Drug development is one of the largest industries in the world. A significant amount of resources and time is invested into to produce drugs for clinical use. Equally important is the process of drug delivery and targeting by which the synthesized compounds are delivered to tissues in the body. As reported by Transparency Market Research in 2018, the drug delivery market is rapidly rising and is expected to be worth US $900 billion by 2025. 

Agriculture is the world’s largest industry; over 30 percent of the global population works in an agrarian related field. Creating predictions in regard to future production is a key feature of every industry; unfortunately, agriculture appears to have the most confounds impeding its growth, especially climate change.

With the recent rise in research on the health benefits of crab, there has been an increased abundance of crabbers in the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. While humans are happily indulging in the latest diet trends, and commercial fisheries are far surpassing their quotas, the populations of aquatic species such as Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) are consequently dwindling.

Global warming is exacerbating. Plastic and trash fill oceans and landscapes. Rainforests and high-biodiversity ecosystems are being sapped of their natural resources. While humanity enjoys the goods that Mother Nature has to offer, neglecting to protect our environment does not go without repercussions to our own health.

“If you could have one superpower, would you choose to read minds or fly?”

The choices in this jovial question always used to seem so surreal, almost magical. The latter has been done, through airplanes and other technologies, but reading minds always seemed so impossible.

The quest to understand the natural world is of paramount importance and takes the dedication of many driven minds. One part of this journey is the demystification of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle that gives all matter mass. Such a particle is amongst many others being studied by physicists today, an effort bolstered by Dr. Evelyn Thomson, an experimental particle physicist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Thirty years after the discovery of cystic fibrosis, researchers have developed a new therapy that is expected to improve the condition of 90 percent of the cystic fibrosis population. Last October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expedited the approval of Trikafta (elexacaftor/ivacaftor/tezacaftor), a triple combination therapy licensed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 1.9 billion individuals over the age of 18 are overweight which comprises roughly one-third of the world population. Obesity is defined by the presence of abnormal or excessive fat which presents excessive risks to an individual’s health. Consequently, obesity is a risk factor for diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Health care professionals and world organization bodies, such as the WHO, highlight that obesity is preventable. As such, there has been significant research conducted to understand the causes of the pandemic.

In their recently published research paper, Kulsom Nuuri and Dr. Yoana Arroyo-Berdugo from the University of Roehampton presented their investigation of the origin of chemotherapy resistance in pediatric patients suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In ALL, large numbers of lymphoblasts develop from stem cells in the bone marrow and quickly crowd out other blood cells that are important for fighting infection, transporting oxygen, and clotting. Eventually, these cancerous cells spread to the blood and other organs. Without treatment, ALL can be fatal within just a few months.

Filet a juicy, pink salmon, and you might see white bulbs smaller than a grain of rice. These bulbs are known as tapioca, or milk flesh, a disease caused by the parasite Henneguya salminicola. For the consumer, these pests are a nuisance; yet for the scientific community, they are now a cause of great intrigue.

Have the women in your life been screen for breast cancer recently? If not, perhaps they should. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in women worldwide. There were approximately 2 million new breast cancer cases in 2018.

On July 4, 1997, the Mars Pathfinder, encapsulated in a 17’ by 17’ tetrahedral airbag, bounced along the surface of Mars. Cocooned within the cushioning was a mobile robot the size of a microwave oven—Sojourner—the first rover to successfully operate on Mars. For 83 Mars days the Sojourner gathered critical information about the Martian environment, including the mineral composition of rocks and the topology near its landing site, which provided evidence that Mars once had water.

When adopting a cat or dog, few prospective pet owners consider the effect that their domestic pets may have on wildlife. While researchers have estimated that billions of animals are killed by domestic cats annually, there is a paucity of data on animals harmed by domestic dogs.

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lesley Anson, who has established herself in the world of science editing and communication. By working as a scientific editor at Nature, managing her own established journal and more recently starting up her own freelance consulting company Anson Scientific, Lesley has been able to develop critical analytical skills and see this sector from every possible angle.

The European Commission and United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have both recently given the green light to market a new drug designed for adult patients with Cushing’s disease. This autoimmune disorder, which impacts roughly 13 million people per year, is a form of Cushing’s syndrome caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland. The tumor causes increased cortisol levels, and the goal of the drug is to lower cortisol levels without the unintended side effects seen with other medications such as hyperglycemia or liver damage.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly important in the medical field. It provides predictive behaviors that can accurately analyze complex medical data. With AI integration into many fields of medicine, it is important for healthcare providers to understand its capabilities and limitations. Its growing popularity and presence in healthcare has caused widespread media coverage, allowing a wider percentage of our population to become aware of its great potential to help. However, these news stories are often hyperbolic and overestimate the power of AI in healthcare and ignore its potential limitations.

The World Health Organization estimates that Kenyans consume 171 grams of maize per person daily, or approximately 62 kilograms per person per year. Like many types of grains, nuts, and dried fruits, maize can serve as a host for molds that produce toxins. In an article published at JYI this week, Kaiming Tan of the Department of Environmental Toxicology at the University of California Davis discusses possible environmental and societal contributions that lead to Kenya’s most severe outbreak of acute aflatoxicosis in 2004.

Affecting roughly one percent of the population worldwide, schizophrenia first manifests in the mid-teens to late 30s, and distorts an individual’s interpretation of reality. Schizophrenia is diagnosed through the presence of “positive symptoms” which are feelings or behaviors that are usually not present such as hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking.

Empathy plays a critical role in morality and social cognition. The term “empathy” first emerged in 1909 as a Greek-rooted equivalent of the German word Einfühlung, meaning in-feeling. The etymology of this term gives it a new dimension because of how it allows us to understand empathy as the ability to emotionally connect with not only other human beings, but with literature, art, animals, characters, symbols, and anything else in our surrounding world.

Prosthetic devices have been a part of human innovation for centuries. From the crudest prosthetic hands originating from ancient Egypt to the most advanced limbs designed in the 21st century. With continuing development and refinement in prosthetics research, prosthetic devices become more suitable options for people with disabilities. With greater functionality, though, come greater challenges with size, weight, and complexity. Researchers Andrew Chan, Jacob Altholz, Richard Weir, and Matthew Davidson from the University of Colorado Denver invented a novel clutch mechanism that resolves some of the problems inherent in recent prosthetic developments, which they detail in their new paper.

Bacteria are our companions, working with our immune system to fight crime. So, is utilising our knowledge about the bacteria in our gut the answer to fighting infectious diseases?

Reducing unintended secondary effects remains a major obstacle for researchers tasked with developing new treatments for chronic diseases. A major impediment to generating drugs without side-effects is that these compounds are not always specific to their biological targets. Lack of specificity can cause side-effects when the drug interacts with non-target molecules in a different biological pathway than the intended target. Published this month in Journal of Young Investigators, Kennedy et al. examine the binding of eight small molecules against α-glucosidase — a common drug target for noninsulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus (type II diabetes).

The streets of London grow empty as businesses, universities, schools, stores and train stations are instructed to close. One would think it’s a public holiday, Christmas day perhaps. Everyone is at home spending time with their loved ones, taking a break before the New Year comes around with new goals and ambitions to achieve. But wait, that was just the end of March.

Long before modern medicine, immune response was someone’s first and last line of defense. Even if the modern era comes with everything from powerful antibiotics to antihistamines, some researchers still wonder if old school is best, and how they might modify the immune response to fight diseases like cancer. One method, where chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified natural killer (NK) cells could prove to be a powerful cancer-fighter with fewer side effects.