disease
Drug factories: GMOs and gene editing are poised to transform medicine. Here’s how.
On the hunt for plant-produced vaccines ...
Promises and pitfalls of treating aging like a disease
Over the years, the movement to classify aging as a disease has gained momentum not only from longevity enthusiasts but ...
Why the UK wants to share everything it knows about the genetics of 500,000 Britons
Britain is profiling the genes, health and lifestyles of its citizens and handing the results to scientists across the world ...
Cancer and heart disease contagious? It’s possible, through the microbiome, researchers argue
It’s a science lesson you probably learned in grade school: You can only catch certain illnesses, like the flu, from ...
We’ve been dealing with measles for at least 2,000 years, genetic analysis suggests
In the 10th century, Persian physician Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi wrote about patients with fever, anxiety and full-body rashes — ...
Video: Neuroscientist Sergiu Pasca on his pioneering efforts to grow brain organoids from stem cells
When [Stanford University brain researcher Sergiu] Pasca started his own lab at the university in 2014, he continued working on ...
Viewpoint: Controversial red-meat review challenged ‘deeply entrenched’ nutrition advice with strong science
That last food flip-flop made big headlines last week. It was a “remarkable turnabout,” “jarring,” “stunning.” How, it was asked, ...
Anti-vaccine movement, spurred by internet-based rumors and misinformation
As millions of families face back-to-school medical requirements and forms this month, the contentiousness surrounding vaccines is heating up again, ...
New weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance: Tricking bacteria ‘into killing themselves’
Sneaky molecular biology tricks bacteria into killing themselves, in place of antibiotics ...
Crops engineered to destroy infected cells could fight off deadly diseases
Hiding inside each plant cell, protein complexes encoded by disease resistance genes are like sleeping armies, waking up and activating ...
Probiotics may help humans stay healthy. Could they benefit other animals, too?
Researchers eye microbes as a tool for fighting disease epidemics in bats, frogs, corals and more ...
Werner syndrome and the curious case of the Japanese man who is aging too fast
Nobuaki Nagashima has Werner syndrome, which causes his body to age at super speed. This condition is teaching us more ...
Metagenomic next-generation sequencing: Breakthrough tool diagnoses mystery diseases
Decoding all the DNA in a patient’s biological sample can reveal whether an infectious microbe is causing the disease ...
Scientific, social and ethical barriers must be overcome before the world is ready for CRISPR babies, researchers say
Nature asked researchers and other stakeholders what hurdles remain before heritable gene editing could become acceptable as a clinical tool ...
Video: Tech guru and author Rob Reid on synthetic biology’s power to help or destroy us
In 2011, two separate research teams—one in Holland, the other in Wisconsin—set out to repair this "defect" in H5N1. By ...
Women are more likely to get autoimmune diseases. Is the placenta to blame?
In the United States alone, women represent 80 percent of all cases of autoimmune disease. ... Some scientists now think ...
Why the world needs a DNA-based ‘threat-detection network’ to counter the rapid spread of pathogens
Our ancestors were accustomed to spending their entire lives in walking distance of their birthplace, but our modern world is ...
Facing Ebola outbreak, Uganda approves 3 experimental treatments
Health authorities in Uganda have approved the use of three experimental treatments against Ebola in the country. The decision comes ...
New diagnostic weapon: Genetic tests can also detect infectious disease
Doctors routinely use genetic tests to spot inherited diseases and guide cancer treatment. But using them to detect infectious diseases ...
Could a virus be causing mysterious ‘polio-like’ disease affecting children?
Researchers say they have strong new evidence that a virus is involved in a rare and puzzling polio-like condition that ...
Harnessing biological clocks to boost fight against disease, parasites
[Evolutionary parasitologist Sarah] Reece and other scientists are exploring an idea that is making waves in biology: If the body ...
Attacking cancer tumors with next generation CAR-T cell therapies
In 2017, the first immuno-oncology cell therapies, known as chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CAR T, were approved by the ...
‘Immune amnesia’: Why measles makes you more vulnerable to infections that cause pneumonia, ear infections, diarrhea
The most iconic thing about measles is the rash — red, livid splotches that make infection painfully visible. But that ...
How a genetically-engineered phage therapy defeated a drug-resistant infection, raising hopes for chronically ill patients
After a difficult lung transplant, 17-year-old cystic fibrosis patient was successfully treated with experimental bacterial phage therapy ...
A single ‘live’ vaccine could fortify immune systems against measles and other diseases
Maria was eligible to participate in a clinical trial to test whether an extra dose of measles vaccine prevented not ...
Viewpoint: We should be careful about ‘crossing the germline’ in gene editing humans
CRISPR gene editing has the possibility to transform disease management, but we can't be scared of editing somatic cells ...
Why having a risky genetic mutation isn’t necessarily doom and gloom
Most people think carrying a gene variant associated with a disease means automatically getting that disease, according to Sekar Kathiresan, ...