Our blogs explain health conditions and clinical research in a way that is easy to follow, so readers can feel more informed
A New Approach to Fighting Leukemia
Chronic myeloid leukemia develops when a gene mutates, causing blood-forming stem cells to grow rapidly into abnormal cells, known as leukemic tumors. The enzyme, Abl-kinase, is a member of the “kinase” family of enzymes, which serve as an “on” or “off”...
Improved Survival in Women with HER2 Negative Breast Cancer
The results from a pooled analysis of two Phase 3 Halaven (eribulin) trials are published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Findings from the pooled analysis show that eribulin improves overall survival in women compared to control. This overall survival benefit...
Multiple Models Reveal New Genetic Links in Autism
With the help of mouse models, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and the “tooth fairy,” researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have implicated a new gene in idiopathic or non-syndromic autism. This groundbreaking Autism research sheds...
Researchers Discover Promising Strategy for Fighting HIV
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Massachusetts General (MGH) and Boston Children’s hospitals (BCH) for the first time have used a relatively new gene-editing technique to create what could prove to be an effective technique for blocking HIV from invading...
Ebola Health Lessons: A Wake-up Call
This isn’t the first Ebola outbreak the world has seen. First identified in 1976, Ebola has emerged sporadically over the last few decades, most often occurring in remote villages in Africa. But the current outbreak, the largest on record, begs the...
Shutting Down Energy to Brain Cancer
A multicenter team of researchers has identified an enzyme key to the survival and spread of glioblastoma cancer cells that is not present in healthy brain cells, making the enzyme therapy a promising target. “With this enzyme, we may have found...
Increased Dosing of Malaria Drug in Children May Lower Infection Risk
Piperaquine is a long-acting malaria drug that kills residual parasites and decreases the risk of reinfection. A study led by Uppsala University researcher Martin Bergstrand shows that increasing the dose used in children could potentially decrease the yearly incidence of malaria...
World-First Embryonic Stem Cell Trial for the Heart
The long-awaited trial comes after much preclinical cell work on more than 350 rats, 50 immunodeficient mice and 32 non-human primates. “After 20 years in the stem cell area and a daily practice of cardiac surgery, I am very cautiously optimistic,”...
Drug Combination Shows Promise As Powerful Breast Cancer Treatment
The uncontrolled growth of cancer cells arises from their ability to hijack the cell’s normal growth program and checkpoints. Usually, after therapy, a second cancer-signaling pathway will open after the primary one shuts down — creating an ingenious escape route for...
Five More Ebola Vaccines To Be Tested in March
The World Health Organization says millions of doses of two experimental Ebola vaccines, part of the ongoing WHO Ebola update, could be ready for use in 2015. Still, the agency warned it’s not clear whether any of these will work against...
NIH Begins Early Human Clinical Trial of New Ebola Vaccine
Human testing of a second investigational Ebola vaccine candidate is under way at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are conducting the early phase trial to...
Ebola airport checks expand; nurses get training
The federal government is closing a gap in Ebola screening at airports while states from New York to Texas to California work to get hospitals and nurses ready in case another patient turns up somewhere in the U.S. with the deadly...