Advancing Medical Research

As early as ancient Greece, doctors used a method called palpation to diagnose illness, pressing their hands on a patient’s abdomen to assess the firmness of diseased tissues and organs.

This ancient practice is now getting a 21st-century upgrade. Scientists are working to develop advanced techniques to measure the stiffness of the liver to…

With the rise of precision medicine, scientists are hopeful that more cancer patients can receive treatments tailored to their specific tumor mutations. But with these advances, a matchmaking problem has also emerged: It can be very challenging to recruit enough patients with specific tumor mutations to…

For children with achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism, scientists are exploring new ways to restore bone growth and potentially address some of the major health complications with the condition, such as spinal problems, swelling in the brain, frequent ear infections and sleep apnea.

Achondroplasia is a rare genetic bone disorder affecting…

Our bodies delicately balance clotting and anti-clotting mechanisms, which help to stop bleeding when there’s an injury or dissolve dangerous clots that can form in blood vessels.

But for patients with hemophilia, a rare genetic disease that causes deficiencies in clotting factor VIII or IX, this…

When biologics to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) were first released over two decades ago, they greatly improved quality of life for many patients. But these first-generation therapies have their shortcomings. Fewer than half of patients treated with these inflammation-blocking drugs will be in remission after one year of treatment. These treatments can also suppress the immune system, making patients…

Since the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, scientists have collected a wealth of genetic information that could potentially be used to help create new medicines. Remarkably, as sequencing technology gets faster and cheaper, the amount of human genetic data now doubles every seven…