“A new cause of osteoarthritis identified by research on a rare disease,” ran the headline of a news release a few weeks ago. I was…
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post Black Pee Disease Offers New View of Arthritic JointsRead more
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post Medical Success Stories: From Cystic Fibrosis to DiabetesRead more
A skinny little boy, with mocha skin and curly black hair, lived in the apartment building next door when I was growing…
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post Update: How Ebola KillsRead more
UPDATE OCT. 7: Emmanuel (my “son”) and his family, in Liberia, are still all healthy! The post below is from mid-August, when…
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post ALS Target: MicrogliaRead more
Glia, perhaps the most underappreciated of cell types, are finally getting some attention. A new report in Science Translational Medicine from Kevin Eggan’s…
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genedx Gene Test Predicts Blindness After LASIKRead more
Millions of people have put aside their eyeglasses or contact lenses thanks to a procedure called LASIK. But for carriers of a…
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post Vaccine Memories: From Polio to AutismRead more
“April 15 – Polio Vaccine Perfected!!!!” So wrote my mother in 1955, on the “Baby’s Health Record” page of my baby book…
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post The Menopause Toolkit and Summer Sci-FiRead more
One of the worst feelings a woman of a certain age can experience is when someone stupidly asks, “When is your baby…
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post Wilson Disease – A Genetic Success StoryRead more
A woman I never met, Ingrid, has taught thousands of students about Wilson disease, an inborn error of copper metabolism. But she…
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post Getting to the Bottom of Fecal TransplantsRead more
Imagine that you are a bacterium, comfortably living inside a human bowel movement. Suddenly, a chemical attack kills most of your neighbors…
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post Catching Up With 3 Rare Disease FamiliesRead more
Four-year-old Eliza O’Neill’s viral videos, the subject of my last two blog posts, continue to dominate the news media with another…
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post Eliza’s Journey: Part 2Read more
Gene therapy is, finally, about to take off! The feeling was palpable at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy annual meeting…
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post Eliza’s Journey: Part 1Read more
If ten science writers were asked to write a book about gene therapy, a biotechnology with roots going back to the 1950s…