The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:
The secret life of hair follicles, revealed by Stanford researchers: Stanford researchers delve into the cells surrounding our hair follicles to better understand what makes them grow and maintain hair. In the process, research associate Yiqin Xiong, PhD, and associate professor of medicine Ching-Pin Chang, MD, PhD, have identified a signaling circuit that controls the activity of stem cells, called “bulge cells,” within the follicle.
Ask Stanford Med: Surgeon taking questions on breast cancer diagnostics and therapies: For this month's Ask Stanford Med installment, Fredrick Dirbas, MD, head of the Breast Disease Management Group at the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, took questions related to breast cancer screening, dense breast notification legislation and advances in diagnostics and therapies. Dirbas will respond to a selection of the questions in a future Scope Q&A.
The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.
Atul Butte discusses why big data is a big deal in biomedicine: Next month, Stanford Medicine and Oxford University are sponsoring a three-day conference exploring the wealth of opportunities using data-mining in biomedicine. In this Q&A, Atul Butte, MD, PhD, Stanford systems-medicine chief and the conference’s scientific program committee chair, discusses why he’s passionate about how data-mining can transform scientific research and health care and discusses the conference program.
How meditation can influence gene activity: Findings recently published in PLoS One suggest that mindful-based therapies, such as meditation, may change practitioners' gene activity and boost their overall health.
