April 15, 2014
(Baylor College of Medicine) – In 1959, postdoctoral associate Dr. Thomas Caskey, participated in the Nobel Prize winning work of Dr. Marshall Nirenberg that helped unravel the genetic code of life. It was not just a “one-trick pony,” Caskey reflected. … Read More
April 14, 2014
(Nature) – Stem-cell biologist Mahendra Rao, who resigned last week as director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CRM) at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), has a new job. On 9 April, he was appointed vice-president for regenerative … Read More
April 11, 2014
(The New York Times) – On Friday, President Obama is to nominate Ms. Burwell, currently director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to take over one of the largest and most unwieldy parts of the federal bureaucracy … Read More
April 8, 2014
(The Telegraph) – The ‘religious’ obsession with health and safety is putting off a generation of children from science because they are banned from taking part in experiments, one of Britain’s leading scientists has claimed. James Lovelock, 94, who first … Read More
April 7, 2014
(CNN) – The painting is called “Coma.” It depicts an unconscious patient being slowly pulled into the mouth of a macabre death mask. Helpless. The death’s head resembles the opening of a CAT scan machine, a symbol of modern medical … Read More
March 27, 2014
(Phys.org) – Today the National Science Board (NSB) announced that renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan, a global leader in medical ethics, is the 2014 recipient of its Public Service Award for an individual. NSB’s Public Service Award honors an individual’s exemplary … Read More
March 18, 2014
(New York Times) – With a name that most Americans can’t pronounce (it is Shoe-KHRAHT Mee-tuhl-EE-pov) and an accent that sounds like the villain’s in a James Bond film, Dr. Mitalipov, 52, has shaken the field of genetics by perfecting … Read More
March 6, 2014
(ABC News) – Dr. Sherwin Nuland, a medical ethicist who opposed assisted suicide and wrote an award-winning book about death called “How We Die,” has died at age 83. He died of prostate cancer on Monday at his home in … Read More
March 5, 2014
(Reuters) – Craig Venter, the U.S. scientist who raced the U.S. government to map the human genome over a decade ago and created synthetic life in 2010, is now on a quest to treat age-related disease. Venter has teamed up … Read More
February 24, 2014
(The Guardian) – Ray Kurzweil popularised the Teminator-like moment he called the ‘singularity’, when artificial intelligence overtakes human thinking. But now the man who hopes to be immortal is involved in the very same quest – on behalf of the … Read More
February 18, 2014
(Las Vegas Review Journal) – Dr. Warren Wheeler begins his workday with morning rounds. Accompanied by a handful of students and medical staff members, Wheeler visits his patients and greets them by name, introduces himself and asks how they feel, … Read More
February 12, 2014
(Science) – It would have been a personal triumph for Marthe Gautier, an 88-year-old pediatric cardiologist and scientist living in Paris. On 31 January, during a meeting in Bordeaux, Gautier was to receive a medal for her role in the … Read More
February 6, 2014
(New York Times) – Catherine Hamlin, an Australian gynecologist who has spent most of her life in Ethiopia, is a 21st-century Mother Teresa. She has revolutionized care of a childbirth injury called obstetric fistula, which occurs when the baby gets … Read More
January 21, 2014
Dr. Donald L. Morton, a son of an Appalachian coal miner who gained renown as a surgeon for helping to develop a widely used technique for detecting and treating certain kinds of cancer, died on Jan. 10 in Santa Monica, … Read More
January 20, 2014
A pioneering Spanish stem cell center has suddenly lost its leader—and some worry it may lose most of its research projects as well. On Monday, developmental biologist Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte stepped down as the director of the Center of … Read More
January 15, 2014
If the stain cannot be washed away, perhaps it can be stamped out of memory by hundreds of paws and hooves. With private funding from steadfast fans, Hwang opened Sooam in July 2006. He has since cloned hundreds of animals … Read More
January 14, 2014
The 17-year-old boy who became the face of the progeria, the “Benjamin Button” disease, has died. Sam Berns died Friday from complications of the disease. Progeria is a fatal genetic condition that causes rapid aging. He was diagnosed at just … Read More
January 2, 2014
Dr. Kenneth Edelin, a Boston physician at the center of a landmark abortion case in the 1970s, died Monday morning in Sarasota, Florida. He was 74. Edelin’s wife, Barbara, confirmed that he died after suffering from cancer. (Washington Post)
December 28, 2013
But thanks to “Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine,†a new biography by Naomi Rogers, a Yale University medical historian, readers can learn why she gained such fame. And while Ms. Kenny’s work was mostly … Read More
December 28, 2013
Interview with Dr. Eric Drexler during his recent book tour for Radical Abundance (PublicAffairs, 2013). “To begin with, it’s important to understand that the prospects I describe involve something more than nanotechnology in the present sense — they involve developments … Read More
December 23, 2013
Japan’s Emperor Akihito surprised the nation last month when palace officials announced plans for his funeral. His wishes for a relatively modest one — and the act of planning ahead — were widely seen as a good example in this … Read More
December 23, 2013
Marie Fleming, who lost a landmark Supreme Court challenge for the right to an assisted suicide, died yesterday at the age of 59. Her partner Tom Curran said she died peacefully at home after her condition deteriorated. Ms Fleming, a … Read More
December 23, 2013
As Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s term comes to a close, the latest research conducted by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public indicates that he leaves a legacy of ambitious public health policies from pioneering restrictions on trans fats and smoking to … Read More
December 19, 2013
Dr. Janet Rowley, a pioneer in cancer genetics research, has died at age 88. Rowley spent most of her career at the University of Chicago, where she also obtained her medical degree. She died Tuesday of ovarian cancer complications at … Read More
December 18, 2013
There are approximately 150,000 human deaths each day around the world. Most of those deaths pass without much notice, yet in the last ten days one death has received enormous, perhaps unprecedented, attention. The death and funeral of Nelson Mandela … Read More
