New approaches to dementia, faster STI testing, AI-powered drug discovery, and next-generation vaccines are among the developments making waves across health and medical research.
From understanding why people with dementia become lost to using artificial intelligence to uncover new uses for existing drugs, researchers are tackling some of health care’s most persistent challenges from very different angles.
This week’s developments also include rapid STI testing that could deliver results within a single consultation, proposed lower limits for vitamin B6, a national push to identify gaps in autism supports, and modelling showing new tuberculosis vaccines could save millions of lives.
When dementia leads to getting lost
Researchers are investigating what happens when people with dementia become lost, in a bid to make these events less traumatic for patients and their families.
The CQUniversity team is recruiting people living with dementia who have previously become lost, along with carers and loved ones, to piece together what happens before, during, and after an incident.
The study will focus particularly on rural, regional, and remote Australia, where distance, difficult terrain, and limited services can add extra layers of complexity when a person goes missing.
Research lead Dr Steven Schwartz said the project aimed to identify factors that contributed to people becoming lost, as well as what helped or hindered their eventual recovery.
“Becoming lost can be a distressing experience for the person living with dementia, and it can also have a profound impact on the people around them,” he said.
“We want to hear directly from people who have experienced this, as well as their care partners and loved ones, to understand what was happening before, during and after the person became lost.”
Importantly, the researchers want to hear directly from people living with dementia rather than relying solely on accounts from carers and families.
Participants with dementia will take part in a 45- to 60-minute interview, either by videoconference or in person where possible, and can have a care partner or loved one with them.
Carers and significant others are being asked to complete an online survey, with the option of a follow-up telephone or video interview.
Dr Schwartz, who is based in Cairns, has previously researched lost-person behaviour in Australian wilderness settings. His PhD identified six distinct phases of becoming lost, extending from the period before the event through to recovery.
The latest project will use that framework to examine the experiences of people with dementia and the people involved in finding them.
“There is a lot we can learn from research and statistics, but there is no substitute for hearing from the people who have actually lived through these experiences,” Dr Schwartz said.
“We want to understand what being lost meant for the person with dementia, what their loved ones experienced, what helped, what made things more difficult and what might have made a difference.”
The multidisciplinary research team includes expertise in dementia and ageing, occupational therapy, nursing, rural health, health equity, digital health, and artificial intelligence.
The researchers hope the findings will ultimately inform better responses when a person with dementia becomes lost, including potential technological approaches to supporting people living with dementia in rural and remote communities.
People living with dementia who have previously become lost can contact Dr Schwartz at s.schwartz@cqu.edu.au to participate. Carers and significant others can take part through CQUniversity’s online survey.
Rapid STI test promises results within a consult
Australians could receive results for chlamydia and gonorrhoea during a single consultation under a rapid point-of-care testing model demonstrated in Melbourne this week.
Stigma Health and Roche Diagnostics Australia showcased a rapid PCR system that can detect both infections from a single sample, with results available in about 20 minutes.
The companies said the Australian-first demonstration could offer an alternative to conventional testing pathways in which samples are sent to a laboratory and patients wait for results.
The approach could eventually allow STI testing to be offered in a broader range of locations, including clinics, community settings, pop-ups, events, and festivals.
It came amid persistently high rates of sexually transmitted infections in Australia.
Gonorrhoea diagnoses have doubled over the past decade, according to figures cited by the companies, while chlamydia remained Australia’s most commonly diagnosed STI.
There were 101,742 chlamydia diagnoses in 2024, with about half occurring among people aged 20 to 29 years.
Despite the burden of infection, just 16% of Australians aged 16 to 49 report having ever had an STI test, according to figures provided by Stigma Health.
Stigma Health founder and CEO James Sneddon said faster testing could help reduce some of the practical barriers to screening and treatment.
“Rapid STI testing means we can take this beyond traditional settings and bring it closer to the people who need it,” he said.
“Faster answers can mean earlier treatment, fewer people lost to follow-up and less opportunity for an infection to be passed on.”
Point-of-care testing could potentially address one of the weaknesses of conventional STI testing pathways: the gap between a patient providing a sample, receiving their result, and returning for treatment.
But its wider role in Australia would depend on factors including how the technology was implemented, its performance in real-world settings, cost, and how it fitted within existing sexual health and primary care services.
Roche Diagnostics Australia managing director Anand Vairavan said shortening the time between testing and results could make the process more straightforward for patients and clinicians.
“Too many people avoid or delay STI testing because it can feel inconvenient, uncomfortable or stigmatising,” he said.
“When reliable results are available in 20 minutes, testing can become part of a single, straightforward visit, giving people clarity sooner and helping clinicians act earlier.”
The testing model was demonstrated at the 2026 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference and Australasian Sexual and Reproductive Health Conference held at Pullman Melbourne Albert Park from 14 to 17 September.
B6 limits face the chop
Australia’s recommended upper limits for vitamin B6 are tipped to fall amid concerns that supplements containing the vitamin can cause peripheral neuropathy at lower doses than previously thought.
The NHMRC is currently taking submissions on its updated draft Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs) for vitamin B6, proposing lower upper intake levels for adults, children, and adolescents.
The review comes 20 years after the vitamin B6 NRVs were last examined and follows growing concern about people developing peripheral neuropathy after taking supplements containing the vitamin.
“Since that time, concerns have been raised over people developing a nerve condition (peripheral neuropathy) from taking too much vitamin B6 through supplements,” the council said in a statement.
“Rules are changing about warning labels needed for supplements containing higher levels of vitamin B6 and where they can be sold.
“Also, some international NRVs for vitamin B6 have been recently updated, lowering the level of vitamin B6 intake considered safe.
“This highlights the need to reassess the adequacy of existing Upper Level (UL) recommendations for vitamin B6 for Australia and New Zealand.”
While vitamin B6 occurs naturally in many foods, excessive intake is generally associated with supplements rather than diet.
The NHMRC said the main proposed change was a reduction in the tolerable upper intake level, or UL, across all age groups covered by the review.
Recommendations for nutritional adequacy – including the estimated average requirement, recommended dietary intake, and adequate intake – remain unchanged.
The review covers adults, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as children and adolescents. Infant recommendations have not been reviewed and will be considered separately.
The NHMRC said vitamin B6 deficiency was rare but could cause skin problems, anaemia, seizures, and problems with mood, memory and cognition.
Vitamin B6 plays a role in nutrient metabolism, brain and nervous system function, red blood cell production, and normal immune function.
The existing Australian and New Zealand recommendations were last reviewed in 2006, but the safety of higher vitamin B6 intakes has attracted increasing scrutiny internationally.
The NHMRC said some overseas bodies had recently lowered the amount considered safe, while Australian rules around warning labels and the sale of supplements containing higher amounts of vitamin B6 were also changing.
For the latest review, the NHMRC used an “adapt/adopt” approach based on the European Food Safety Authority’s 2023 recommendations.
It commissioned an evidence review examining whether the European recommendations were appropriate for Australia and New Zealand, alongside newer studies, local population data, and advice from other international bodies.
An expert working group spanning nutrition, toxicology, pharmacology, neurology, general practice, pregnancy, and maternal and child health advised on the review. It also included lived-experience expertise in vitamin B6 toxicity.
The draft also introduces additional age categories for children and adolescents to better align the recommendations with school levels and national survey reporting, while retaining existing age categories for international consistency and regulatory purposes.
Adult age categories would also be adjusted slightly to align with Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting.
The NHMRC stressed that its NRVs were health guidelines rather than regulatory limits.
However, they could inform regulatory decisions by bodies including the TGA and Food Standards Australia New Zealand on permitted nutrient levels in supplements and foods.
The consultation is seeking feedback on whether the revised guidance has considered the relevant evidence and whether the recommendations are practical and implementable.
Submissions close on 30 September. For more information, or to make a submission, see here.
AI finds new use for old drugs
Artificial intelligence has identified nine existing drugs that can inhibit Streptococcus pneumoniae, including a potent candidate active against drug-resistant strains.
The findings offer another sign that AI-assisted drug repurposing could help accelerate the search for treatments as antimicrobial resistance erodes the effectiveness of existing antibiotics.
Published in Advanced Sciencethe study used three different types of AI models to screen almost 7000 drugs for potential activity against S. pneumoniae, a major cause of pneumonia, meningitis, and other serious infections.
The bacterium is among the pathogens of concern for antimicrobial resistance, with the emergence of resistant strains making some infections increasingly difficult to treat.
Rather than attempting to discover new antibiotics from scratch, the researchers focused on drug repurposing – identifying medicines already developed or approved for one purpose that could potentially be used for another.
The approach can shorten development timelines because information about the drugs’ safety and pharmacology may already be available.
Researchers trained three different machine-learning approaches using molecules known to be active against S. pneumoniae, alongside a larger dataset of compounds inactive against another drug-resistant bacterium.
The models included ensembles of decision trees, graph neural networks, and sequence-based transformers that had previously been pretrained using hundreds of millions of molecules.
The three approaches were then used to assess almost 7000 candidate drugs, from which 11 were selected for laboratory testing.
Nine of the 11 compounds inhibited S. pneumoniae growth, while one of the two most potent repurposing candidates also worked against drug-resistant strains.
The researchers said using several substantially different AI approaches appeared to improve candidate selection because the models complemented one another rather than simply identifying the same compounds.
Senior author Associate Professor Pedro J Ballester, from Imperial College London, said AI-guided drug repurposing was emerging as a useful strategy against antimicrobial resistance.
“AI-guided drug repurposing has become a powerful strategy for combating antimicrobial resistance, particularly for pathogens for which some active molecules are already known and can be leveraged as a training or fine-tuning dataset,” he said.
Related
The results remain an early step in drug development. Laboratory activity against a bacterium does not establish that a medicine will be safe or effective for treating infections in people, and promising candidates would require further preclinical and clinical investigation.
But the high hit rate among the compounds selected for experimental testing suggests AI could provide a more targeted way of searching large drug libraries for overlooked antimicrobial activity.
With antimicrobial resistance driving an urgent need for new treatment options, the researchers said computational repurposing could provide a faster and less expensive route for identifying candidates worth taking into further testing.
Autism survey targets support gaps
Parents and carers of autistic people are being asked about where the country’s support system is falling short, as researchers launch a national survey aimed at shaping future services and policy.
The 2026 National Autism Parent and Caregiver Survey is seeking responses from 1000 parents, family members, and other caregivers of autistic children and adults across Australia.
The survey, launched by the Autism Association of Australia and CliniKids at The Kids Research Institute Australia, will examine what is working for families, where they encounter gaps, and what they need from the support system.
The online survey takes around 30 minutes to complete and will remain open until 5 October.
The initiative comes as the number of Australians identified as autistic continues to rise. According to the latest ABS figures cited by the researchers, an estimated 290,900 Australians are autistic, an increase of 41.8% since 2018, with 84% requiring assistance with at least one everyday activity.
Autism Association of Australia CEO Nicole Rogerson said families continued to report difficulty navigating fragmented services.
“Families must be at the centre of the system, not left to navigate it alone,” she said.
“We have been listening to families for more than 18 years, and they keep telling us the same thing.
“Support is fragmented, confusing, and too often fails to meet their needs.”
Ms Rogerson said gathering those experiences systematically would provide evidence that could be used to push for changes to policy and service delivery.
The results will also feed into COMPASS (COMmunication through Personalised ASsessment and Support), a five-year research program being run by CliniKids.
The program aims to develop a computerised adaptive assessment that maps the individual strengths and support needs of autistic children and helps clinicians connect them with appropriate clinical and community services earlier.
CliniKids senior principal research fellow Professor David Trembath said the approach was intended to make assessments more accessible and efficient while reducing waiting times and costs for families.
“COMPASS will provide a more accessible, efficient and personalised assessment approach, reducing time spent on waitlists and appointment costs for families,” he said.
The program has a particular focus on communication, with researchers saying approximately three in five autistic children reach school age unable to communicate easily. Its goal is to support autistic children in Western Australia to communicate effectively by the time they begin primary school.
CliniKids director Professor Andrew Whitehouse said community consultation would underpin the research program.
“We are committed to ensuring that community consultation underpins our autism research,” he said.
Ms Rogerson said the survey had the potential to influence a broader overhaul of autism supports.
“This is not just another survey. It is the foundation for a much bigger piece of work,” she said.
“If we get this right, we can fundamentally improve how autism support is designed and delivered in Australia.”
The survey closes on 5 October and more information is available here.
New TB vaccines could save millions
Next-generation tuberculosis vaccines could save more than seven million lives by 2050, but global health leaders warn countries need to start preparing now to ensure the shots reach the people who need them.
New modelling suggests novel TB vaccines expected to become available from 2029 could prevent up to 7.3 million deaths between 2030 and 2050 and deliver as much as $190 billion in economic benefits across low- and middle-income countries.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said the vaccines could become one of the most important new immunisation tools in decades – provided adequate, affordable supply can be secured.
“Novel TB vaccines could be the next blockbuster immunisation tool, however they will only realise their potential if we are able to ensure sufficient, predictable and affordable supply for those countries with the highest disease burden,” said Gavi CEO Dr Sania Nishtar.
“In order to help countries secure doses in the volumes they need, we are beginning to work with partners now to lay the groundwork for timely access when these vaccines become available.”
Demand could be substantial. Gavi estimated low- and middle-income countries could require an average of 85 million vaccination courses a year, with particularly high demand during the early years of rollout as high-burden countries target several age groups.
TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. In 2024 there were an estimated 10.7 million cases and 1.2 million deaths globally, with the burden falling overwhelmingly on low- and middle-income countries. Gavi-supported countries accounted for an estimated 77% of deaths.
The only currently licensed TB vaccine, Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is more than a century old. While it protects infants and young children against severe forms of TB, protection wanes over time.
The new vaccine candidates are intended to tackle that gap by preventing infectious pulmonary TB among adolescents and adults.
But Gavi warned that regulatory approval alone would not guarantee their impact.
Its new market-shaping roadmap identifies several potential barriers to rapid rollout, including uncertainty about recommendations for different population groups, inadequate global and domestic financing, and uncertainty over demand that could discourage manufacturers from investing in sufficient production capacity.
Gavi said work was already underway with manufacturers, governments, and other partners to secure timely and affordable supply, encourage widespread uptake, and maintain a competitive and geographically diverse pipeline of vaccine candidates.
Several high-burden countries, including some involved in vaccine trials, have also begun preparing for potential rollout.
The estimate of 7.3 million lives saved comes from preliminary modelling by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. It assumes vaccination targeting high-risk populations and adolescents through routine programs and catch-up campaigns, with a vaccine that is 50% effective against TB disease and protection that wanes over 10 years.
