Long-awaited federal funding has been approved for a first-of-its-kind, Boston-led study to test whether drugs can hold off Alzheimer’s disease in people who have no symptoms of the illness, but who have an abnormal protein in their brains believed to be a hallmark of the disease. Reisa Sperling, HMS professor of neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, will lead the clinical trial.

More than 12,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with cervical cancer this year. Hundreds more may go undiagnosed because of the widespread use of a screening test that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved for detecting the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes nearly all cervical cancers. David Wilbur, HMS professor of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.

Doctor’s offices and clinics were inundated with calls from patients Thursday seeking flu shots, a day after Boston declared a health emergency in response to a rising number of flu cases. Health officials said there is an ample supply of vaccine. Benjamin Kruskal, HMS instructor in population medicine, is quoted.