The Scientist Speaks

Traditional and new cancer therapies often become stymied due to tumor resistance, but why resistance arises and how to avoid it remain important questions in the cancer research field. To uncover the ways tumors form...

Retinal neurons derived from human stem cells are a promising source of replacement cells for regenerating damaged or diseased retinas. As scientists progress toward translation of cell therapies for restoring vision...

Early diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson’s disease is critical to slowing its progression. Long before neurological symptoms appear, patients exhibit early signs, some of which are associated with specific chemical...

Just like people declutter their homes to prevent the accumulation of broken or unwanted items, cells use autophagy to maintain homeostasis. This essential cleaning process enables them to capture and degrade...

Gut microbes affect humans in many ways, including altering the gastrointestinal tract’s function and influencing a person’s body weight, and the nutrients that people ingest can affect the microbiome. Researchers now...

Rare diseases often remain undiagnosed due to unknown etiologies. In recent years, researchers have made headway in characterizing the molecular causes of rare diseases thanks to progressively powerful sequencing...

Building miniature brains may sound like a page out of a science fiction novel, but fact is indeed stranger than fiction. Researchers around the world grow brain organoids—3D miniature brains—to better understand brain...

As a maternal-fetal immunologist at the Washington University School of Medicine, Nardhy Gómez-López investigates the immunobiological pathways that underlie pregnancy complications. Having trained and researched across...

In the 1960s, researchers in England noticed an anomaly when investigating chromosomes from surgically removed human tumors. Distinct from the intact chromosomes visible underneath the microscope were numerous “very...

As the Golub Family Professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University, Paola Arlotta seeks to understand how the human brain is formed and what makes it unique. After being inspired by her high...

Researchers now employ artificial intelligence (AI) models based on deep learning to make functional predictions about big datasets. While the concepts behind these networks are well established, their inner workings...

The field of psychedelics research has exploded in recent years, as scientists dig deeper into the neuroscience and pharmacology of hallucinogens and how their unique properties can be harnessed to understand and treat...

Every cell within the human body contains the same DNA, but not all cells look and act alike. The key to cellular diversity lies in which genes the cells express or shut down. Cells convey this information to the...

Cloud-based systems enable remote science experiments, allowing researchers to accomplish experimental breakthroughs from virtually any location with computer access. Remote labs and cloud-connected instruments are...

Researchers apply the principles of synthetic biology to address some of the most pressing human health challenges. In what some consider a science and an artform, scientists use bacterial components in creative ways to...