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UVA School of Medicine researchers have advanced to the second round of a nationwide contest that pits elite research institutions against each other to crown 2025’s biggest biomedical breakthrough. The winner is being decided by public vote.

STAT Madness is an online tournament, akin to the NCAA basketball tournament, sponsored each year by prominent health news site STAT to spotlight the nation’s most important and influential scientific research. Sixty-four contenders face off in rounds until there is only one left standing. You can vote daily in in STAT’s online bracket.

In the tournament’s first round, a long COVID discovery by UVA’s Jie Sun, PhD, and colleagues ousted a COVID vaccine finding from MD Anderson Cancer Center. Sun and his team identified an unknown cellular mechanism that drives long COVID. Their research also revealed an existing drug that could benefit patients. (This is the second time STAT Madness has recognized findings from Sun’s lab as being among the year’s most significant.)

UVA’s other contender in this year’s contest, an Alzheimer’s finding from Harald Sontheimer, PhD, and his team, fell to a discovery about an Alzheimer’s protein from Florida International University. Sontheimer’s important finding explains why Alzheimer’s patients lose their ability to recognize friends and loved ones and opens the door to new treatments.

STAT Madness voting continues throughout March, with the winner announced April 7. Make sure to vote for UVA every day!

To keep up with the latest biomedical research news from UVA School of Medicine and the new UVA Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology, bookmark the Making of Medicine blog.