Technology & Society
A new study shows that, for a small number of lucky individuals, it is possible to have a faulty gene that causes severe disease and not get that disease (think cystic fibrosis, etc). The problem though is that researchers don’t
From the Telegraph: “Researchers from Orlando Health in Florida detected a biomarker released by the brain during injury. They found that the biomarker can stay in the bloodstream for up to a week – which means patients who suffer delayed
Here it is — the $1000 whole genome. Veritas Genetics is co-founded by Harvard Medical School professor and genetics pioneer Dr. George Church. The company first broke the $1,000 genome barrier in 2015 when it made whole genome sequencing available
Here’s a neat idea reported on by The Scientist. “Five years ago, scientists at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City showed that circulating tumor cells (CTCs) could both colonize new metastases and travel back to their
The idea behind the company is to expel toxic, worn-out cells called “senescent cells.” Here’s the story in Fortune.
From STAT NEWS: The long-running Framingham Heart Study has found that “the rate of dementia was 3.6 percent in the late 1970s and early 1980s, falling to 2.8 percent a decade later, 2.2 percent a decade after that, and 2
The Economist has a good story on the progress being made in cryobanking. Read the story here.
Remember the horrific Thalidomide disaster when babies were being born without limbs? Well, turns out the drug might have a happier purpose. Researchers have figured out how to use it to bioengineer a way to kill cancer. Here’s the story.
From TechCrunch: “From Google[x]’s cancer-seeking nanopills to Atomwise, a machine-learning platform working on finding the cure to orphan diseases, the Bay Area offers several startups and organizations coming at the problem in a different way.Incubators such as Y Combinator, IndieBio
Here’s the story in Forbes: “What if a simple blood test could detect any cancer early, when it was still easy to treat? It sounds like science fiction. But Illumina ILMN -0.61%, the $24 billion (market cap) biotechnology company that
Here is the list.
From MedicalExpress: “Salk Institute researchers have found that an experimental drug candidate aimed at combating Alzheimer’s disease has a host of unexpected anti-aging effects in animals.The Salk team expanded upon their previous development of a drug candidate, called J147, which
From New Scientist: “One-year-old Layla was dying from leukaemia after all conventional treatments failed. “We didn’t want to give up on our daughter, though, so we asked the doctors to try anything,” her mother Lisa said in a statement released
From ScienceMag.org: “Harvard stem cell biologist Amy Wagers, cardiologist Richard Lee of the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and their colleagues claim that a specific protein, GDF11, may explain young blood’s beneficial effects. They have reported that blood
A national team of researchers has developed a first-of-its-kind, 3D-printed guide that helps regrow both the sensory and motor functions of complex nerves after injury. The groundbreaking research has the potential to help more than 200,000 people annually who experience
This is rather exciting news. If it works in humans, it would be a game changer. A number of media sites wrote about this work by Dr Panos Anastasiadis and his team at the Mayo Clinic. Here’s the BBC’s story.
Here’s an informative article by David Ewing Duncan on gut bacteria and the brain.
According to Nature, researchers are poised to meet with the FDA this month to discuss “medicines that delay ageing-related disease as legitimate drugs.” This makes sense, given that there are a number of scientific teams working on such compounds. Nir
A huge advance. Here’s the story from Discover Mag: “A team of regenerative scientists and surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital successfully grew a semi-functional rat forelimb in the lab, employing a technique previously used to build bio-artificial organs. If someday
From the WSJ: “A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has recommended the first drug to help combat female sexual dysfunction. And Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which owns the pill, hopes agency approval will occur in mid-August.”