May 6, 2025
(NPR) – President Trump issued an executive order Monday restricting federal funding for research that involves a controversial field of scientific study known as “gain-of-function” research. The research, which is also known as “dual-use” research, involves experimenting with viruses and … Read More
May 2, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Most pigs in the US are confined to factory farms where they can be afflicted by a nasty respiratory virus that kills piglets. The illness is called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS. A few … Read More
May 1, 2025
(Wired) – A research facility within the US National Institutes of Health that is tasked with studying Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases has been instructed by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop research activities. According to an email viewed by … Read More
April 28, 2025
(Gizmodo) – The fledgling neurotechnology space is filled with products that promise all sorts of utility by reading your brainwaves. Whether they actually accomplish much functionality is debatable, but they are apparently succeeding at monetizing the data they collect from … Read More
April 28, 2025
(New York Times) – For a limited group of cancer patients who have solid tumors in the stomach, rectum, esophagus and other organs, an immunotherapy trial offered stunning results. In 49 of the patients, who had rectal cancer, the tumors … Read More
April 25, 2025
(The Atlantic) – I’ve spent recent weeks speaking with scientists and executives at universities, major companies, and research institutions—including Pfizer, Moderna, and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center—in an attempt to understand what the technology can (and cannot) do to … Read More
April 17, 2025
(NPR) – Patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease may soon benefit from a powerful treatment option: stem-cell transplants. In a pair of small studies designed primarily to test safety, two teams of researchers found that stem cells transplanted into the brains … Read More
April 17, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Agency is missing deadlines and not responding to biotech companies, forcing some to push back clinical trials Significant delays in the FDA’s core functions—such as approving amendments to clinical trials and guiding companies through processes for … Read More
April 15, 2025
(ABC News) – U.S. researchers will soon test whether livers from a gene-edited pig could treat people with sudden liver failure — by temporarily filtering their blood so their own organ can rest and maybe heal. The first-of-its-kind clinical trial … Read More
April 11, 2025
(Associated Press) – An Alabama woman who lived with a pig kidney for a record 130 days had the organ removed after her body began rejecting it and is back on dialysis, doctors announced Friday – a disappointment in the … Read More
April 11, 2025
(Slate) – We shouldn’t be celebrating “de-extinction.” We should be focused on the species that are currently in danger. What we’re really looking at, it seems, are gray wolves modified to be dire wolves of George R.R. Martin’s books rather … Read More
April 10, 2025
(NPR) – Scientists have re-created a pain pathway in the brain by growing four key clusters of human nerve cells in a dish. This laboratory model could be used to help explain certain pain syndromes, and offer a new way … Read More
April 9, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Somewhere in the northern US, drones fly over a 2,000-acre preserve, protected by a nine-foot fence built to zoo standards. It is off-limits to curious visitors, especially those with a passion for epic fantasies or mythical … Read More
April 8, 2025
(Nature) – The 50th anniversary of a landmark biosafety conference is an opportunity to ensure its spirit lives on in today’s scientists. In 2008, Nature published a six-part essay series called Meetings that Changed the World. One of our choices … Read More
April 8, 2025
(Axios) – The upheaval at the Food and Drug Administration is threatening to cripple the user fee system that funds reviews of new drugs, devices and diagnostic tests, with the most immediate threat to look-alike biological drugs, according to four … Read More
April 7, 2025
(CNET) – Scientists used a brain implant and generative AI to give a woman her voice back and help her talk in near real time. It’s one example of how generative AI tools — using the same underlying technology that … Read More
April 4, 2025
(Texas Monthly) – An Austin-based health-optimization chain plans a national rollout as interest in the industry—still trying to define itself—booms. Humanaut Health, which opened its first location last fall, in Austin, hopes to build a chain of concierge medical clinics … Read More
April 3, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Neuralink, Synchron, and Neuracle are expanding clinical trials and trying to zero in on an actual product. Implanted BCIs are electrodes put in paralyzed people’s brains so they can use imagined movements to send commands from … Read More
April 1, 2025
(Nature) – Improvements to brain–computer interfaces are bringing the technology closer to natural conversational speed. A brain-reading implant that translates neural signals into audible speech has allowed a woman with paralysis to hear what she intends to say nearly instantly. … Read More
March 31, 2025
(MedPage Today) – Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time. Although it’s still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help give voice to those unable to speak. A … Read More
March 31, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Although it may seem like science fiction, recent technological progress has pushed this concept into the realm of plausibility. Pluripotent stem cells, one of the earliest cell types to form during development, can give rise to … Read More
March 31, 2025
(Reuters) – A tie-up between a Chinese research institute and tech company said on Monday that it aims to implant its brain chip into 13 people by the end of this year, in a move that could see it overtake … Read More
March 28, 2025
(Wired) – In an advance for treating male infertility, researchers transplanted a patient with his own sperm-forming stem cells that were collected from testicular tissue when he was a child. Jaiwen Hsu was an active 11-year-old when he developed pain … Read More
March 28, 2025
(Medscape) – A multidisciplinary team from China has successfully transplanted a gene-modified pig liver into a human recipient diagnosed with brain death. During a 10-day observation period, the porcine liver produced bile and porcine albumin, maintained stable blood flow, and … Read More
March 28, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A tech company accumulates a ton of user data, hoping to figure out a business model later. That business model never arrives, the company goes under, and the … Read More
