science

by

Healers Conspiring to Find New Healing Agents

New antibiotic cures disease by disarming pathogens, not killing them

A new type of antibiotic can effectively treat an antibiotic-resistant infection by disarming instead of killing the bacteria that cause it. Researchers report their findings in the October 2 issue of mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

“Traditionally, people have tried to find antibiotics that rapidly kill bacteria. But we found a new class of antibiotics which has no ability to kill Acinetobacter that can still protect, not by killing the bug, but by completely preventing it from turning on host inflammation,” says Brad Spellberg of the UCLA Medical Center and David Geffen School of Medicine, a researcher on the study.

Advertisement
by

Pronoiac Progress for Sick People

Promising results raise hope for cancer breakthrough: T cells could be tweaked to kill a range of cancers.

In a potential breakthrough in cancer research, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have genetically engineered patients’ T cells — a type of white blood cell — to attack cancer cells in advanced cases of a common type of leukemia.

Two of the three patients who received doses of the designer T cells in a clinical trial have remained cancer-free for more than a year, the researchers said.

by

Smart People Are Conspiring Behind the Scenes to Enhance Life on This Planet

21 Scientific Research Projects That Could Change the World

Every year, governments and other institutions give scientists grants to continue valuable research in their fields. In the fall, we’ll see thousands of such research projects get started — projects that will cure disease, improve agriculture, create more efficient energy, and take us into space — all thanks to funding from taxpayers and philanthropists.

Here are twenty-one standout projects from many nations that will start to change the world this fall.

by

Reordering the World’s Priorities Is Exciting

Rich, famous guy encourages young scientists to consider the needs of the poorest in deciding what to do for their life’s work

“I admonish you to consider the needs of the poorest in the work that you do,” [Bill Gates] told the scientists. “The advances there will be particularly important in coming years and without your attention they will not take place.” Gates made his comments following his induction into the honorary senate of the Foundation of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

by

Sharing Is Good Medicine

Instead of hoarding information to advance their careers, scientists make their data public quickly. As a result, there’s progress in fighting Alzheimer’s for the first time in quite a while.

In 2003, a group of scientists and executives from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups joined in a project that experts say had no precedent: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain.

Now, the effort is bearing fruit with a wealth of recent scientific papers on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s using methods like PET scans and tests of spinal fluid. More than 100 studies are under way to test drugs that might slow or stop the disease.