When I was 4 years old, my first piano teacher came to my house. Our piano was small and wooden and stood flush against the wall. I started with scales and finger drills, and eventually, as the years passed, found my way to Billy Joel, the Beatles and Elton John sheet music. I was hardly(...)
Perspectives in Research
Sleep: Our Panacea
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in ResearchHumans and animals share the most basic drives in life: the need for food and water, and the urge to procreate. Yet only humans have built a modern world in which these drives seem to cause more problems than they solve. Bookstores worldwide have dedicated whole sections to literature about reconciling your natural desires with(...)
What Does Dopamine Really Do?
Posted by | Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedYou’ve probably heard of dopamine before. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter—a chemical in the brain responsible for conveying information from one cell to another. It has made quite a name for itself because all of our favorite things—eating delicious food, seeing the person you love, hearing a good song come on, getting a gift, winning a(...)
Collaborations with Industry Strengthen Academic Research
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchMedical research is not only conducted by professors in the hallowed halls of educational institutions. Other notable research bodies include privately funded research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, government, and nonprofit organizations. Industry labs have a targeted approach, often searching for a drug to treat a specific disease or to address a particularly lucrative problem in medical(...)
Out with the Old, in with Repaired Joints
Posted by | Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedOsteoarthritis (OA) is not only the most common chronic condition of the joints, but also the most common type of arthritis, affecting approximately 27 million Americans.1 The prevalence of OA increases with age,2 and elderly patients experience swelling, pain and decreased mobility. Currently, there is no cure for this degenerative joint disease, and the only(...)
A Revelation About DREADDs: A New Neuroscience Technique with Promise for Clinical Psychiatric Treatment
Posted by | Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedIn an essay I published last year for the Lasker Essay Contest (and republished in our blog), I described optogenetics and chemogenetics, two technologies recently developed for basic neuroscience research that have the potential to improve the way we treat psychiatric illness. The major drawback to drugs currently prescribed for diseases such as depression, PTSD,(...)
Smarter Antimalarial Use: Altering Drug Duration to Improve Efficacy
Posted by | Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedFighting malaria is getting harder, with rising rates of drug resistance and drug tolerance making it more difficult for doctors to effectively cure patients. Drug resistance is distinct from drug tolerance, in that a resistant microbe can survive even high doses of a particular drug, while tolerant microbes are able to replicate in the drug’s(...)
Ecstasy and Agony: Accepting MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy as a Breakthrough PTSD Treatment
Posted by | Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedFor the majority of the population, MDMA, or ecstasy, is simply an illegal drug, its use exclusive to underground dance clubs and its abuse the purview of the police. However, a small group of psychopharmacological researchers and advocates have been touting this compound as the next major frontline treatment for a variety of troubling psychological(...)
Everyday Antibiotics May Reveal New Therapies to Treat Your Breast Cancer
Posted by | A Day in the Life, Perspectives in ResearchNew therapies to treat metastatic breast cancer may lie within one of the most commonly used agents in health care across the world: antibiotics. Sonal Chaudhari, a second-year medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, recently spent her summer working under Richard Jones, director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program, co-director of the(...)
McCain and Brain Cancer: What’s in Store for Glioblastoma Treatment?
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchIn the midst of the political saga that is the ongoing debate over the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), news broke that Sen. John McCain was undergoing surgery to remove a clot within his brain. After much media speculation and drama surrounding the delayed ACA vote, the public discovered that McCain had been(...)