though, as the number of confirmed cases rose to 483, more than 30 agency staff were told in an email that after a discussion in the CDC director’s office, “leadership does not want to pursue putting this on the website.”

The cancellation was “not normal at all,” said a CDC staff member who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal with layoffs looming. “I’ve never seen a rollout plan that was canceled at that far along in the process.”

Anxiety among CDC staff has been building over whether the agency will bend its public health messages to match those of Kennedy, a lawyer who founded an anti-vaccine group and referred clients to a law firm suing a vaccine manufacturer.

During Kennedy’s first week on the job, HHS halted the CDC campaign that encouraged people to get flu shots during a ferocious flu season. On the night that the Trump administration began firing probationary employees across the federal government, some key CDC flu webpages were taken down. Remnants of some of the campaign webpages were restored after NPR reported this.

But some at the agency felt like the new leadership had sent a message loud and clear: When next to nobody was paying attention, long-standing public health messages could be silenced.

On the day in February that the world learned that an unvaccinated child had died of measles in Texas, the first such death in the U.S. since 2015, the HHS secretary downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak. “We have measles outbreaks every year,” he said at a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.

In an interview on Fox News this month, Kennedy championed doctors in Texas who he said were treating measles with a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil, a supplement that is high in vitamin A. “They’re seeing what they describe as almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery from that,” Kennedy said.

As parents near the outbreak in Texas stocked up on vitamin A supplements, doctors there raced to assure parents that only vaccination, not the vitamin, can prevent measles.

Still, the CDC added an entry on Vitamin A to its measles website for clinicians.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that several hospitalized children in Lubbock, Texas, had abnormal liver function, a likely sign of toxicity from too much vitamin A.

Texas health officials also said that the Trump administration’s decision to rescind $11 billion in pandemic-related grants across the country will hinder their ability to respond to the growing outbreak, according to The Texas Tribune.

Measles is among the most contagious diseases and can be dangerous. About 20% of unvaccinated people who get measles wind up in the hospital. And nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications. The virus can linger in the air for two hours after an infected person has left an area, and patients can spread measles before they even know they have it.

This week Amtrak said it was notifying customers that they may have been exposed to the disease this month when a passenger with measles rode one of its trains from New York City to Washington, D.C.