Today, adult women have a wide variety of choices of birth control methods, including daily pills, implants, IUDs and others. However, there is still no equivalent method of birth control for men, who have historically been limited to withdrawal, condoms and sterilization, placing the burden of pregnancy prevention on females. A recent study, co-sponsored by(...)
Perspectives in Research
Who Has Time to Sleep?
Posted by | A Day in the Life, Perspectives in ResearchAt the proverbial watercooler in teaching hospitals across the world, one hears remarkably similar refrains: “This patient is back again,” “I have no idea why my experiment failed this time” and, most universally, “I’ve only slept three hours in the past two days!” Medical trainees often view sleep deprivation as a badge of honor, one(...)
Gene Editing Under Fire
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchCRISPR/Cas9 gene editing is the hottest new technology being used by molecular biologists and geneticists around the world. The method, first developed in prokaryotes in a collaboration between Jennifer Doudna’s group at University of California, Berkeley and Emmanuelle Charpentier’s lab at the Pasteur Institute in June 2012, allows targeted editing of the genomes of living(...)
New Statin Guidelines Herald a New Era of Preventive Medications
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in ResearchIn medicine, we would like to believe that treatment decisions are black and white, evidence is clear cut and uncertainty is a bygone impediment, squashed decades ago by the tight jaws of the scientific method. Yet it seems the more we learn, the more we have to argue about. Uncertainty is here to stay. As(...)
At the Vanguard of the Psychedelic Renaissance
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in ResearchA priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center to ingest psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms. Although this probably sounds like the beginning of a great joke, new advancements in the field of psychedelic medicine are no laughing matter. After nearly 50 years of prohibition, academic studies and clinical(...)
Nobel Prize Winning Research May Lead to New Therapies for Cancer, Alzheimer’s
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in ResearchYoshinori Ohsumi of the University of Tokyo was recently awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in mechanisms for autophagy. What is autophagy? From the Greek roots “auto,“ or self, and “phagia,” or eating, the word literally means self-eating. In cell biology, autophagy describes the way that cells recycle unneeded(...)
Cancer Drug Shows Surprising Potential as Parkinson’s Treatment
Posted by | Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedParkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition caused by the death of dopamine-producing cells in a region of the brain called the substantia nigra, which leads to disruptions in neural circuits controlling motor function. Although the cause of this inappropriate cell death is largely unclear, one hypothesis is that it is due to the abnormal aggregation(...)
Willpower and Self-Control: Tools of the Trade
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in ResearchWe confront challenges to our self-control every day. For those of us in the fields of science and medicine, the intense and fast-paced nature of our work only heightens the magnitude of these challenges. Do you leave early for happy hour or push through to finish setting up that last qPCR run? Do you break(...)
Vaccination Woes: HPV Vaccination Rates Remain Low
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in Research, Recently PublishedI was first offered the HPV vaccine during my college years. Although I had been counseled about the importance of the vaccine at that time, the steep price for the three-vaccine series kept me from getting it. With each injection costing $190, it was simply something I could not afford. By the time I started(...)
The Rising Cost of Pharmaceuticals
Posted by | Did You See This?, Perspectives in ResearchLast weekend, my husband and I visited our local pharmacy to pick up a prescription refill. The pharmacist chatted with us cheerfully as she rang us up at the cash register. Suddenly, her typing stopped. “Wow,” she finally said. “This is expensive.” The small pill bottle sat in her palm as she read off the(...)