Stanford Medicine

Academic medical center where the gerozyme research originated. - Research institution behind the discovery

Since 1743, when surgeon William Hunter declared that damaged cartilage 'is never recovered,' medicine has accepted this as biological fact. Nearly 300 years later, Stanford researchers have demonstrated something different: an injectable drug that blocks a single protein can regrow cartilage in aging mice—and in human tissue samples taken from knee replacement patients.

Updated Feb 17

Stanford researchers discovered the vaccine may slow dementia progression in already-diagnosed patients. - Investigating vaccine effects on dementia progression

A shingles vaccine is showing up in dataset after dataset as a dementia preventer. Oxford researchers published results in Nature Medicine in July 2024 showing Shingrix—the recombinant shingles vaccine—cuts dementia risk by 17-20% compared to unvaccinated people. Stanford followed with a Cell study in December 2024 showing it might even slow progression in people already diagnosed, cutting dementia death risk by 29.5 percentage points. Then in April 2025, Geldsetzer's team published in Nature showing causal evidence from a natural experiment in Wales. By July 2025, GSK was presenting data at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference showing risk reductions as high as 51% in Southern California populations.

Updated Feb 2

Stanford Medicine combines one of the world's top medical schools with cutting-edge AI research infrastructure. - Leading AI medical research institution

Stanford researchers trained an AI on 600,000 hours of people sleeping. SleepFM analyzes brain waves, heartbeats, and breathing from a single night and predicts your risk for 130 diseases—dementia, heart attacks, cancer, mental disorders—with over 80% accuracy. The breakthrough turns sleep studies into full-body diagnostic scans.

Updated Jan 12

Stanford's Department of Ophthalmology developed the photovoltaic retinal prosthesis technology underlying PRIMA. - Developed PRIMA technology, co-led clinical trials

Stanford researchers implanted a chip smaller than a Tic Tac under the retinas of 38 blind patients. A year later, 27 could read again. Some read entire books. The PRIMA device, published October 20, 2025 in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first prosthetic to restore functional vision to people with macular degeneration—the leading cause of irreversible blindness.

Updated Jan 9