Scope is an award-winning medical blog produced by a team of writers at Stanford University School of Medicine.
In the history of science and medicine, the breakthrough discoveries get a lot of deserved attention, but often overlooked are the invention of the tools that made those discoveries possible. Galileo discovered moons around other planets, but it was the invention of the telescope that made his observation possible. Leeuwenhoek discovered microbes only after he …Read More
It has been a momentous month for Stanford researcher Maria Grazia Roncarolo, MD. Following decades of research in Roncarolo’s lab and the clinic, pharmaceutical company Glaxo SmithKline has applied for final approval by European Medicines Agency (EMA) of a treatment she developed to cure a deadly childhood immune disorder. If approved by the EMA, which …Read More
Academic institutions are in a much better position than pharmaceutical companies to make the best decisions about which therapies deserve further development. That was the underlying message from a pair of Stanford researchers at a panel on stem cell science at last weekend’s Association of Health Care Journalism 2015 conference. “There’s an inherent flaw in …Read More
At the Childx conference last week there was a great deal of optimism that stem cell and genetic therapies are about to have a huge impact on many childhood diseases. “It’s not just science fiction anymore,” Matthew Porteus, MD, PhD, told the audience. “We can correct mutations that cause childhood disease.” The session was hosted by …Read More
A new era of stem cell science began 25 years ago. At that time, Stanford researcher Irving Weissman, MD, and his colleagues announced in Science that they had purified hematopoietic stem cells from a mouse. This was the first “adult” (tissue specific) stem cell isolated in purified form from any species. In order to isolate the stem …Read More
Last week, Science published a research report from Stanford scientists on the discovery of a single gene in a primitive marine organism that determines whether that organism recognizes wayward cells as being part of themselves or foreign. What’s interesting scientifically is that this is a very primitive immune system, and if we understand exactly how it …Read More
Not long ago, Stanford computer scientist Debashis Sahoo, PhD, told investigators at the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine that in a few seconds he could find many of the important stem cell genes that the researchers were used to finding only after spending millions of dollars and years in the lab. …Read More
How and why do some cells in our bodies become cancerous? Can any cell become cancerous, or only certain kinds of cells? Those are longstanding questions with big implications for treating and preventing cancer. In the case of leukemias, Stanford researchers finally have an answer to the first question: Mutations accumulate slowly in blood stem cells, …Read More
As I reported in this week’s issue of Inside Stanford Medicine, Scott Metzler, PhD, is a researcher who not only studies the early development of the heart, but also suffers from a serious heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. Since hearts are a leitmotif of Metzler’s life, it seems appropriate that heart-shaped images, like this …Read More
Digital technologies and social networks will cause medicine’s biggest shakeup in history, an expert says.
