Genomics is often touted for its potential to improve healthcare, but there’s another emerging field that’s more likely to have a positive impact on patients’ lives: proteomics. It’s based on measuring the proteins in someone’s body at a given time — known to scientists as the “proteome” — and gives information about what’s affecting that […]
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Drought. Famine. Turbocharged typhoons. These are all looming dangers we’ve learned to fear from climate change. But according to one public health expert, perhaps the greatest threat of all will come from the often-overlooked fungal kingdom. There are more than 6 million species of fungi on our planet, but just a handful of them are […]
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While most scientific advances tend to be uniformly celebrated or criticized, innovations in gene editing have been met with a wild mix of both. The idea of altering DNA — such as snipping out a genetic mutation known to cause disease — is fascinating and worrisome, even to scientists. That gene editing is now more […]
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If you haven’t encountered genetic testing in your own healthcare, just wait. The era of genomic medicine is here. But with a population that has received little education about DNA and genes, how are we going to make sense of this new stream of information? Genomic literacy gets a lot of attention in the scientific […]
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(Image: Shutterstock) You may fondly think of yourself as human, but the trillions of microbes that call your body home might consider that a little inaccurate. These microbes — mostly bacteria — take up residence in every nook and cranny in the body. Collectively, they’re called the microbiome. But we’re not just taking them along […]
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(Image: Shutterstock) Congress is weighing a bipartisan proposal to update the nation’s patent eligibility rules — and, in many ways, the legislation is designed to reward innovation and protect scientific discoveries. So, why are America’s best researchers — including many who represent the companies that could benefit from this bill — loudly opposing it? The […]
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(Photo: Shutterstock) Efforts to improve representation of women at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) fields recently got a boost from a low-tech solution. Female scientists launched a public registry listing their names, positions, areas of expertise, and contact information. Now, nearly 11,000 women are included in the database. And a study […]
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(Source: Shutterstock) Cancer is widely accepted by many scientists as a disease related to aging. So, why do kids get it? That’s the question motivating some exciting new scientific investigations — and even some preliminary but promising discoveries — at major cancer centers. We often think of cancerous cells as good cells gone bad, healthy […]
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(Photo: Shutterstock) When we think about the various technologies driving healthcare progress today—from novel medicines and medical devices, to innovative software applications and analytic techniques—computer memory is rarely the first thing that comes to mind. It usually whirs quietly in the background, hidden inside the connected devices and the data centers that increasingly power our […]
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