Biomedicine & Disease
After years of studying Huntington’s, pioneering researcher reveals that she has the disease
Year after year for two decades, Nancy Wexler led medical teams into remote villages in Venezuela, where huge extended families ...
Coronavirus mystery: Why aren’t there more cases in Africa?
Experts still don’t know why so few cases of the new coronavirus have been reported in Africa, despite China – ...
Podcast: Coronavirus—what it is, how it spreads and the surprising ways it might be treated
SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus first detected in China in January, is emerging as a significant threat, with just under 128,000 ...
Birth of the placebo effect: How an 18th century doctor’s bogus animal magnetism treatment ‘cured’ patients
Word spread amongst the Parisian upper class in the late 18th century: A new man in town had a novel ...
Promising cancer-fighting tactic—using nanoparticles—runs into a potential glitch
The challenge of chemotherapy is to kill off the tumor cells without doing too much harm to healthy ones. The ...
Infographic: Track the global spread of the coronavirus
The numbers for COVID-19 cases and deaths are changing rapidly. The following charts only provide an approximation of the current ...
Podcast: Treating blindness with CRISPR; customized cancer drugs; Beyond Meat v. critics; saving bananas from extinction
As genetic engineering reshapes intimate aspects of our lives, is the public on board? ...
Viewpoint: Promise of genomics and precision medicine a ‘wave of hype without substance’
An undeclared civil war is breaking out in biomedicine. On one side is precision medicine, with its emphasis on tailoring treatments ...
Eliminating HIV by 2030 a real possibility, but ‘we’re not getting off to the right start’
During his State of the Union address in February, President Donald Trump reiterated a promise he had made a year earlier: By ...
Battling antibiotic resistance by stopping evolution
One of the ways that bacteria evolve to become "antibiotic resistant" is by picking up free-floating genetic material from their environments. They ...
Malfunctioning brain ‘hubs’ could be responsible for dyslexia, ADHD
Different learning difficulties do not, as previously thought, correspond to specific regions of the brain, new British research suggests. Instead, ...
Fighting the coronavirus outbreak with genetic sequencing, CRISPR and synthetic biology
We are better prepared for a coronavirus outbreak than a few years ago ...
Viewpoint: Embracing biosimilars will drive down prices, increase access to drugs
The biosimilar category holds incredible promise, and the market for these products is on an upward trajectory. But it’s been ...
Tracking the coronavirus—and failed containment efforts—by digging through its genome
In the unprecedented outbreak of a new coronavirus sweeping the world, the germ’s genetic material may ultimately tell the story ...
Autistic children often have trouble sleeping. Melatonin may help, study says
Melatonin is safe for long-term use in autistic children who have difficulty sleeping, according to a new study. The study ...
‘The Invisible Man’ and science: You’d probably go blind while your DNA falls apart
True invisibility, the type wherein the body itself is actually rendered transparent (unlike the kind portrayed in the recent movie, ...
Visit Mars and bring back alien life? Troubles containing coronavirus should make us wary of bringing microbes to Earth
You know what? Maybe we ought to reconsider this whole thing about looking for life on other worlds. It would ...
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 ...
Infographic: Which 3D printed organs are closest to being transplantable?
No one has printed fully functional, transplantable human organs just yet, but scientists are getting closer, making pieces of tissue ...
Conspiracy theorists suggest the coronavirus was engineered in a Chinese lab. The scientific consensus disagrees.
[O]n Fox News and social media, a dangerous conspiracy theory about the origin of the health crisis won’t die. There ...
Is being obese similar to being old? Both make the body vulnerable to life-threatening diseases, researchers say
Globally, an estimated 1.9 billion adults and 380 million children are overweight or obese. According to the World Health Organization, ...
For treating epileptic seizures, pharmaceutical CBD is more effective than ‘artisanal’ alternatives, researchers say
Children and teens with epilepsy who were treated with pharmaceutical cannabidiol (CBD) had much better seizure control than those who were treated ...
Common form of inherited blindness shows ‘massive improvements’ with experimental gene therapy
This month, K.L. became one of the first patients to receive a new experimental gene therapy for children with a ...
Targeting blindness with CRISPR: Doctors attempt first editing of genes inside a human body
For the first time, scientists have used the gene-editing technique CRISPR to try to edit a gene while the DNA ...
35 drugs in the race for a coronavirus treatment
As the world scrambles to monitor and contain the COVID-19 outbreak, drug companies are racing to develop or repurpose treatments ...
‘Illusion of causality’ and why we trust our own experiences more than science
Did you cut out sugar and feel more energetic, take vitamin C and stop getting colds, switch to eating only ...
Podcast: How to build a coronavirus; alcohol doesn’t shrink your brain; and locusts threaten famine in East Africa
Kevin Folta and Cameron English break down four of the latest headlines from the world of genetics and biotech ...
‘Disaster for public trust in vaccines’: African malaria study conducted without patient consent
A scathing opinion piece in the BMJ is accusing the World Health Organization of conducting a pilot program in Africa ...
