Health of Tomorrow

As states and countries slowly begin to ease social distancing restrictions for COVID-19, key questions remain unanswered around immunity to the novel coronavirus: If someone was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and recovered, how long do antibodies remain in their body, and are they protected against reinfection? And for people who’ve been exposed to the virus, but had no symptoms,…

Living among us today are people who carry “super genes” with variants that make them resilient to certain diseases. Some successful medicines mimic these genes, such as a new bone-builder that is based on families with genetically strong bones. If scientists could find patients with genetic resilience, to say, advanced cancer or…

When Kelly Knee was in graduate school in the early 2000s, she found it nearly impossible to secure grant funding for research on sickle cell disease, a rare blood disorder that historically has been a neglected area of medical research. But hearing stories from patients, who suffer…

Patients living with certain underlying chronic illnesses, such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure, and other diseases often experience a syndrome called cachexia, which can cause anorexia, unintentional weight loss, muscle wasting, loss of appetite, and/or fatigue.^{1, 2, 3} This wasting disorder can severely impact patients’ quality of life, and in some cases…

When it comes to the link between exercise and arthritis, the evidence from a wide range of studies strongly suggests that exercise not only improves function among people with arthritis but also helps them control pain better.

Without helium — the second lightest element on Earth, used at Thanksgiving to lift skyscraper-size parade balloons — medical science might come to a standstill.