Features Articles - cancer, genetics & genomics and immunology

Are Cancer Stem Cells Ready for Prime Time?

By Suling Liu, Hasan Korkaya, and Max S. Wicha | April 1, 2012

A flood of new discoveries has refined our definition of cancer stem cells. Now it’s up to human clinical trials to test if they can make a difference in patients.

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What it Takes to Develop Better Drugs for Kids

By J. Steven Leeder | March 1, 2012

Over the past 15 years, new laws and regulations in the United States and the European Union have expanded to require the inclusion of pediatric patients in clinical drug trials. Before these laws were enacted, the US Food and Drug Administration (F

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Child-Proofing Drugs

By Edyta Zielinska | March 1, 2012

When children need medications, getting the dosing and method of administration right is like trying to hit a moving target with an untried weapon.

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Vitamin D on Trial

By Amy Maxmen | March 1, 2012

Prevention trials for vitamins and supplements are notoriously difficult, but some researchers aren’t giving up on finding proof that vitamin D helps ward off disease.

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Resolving Chronic Pain

By Claudia Sommer and Frank Birklein | January 1, 2012

The body’s own mechanism for dispersing the inflammatory reaction might lead to new treatments for chronic pain.

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Top Ten Innovations 2011

By The Scientist Staff | January 1, 2012

Our list of the best and brightest products that 2011 had to offer the life scientist

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Sensing Fat

By Beverly J. Tepper and Kathleen L. Keller | December 1, 2011

Are genes that alter the perception of fat making us fat?

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Omics

October 1, 2011

Early sequencing evolved into the publication of genomes for myriad species, including our own, within the span of two and a half decades. Bioinformatician Stephen Friend opines on what's in store as the next quarter century of omics takes shape.

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A Small Revolution

By Erica Westly | October 1, 2011

In fewer than 15 years, nanomedicine has gone from fantasy to reality.

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Nanomedicine

October 1, 2011

At the nanoscale old materials acquire new properties that International Institute for Nanotechnology Director Chad Mirkin thinks will change the way medicine is practiced.

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