Health
International effort seeks new treatments for pediatric heart disease
Australia’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is helping scientists use stem cell medicine and artificial intelligence to develop precision therapies for pediatric heart disease, the leading cause of death and disability in children.
Around 260,000 children die from heart disease around the world each year. In the U.S., a child is born with a heart defect every 15 minutes.
“We’re really interested in understanding how kids develop heart disease and where we can interfere to stop it progressing,” Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) Heart Disease Group Leader David Elliott said.
Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the mother of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, helped found Australia’s MCRI. The institute is partnering with Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco for the Decoding Broken Hearts Program.
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Amelia and Elijah Mallinson are two kids who could benefit from this research. The siblings live in Melbourne and have the same genetic heart condition.
“We took her to our local emergency because she woke up, she was swollen,” Amelia and Elijah’s mother, Ebony Mallison, said. “We thought she was just sleepy, but turns out she was in and out of consciousness.”
Amelia was two years old when doctors discovered her condition.
Ebony Mallison, center, sits with her two children, Amelia and Elijah, who are living with the same genetic heart condition. Both of their cases are enrolled in the Decoding Broken Hearts program. (Fox News)
“After they’d done a chest X-ray, they realized that her heart was a lot larger than it should have been, and they realized she was in heart failure,” Mallison said.
Amelia waited almost a year for a heart transplant. After successful treatment, she lives a mostly normal life. Her brother Elijah’s condition was discovered during a precautionary checkup.
“It was quite a shock because we weren’t aware of anything that would cause him to also have a heart condition. It was very much a let’s get him checked just to completely rule out that there’s nothing wrong,” Mallison said. “I feel like that was kind of more scary because we could anticipate the bad. But he’s been really stable and really healthy so far, hasn’t really needed any treatment or therapies yet, which is great.”
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Elliott said the goal is to find diagnoses and treatments before kids like Elijah ever need a transplant.
Heart Disease Group Leader David Elliott at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute examines an image of a heart on his monitor. (Fox News)
“For many, the disease would be absolutely critical if you could correct the problem in-utero,” said Elliott. “Those who have very severe heart disease will need three surgeries before they’re five. And it’s very draining for the families involved. And so, what we really like to do is really progress that and allow those children a much more effective life.”
MCRI is part of the Royal Children’s Hospital, which treats around 700 heart conditions each year. Every case is enrolled in the Decoding Broken Hearts program.
“We can use a special technology called reprogramming. So we take a small sample of this child’s blood,” Elliott said. “From that, we can create a heart cell. And in that heart cell is an exact replica up here in the laboratory of the child’s heart cell.”
Researchers then create additional small heart replicas to alter the function and find possible treatments for the patients at Royal Children’s.
Scientists use patients’ blood samples to create small heart replicas to study, aided by artificial intelligence. (Fox News)
“We’re trying to use all of those different tools and technologies to understand how the disease develops and where we can look for new therapies using precision medicine to help kids with heart disease,” Elliott said.
One of the newest tools with the help of Gladstone Institutes is artificial intelligence.
“Gladstone brings the expertise and the computational know-how that’s built up around the Bay area to use AI to study the disease,” Elliott said. “What AI allows us to do is millions and millions of experiments in the computer before we bring them into the cell, and that really allows us to target in and look at the ideal spot to interfere, to help cure disease.”
Amelia and Elijah have also participated in studies to further advance treatments for conditions like theirs.
“If it even helps one family, it’s worth it,” Mallinson said. “Every staff member that you come in contact with at the hospital and doing research, they all make a huge difference in the lives of the kids and everyone in the families of these kids.”
If you would like to donate or learn more about the Decoding Broken Hearts Program you can visit go.fox/MCRI.
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As colorectal cancer (CRC) is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50, a new report reveals some surprising shifts in the incidence of the disease.
Although rates of CRC have been declining among seniors, those 65 and under are facing a rise in diagnoses, according to a report titled Colorectal Cancer Statistics, 2026, from the American Cancer Society.
Adults 65 and younger comprise nearly half (45%) of all new colorectal cancer cases — a significant increase from 27% in 1995, states the report, which was published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
The disease is rising fastest among adults 20 to 49 years old, at a rate of 3% per year.
Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50. (iStock)
Among adults 50 and under, 75% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Half of the diagnoses in that age range are made between the ages of 45 and 49. Although that age group is eligible to receive routine screenings, just 37% do so.
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The report also revealed that rectal cancer is on the rise, now accounting for about one-third (32%) of all CRC cases — an increase from 27% in the mid-2000s.
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“After decades of progress, the risk of dying from colorectal cancer is climbing in younger generations of men and women, confirming a real uptick in disease because of something we’re doing or some other exposure,” said Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director, surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report, in a press release.
Among adults 50 and under, 75% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Half of the diagnoses in that age range are made between the ages of 45 and 49. (iStock)
“We need to redouble research efforts to understand the cause, but also circumvent deaths through earlier detection by educating clinicians and the general public about symptoms and increasing screening in people 45-54 years.”
It is projected that 158,850 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed this year, and that the disease will cause 55,230 deaths, per the report.
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More than half of CRC cases can be linked to high-risk behaviors, the researchers said. Those include lack of nutrition, high alcohol consumption, smoking, lack of exercise and obesity.
“These findings further underscore that colorectal cancer is worsening among younger generations and highlight the immediate need for eligible adults to begin screening at the recommended age of 45,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society.
When the disease is caught at a local (early) stage, the five-year survival rate is 95%. (iStock)
“The report also shines a light on the crucial importance of continued funding for research to help discover new therapies to treat the disease and advance patient care.”
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When the disease is caught at a local (early) stage, the five-year survival rate is 95%, the report stated.
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A new study suggests that middle-aged men may be more vulnerable to faster biological aging, potentially linked to exposure to “forever chemicals.”
The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Aging, examined how perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as PFAS, could impact aging at the cellular level.
PFAS are synthetic chemicals commonly used in nonstick cookware, food packaging, water-resistant fabrics and other consumer products, the study noted.
Their chemical structure makes them highly resistant to breaking down, allowing them to accumulate in water, soil and the human body.
Chinese researchers analyzed blood samples from 326 adults enrolled in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2000.
A new study suggests that middle-aged men could face accelerated biological aging at the cellular level due to exposure to PFAS. (iStock)
The researchers measured levels of 11 PFAS compounds in participants’ blood and used DNA-based “epigenetic clocks” — tools that analyze chemical changes to DNA to estimate biological age — to determine how quickly their bodies were aging at the cellular level, the study stated.
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Two compounds, perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), were detected in 95% of participants.
Higher concentrations of those chemicals were associated with faster biological aging in men of certain age groups, but not in women.
“People should not panic.”
The compounds most strongly linked to accelerated aging were not the PFAS chemicals that typically receive the most public attention, the researchers noted.
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“The associations were strongest in adults aged 50 to 64, particularly in men,” Dr. Xiangwei Li, professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and the study’s corresponding author, told Fox News Digital.
“While this does not establish that PFAS cause aging, it suggests that these widely present ‘forever chemicals’ may be linked to molecular changes related to long-term health and aging.”
The study found that two of the compounds were detected in 95% of participants, and higher levels were linked to faster biological aging in men ages 50–64. (iStock)
Midlife may represent a more sensitive biological period, when the body becomes more vulnerable to age-related stressors, according to the researchers.
Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, may influence biological aging markers, potentially increasing vulnerability to environmental pollutants.
While Li said “people should not panic,” she does recommend looking for reasonable ways to reduce exposure.
That might mean checking local drinking water reports, using certified water filters designed to reduce PFAS, and limiting the use of stain- or grease-resistant products when alternatives are available.
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Meaningful reductions in PFAS exposure will likely depend on broader regulatory action and environmental cleanup efforts, Li added.
The researchers noted that midlife could be a particularly sensitive stage, when the body is more susceptible to stressors associated with aging. (iStock)
Study limitations
The researchers outlined several important limitations of the research, including that the findings show an association, but do not prove that PFAS directly causes accelerated aging.
“The study is cross-sectional, meaning exposure and aging markers were measured at the same time, so we cannot determine causality,” Li told Fox News Digital.
The study was also relatively small, limited to 326 adults age 50 or older, which means the findings may not apply to younger people or broader populations.
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Researchers measured PFAS levels using data collected between 1999 and 2000, and today’s exposure patterns may differ.
Li added that while PFAS is known to persist in the environment and the body, these results should be validated through larger, more recent studies that follow participants over time.
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