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
December 18, 2013
A Philadelphia doctor already serving life in prison for performing rogue abortions has been sentenced to a concurrent 30 years for illegally distributing painkillers, including many later sold on the street by addicts and drug dealers. Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, … Read More
December 17, 2013
One of Britain’s most eminent authorities on end-of-life law has issued a warning against “tinkering†with assisted suicide on the eve of a landmark Supreme Court challenge. Baroness Butler-Sloss, the former President of the High Court Family Division, argued that … Read More
December 6, 2013
Freedom fighter, prisoner, moral compass and South Africa’s symbol of the struggle against racial oppression. That was Nelson Mandela, who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead his country out of decades of apartheid. He died Thursday night at … Read More
November 26, 2013
Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, wrote a dark blog post about how he hoped his terminally ill father would die soon and how he wanted to inflict pain on the people who have voted against doctor-assisted … Read More
November 25, 2013
Adrienne Asch, an internationally known bioethicist who opposed the use of prenatal testing and abortion to select children free of disabilities, a stance informed partly by her own experience of blindness, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She … Read More
November 22, 2013
Dr. Thomas D. Rees, an innovative New York plastic surgeon who helped found the Flying Doctors Service of East Africa, a charity that employs a fleet of small planes to provide medical care and save lives deep in the African … Read More
November 20, 2013
Fred Sanger, a double Nobel Prize-winning British biochemist who pioneered research into the human genome, has died at the age of 95, the University of Cambridge said on Wednesday. Sanger, who once described himself as “just a chap who messed … Read More
November 15, 2013
Stephen Hawking may not be in the far corners of the universe, but he seems to be everywhere else these days: On the bookshelves with a new memoir, My Brief History; in a documentary, Hawking; and as the host of … Read More
November 12, 2013
Dr. Herzenberg, who died on Oct. 27 at 81 in Stanford, Calif., created a device that can pick out individual cells from a mass of trillions of them and then capture, sort and count them so they can be analyzed … Read More
November 12, 2013
IF DNA is destiny, then Anne Wojcicki is in the right business. She is the co-founder and chief executive of 23andMe, a Silicon Valley start-up that offers a $99 DNA test, as easy as spitting into a tube, that provides … Read More
October 31, 2013
Elena Cattaneo, a leading stem cell researcher in Italy, has been selected 2013 Stem Cell Person of the Year by the Knoepfler Lab at University of California, Davis. (Forbes)
October 30, 2013
Augusto Odone surely was one of the best fathers of all time. Along with his wife, Michaela, Mr. Odone defied and then amazed the medical profession when he devised an apparent treatment for his son Lorenzo’s incurable neurological disease. The … Read More
October 28, 2013
Five million babies have been born thanks to IVF. But few people talk of the many more times the treatment doesn’t work, says Lisa Jardine, the departing chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Modern medicine can achieve extraordinary … Read More
