Posts in category: Uncategorized

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, seems to have become a permanent presence in our lives. Research from Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch’s lab reveals that this may be true on multiple levels. Jaenisch, postdoc Liguo Zhang, and colleagues have shown that when the virus infects people, it is capable of integrating parts of its genetic code into the human genome through a process called reverse transcription. This genomic integration is rare, but due to how many hundreds of millions of people have been infected, it has likely occurred many times.

A new study by Rice University and the Houston Health Department shows wastewater-based monitoring is an effective way to detect viral outbreaks in schools.

A Yale-led study examines the potential environmental benefits of more carefully selecting patients for prostate biopsy in a way that can also spare low-yield and potentially harmful procedures.

A minimally invasive treatment that injects allograft disk tissue into the spine to relieve pain associated with degenerative disk disease provides significant improvement in pain and function over a sustained period, according to new research to be presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting in Phoenix, March 4–9.

US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced Wednesday it was cutting the cost of its most commonly prescribed insulins by 70 percent after years of soaring prices that hit millions of Americans living with diabetes.

A statewide alcohol-monitoring program in South Dakota that requires people arrested for drunk driving and other alcohol-involved offenses to be tested frequently for alcohol use can reduce the likelihood that participants die during the years after their involvement with the program, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

A new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School details the step-by-step cascade that allows bacteria to break through the brain’s protective layers—the meninges—and cause brain infection, or meningitis, a highly fatal disease.

Preclinical trials have shown that zika virus can inhibit the spread of prostate cancer, suggesting its potential use in treating the disease. However, a new study by researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo State, Brazil, shows that zika can trigger a persistent inflammatory process in healthy epithelial cells and damage the male reproductive system.

Cardiovascular medicine, hematology and pulmonary medicine may soon have the first-ever therapies to correct poor tissue oxygenation, a key driver of disease in millions, including peripheral artery disease, sickle cell disease, heart failure, stroke, emphysema and many others.

A large team of cancer researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in Germany, working with a colleague from the U.S., has discovered some of the ways gut bacteria can positively impact treatments for cancer. In their study, published in the journal Nature, the group studied the impact of gut microbiota on chemotherapy given to patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Le Li and Florencia McAllister with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, have published a News and Views piece in the same journal issue, outlining the work done by the team in Germany.