Archive | August 2009
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A Sequencer for Every Clinic?
An idea that may be close to jumping from the world of science fiction to your local hospital is the concept of full, individualized genome scans – a personal genetic profile that could, at least in theory, help a doctor assess your risk for certain diseases and prescribe more effective treatment. That’s the prize […]
Video: Janet Rowley Receives Presidential Award
University of Chicago molecular geneticist Janet Rowley received her Presidential Medal of Freedom Wednesday along with 15 other honorees, including Stephen Hawking and Sen. Edward Kennedy. Here’s video of the ceremony, courtesy of C-SPAN…President Obama’s warm introduction is at 15:50, and he presents Dr. Rowley with the medal at 35:00: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/flash/cspanPlayer.swf?pid=288337-2&autoplay=0 Here is President Obama’s […]
How the Skull Supervises Brain Development
The development of the human brain is a massive biological construction project that scientists are still only beginning to understand. From the first few cells of the human embryo, billions of neurons and glia cells must be formed and positioned in exactly the right place with all of the proper connections. Hundreds of genes, chemical […]
Preschool Depression and The Language of Play
Decades of research advances have made depression less mysterious and less stigmatized in most circles, accepted as a neurobiological disorder rather than a more abstract (and untreatable) entity. But some news about depression remains surprising, at least to people outside the realm of psychiatry. Tuesday’s newspaper had one such example: a new study out of […]
Spooked by Medical Ghostwriters
There are a lot of reasons to be disturbed by the revelation, covered by the New York Times on Wednesday, that at least 26 published review articles in medical journals were ghostwritten by a medical communications company. But I’m not sure all of those reasons are obvious at first glance or fully addressed by the […]
What makes pediatric cancer trials so popular?
By Jeremy Manier Gina Kolata has an interesting story in the New York Times today about the lack of volunteers for cancer research trials, but she left out a facet that has puzzled me: Even though few adults enter cancer studies, the vast majority of kids with cancer do get enrolled in trials. Why? Kolata […]
