Experimental models of disease articles from across Nature Portfolio

An intermittent fasting diet regime mitigates retinal cell damage and preserves visual function in a mouse model of age-related macular degeneration.

Scoliosis is a common yet poorly understood pediatric disorder. Using zebrafish disease models, Pumputis et al. identify pervasive cell stress responses as causing spine deformity and present possibilities for new therapies and diagnostic tools.

This commentary discusses health data challenges in Africa, focusing on digitization, standardization, and harmonization as key solutions. It highlights how addressing these foundational issues can enable AI and data science to transform healthcare systems across the continent.

Jeffrey Friedman recalls the heady excitement when his group discovered leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite.

VEXAS (vacuoles, E1 enzyme, X-linked, autoinflammatory, somatic) syndrome is caused by somatic mutations in UBA1 arising in hematopoietic stem cells, resulting in systemic autoinflammation and clonal outgrowth of these mutant cells. New research provides insights into the paradoxical mechanism behind this clonal hematopoietic dominance.

Age-associated thymic involution causes a reduction in the de novo production of T cells, which results in limited self-protective immunity and an elevated risk of autoimmunity. Two studies have now identified that the peptide hormone FGF21 acts on thymic epithelial cells to delay age-associated thymic involution and T cell imbalance.