Infectious disease has shaped human evolution for millennia. During epidemics/pandemics, susceptible individuals with unfavorable genetics succumb to disease prior to reproducing while individuals with genetics that favor survival pass on their genes to subsequent generations. The current Covid-19 pandemic is the most recent of these events. Pre-vaccine, Covid-19 had a death rate of 1-2% for [...]
Congratulations to Barry Sharpless (Scripps Research Institute), Carolyn Bertozzi (Stanford U.), and Morten Meldal (U. Copenhagen) for the 2022 Noble Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of “click” chemistry, which has proven to be a revolutionary chemical tool for drug discovery and basic biomedical research. Barry Sharpless deserves particular recognition for being just [...]
After a billion years of evolution, the immune system is exquisitely evolved to fight infectious disease. Humans learned to harness this power in the form of primitive vaccines against smallpox hundreds of years ago. But in 2022, we have the knowledge and technology to supercharge vaccination to cure or prevent all manner of disease, both [...]
An update on progress stimulated by AlphaFold's revolutionary protein folding algorithm generated using AI. AlphaFold
The original Hallmarks of Cancer review (2000) by Doug Hanahan and Robert Weinberg is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative review papers of all time. In 2011 they published Hallmarks of Cancer: the Next Generation, and now in 2022 the third installment has been published. Collectively, these three reviews managed to [...]
Congratulations! Hard work pays off! https://www.societyforscience.org/regeneron-science-talent-search-2022-media-kit/
In biomedical research, sometimes the topic being studied does not matter so much. Rather, what matters is the experimental design – what underlying questions are asked, what methods are used to answer those questions, and what are the positive/negative controls that are employed to differentiate what is real from what is not real. We then [...]
RNA is not new, and we have known for decades that sugars can decorate proteins and lipids (this is known as the field of glycobiology). Here, researchers from Stanford and Harvard have discovered that RNA can also be decorated with sugars (glycol-RNA), and that glycol-RNA is fairly abundant both in cultured cells and in animals. [...]
Not surprisingly, early childhood trauma predisposes people for depression later in life, and other problems (sexual and physical abuse, crime, poverty and poor health) often emanate from this condition. Unfortunately, the children of these people are often destined for the same fate. We all understand this innately and recognize it as an unfortunate but inevitable [...]
Congratulations to the 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search finalists, including one finalist who has attended two Rosetta Institute workshops. Great work! Regeneron Finalists