The European Medicines Agency has just recommended extending use of an existing drug, nitisinone (Orfadin), to treat alkaptonuria (AKU). AKU holds a…
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post Long-Awaited Drug for Alkaptonuria (AKU), the First “Inborn Error,” On the Way to Approval in EuropeRead more
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post 5 COVID-19 Updates: Cats, Kids, Seniors, Blood, and an Old VaccineRead more
Times have been strange for us all, weird indeed for science journalists. The initial manageable flow of news alerts to the media…
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post A Cloned Przewalski’s Horse Evokes Memories of the Catskill Game FarmRead more
On August 6, the first cloned Przewalski’s horse was born in Texas. Kurt began with a cell nucleus from another of his…
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post How the Various COVID Vaccines WorkRead more
COVID vaccine hesitancy is on the rise, perhaps in the wake of pressure to speed approval beyond scientific reason. But I think…
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post Extinction of the Woolly Rhino: Ancient Genomes Point to Climate Change, not OverhuntingRead more
Two views of the forces behind extinction of the woolly rhino elegantly illustrate how scientific thinking shifts to embrace new knowledge –…
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post Progress and a Setback in Treating Rare Genetic Diseases: Hemophilia A, CLN1, SMA, and DMDRead more
In these strange days of the pandemic, it’s easy to forget that people are still sick with the illnesses that we’ve always…
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post How COVID-19 Arose and Amplified Along the Meat Supply ChainRead more
Early in this unforgettable year, a wet market in Wuhan, China, emerged as a possible step along the way, if not the…
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post She Had Her Own Mutation, Sequencing Led to a Treatment and Major Genetic Discovery – Then She Died of COVIDRead more
It isn’t often that an investigation of a single patient who has a devastating, unrecognized disease leads to finding an existing drug…
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post COVID Genomes Paint Portrait of an Evolving PathogenRead more
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unfolding story told in numbers. While news reports focus on the number of tests, cases, hospitalizations, and…
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post Can Past Coronavirus Infection Protect Against COVID-19? Hints from Smallpox VaccineRead more
In ordinary times, a new report describing experiments on bits of smallpox scabs nestled in Civil War museum artifacts would have been…
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post A Tale of Two Clinical Trials: Gene Therapy for a Rare Disease and a Vaccine for COVID-19Read more
Encouraging preliminary findings in a phase I clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine were widely reported as soon as the paper appeared…
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post Gastruloids Stand In for Early Human EmbryosRead more
Remember human embryonic stem (hES) cells? We don’t hear much about them anymore. And so I was surprised to see an application…