Digging into how and why some genes are resurrected after death sounds morbid, but it has practical applications. 

Replacing immune cells in a mouse model of Rett syndrome, a developmental brain disorder, improved symptoms, suggesting a new target for treatment.

When I was a high school student, I came across Erwin Schrödingers What Is Life?. I still remember my exultant reaction—a combination of adolescent pride in feeling able to understand ideas considered beyond a young person’s means, and a genuine intellectual thrill engendered by the problems that Schrödinger addressed. Upon rereading the book, it appears to me that its major value was to provoke interest in a central problem of biology. Schrödinger’s question

The COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Biomedical innovation has rallied to address that pressing concern while continuing to tackle broader research challenges.

From a rapid molecular test for COVID-19 to tools that can characterize the antibodies produced in the plasma of patients recovering from the disease, this year’s winners reflect the research community’s shared focus in a challenging year.

As the agency overhauls its peer-review system, scientists assess the potential consequences. The peer-review system at the National Institutes of Health is in the midst of a critical series of reforms that will alter the way study sections judge and score grant applications. For the first time, reviewers will be required to consider five explicit criteria in judging grants, and one criterion will have the effect of placing a premium on innovative science. But NIH director Harold Varmus reject

Click to view the PDF file: Bead-based Fluorescent Multiplex Protein Analysis Systems Courtesy of LINCO ResearchLabMAP-based systems use internally dyed fluorescent microspheres to analyze as many as 100 different analytes concurrently. Today's competitive, high-paced research environment has stimulated the development of a host of approaches for rapid, cost-efficient analyses of large numbers of samples. In keeping with this trend, methods for simultaneously analyzing multiple species in a g

Reagents That Distinguish Th1 and Th2 cells Courtesy of R&D SystemsSchematic representation of cytokines influencing the development of antigen-activated naive CD4+ T cells into Th1 and Th2 cells. Editor's note: Although individual techniques are associated with specific researchers in this article, it should be noted that these investigators commonly use several different techniques to analyze T lymphocyte populations. The human body is constantly under siege. It must defend itself fr

The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia marks its 100th anniversary this year, but the mood at the nation's oldest independent biomedical research facility is hardly jubilant. The institute has been in turmoil for the last year, after the abrupt ouster of longtime director Hilary Koprowski, the famed virologist and immunologist who transformed Wistar from a dilapidated museum into a world-renowned research center. The commotion recently was stirred up further, when the 75-year-old Koprowski file