Advancing Medical Research

One of the biggest public health problems of our time is likely soon to face off with a new wave of cutting-edge medicines. As non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a severe form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, continues to be a growing public health threat, scientists are racing to develop treatments. There is…

If you’ve ever tried an at-home genetic testing kit, you’re familiar with whole-genome sequencing, the technology that allows people to quickly and easily map their DNA. This same technology is now being used to track the genomes of potentially deadly microbes.

During global disease outbreaks, scientists…

For people who have atopic dermatitis (AD) — an autoimmune condition that causes painful, itchy, and inflamed skin — symptoms often flare up at night, leading to disrupted sleep. Until recently, there hasn’t been a way to truly capture how much a person’s quality of life is impacted by these nighttime symptoms. Patients enrolled in studies are asked to complete…

Designing transformational medicines for patients requires them to be efficacious and safe.  Sometimes, drug molecules have the desired effect in the organ of treatment and undesired effects in other organs, meaning one way to achieve a safer medicine is through directing the drug molecule to the place it is needed and minimizing exposure in the rest of the body. When you take a medicine, how does it…

Soldiers, firefighters and police officers likely come to mind when you think of professions that require a good amount of courage.

But Iona Munjal, a physician and pediatric infectious disease specialist who helps design and oversee vaccine clinical trials for Pfizer, argues scientists should be counted among this group, too. “You have to be brave in research,” she says. “When you’re out there pushing the…

After earning her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2010, Megan Kaneda was looking for a lab to do post-doc research. Her graduate studies focused primarily on nanoparticle drug delivery. But after reading a paper on the recruitment of immune cells into tumors by Judith Varner…