With human research trials resulting in dozens of successful deliveries in the US and abroad, doctors move toward offering the surgery clinically, while working to learn all they can about uterine and transplant biology from the still-rare procedure.

Glial cells were once considered neurons’ supporting actors, but new methods and model organisms are revealing their true importance in brain function.

Nucleic acid aptamers and protein scaffolds could change the way researchers study biological processes and treat disease.

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.

Courtesy of Eric D. Laywell SPHERES OF PROMISE These neurospheres, clusters of cells in culture derived from the CNS of mice, are stained with antibodies against a neuronal protein (red), and a astrocyte protein (green). They have a nuclear counterstain (blue). The brain and spinal cord were once considered mitotic dead ends, a division of neurons dwindling with toddlerhood, with memory and learning the consequence of synaptic plasticity, not new neurons. But the discovery of neural stem

Four studies identify alternative origins for cells of the developing lymphatic system, challenging the long-standing view that they all come from veins.

Photo: E.D. Laywell, UT MemphisMultipotent clones of cells derived from the adult human brain With the promises and challenges of stem cell research in the headlines, visions of artificial livers dance in the public's eye. Bioethicists, politicians, and citizens alike continue to debate whether public funds should be used to obtain cells from human embryos and fetuses. On the scientific front, however, the implications of stem cell research are even more profound than offering replacement parts.

©Mehau Kulyk/Photo Researchers, IncToward the end of World War II, a German-imposed food embargo in western Holland – a densely populated area already suffering from scarce food supplies, ruined agricultural lands, and the onset of an unusually harsh winter – led to the death by starvation of some 30,000 people. Detailed birth records collected during that so-called Dutch Hunger Winter have provided scientists with useful data for analyzing the long-term health effects of prenat

Courtesy of Genevieve Anderson If not for Nobel laureates Thomas Hunt Morgan, Eric R. Kandel, and Sydney Brenner, the notion of a general behavioral model might seem odd. Behaviors, after all, are determined by an animal's evolutionary history and ecological niche. They are often idiosyncratic, shared in detail only by closely related species. But, thanks to Morgan's research in the early 20th century, and Kandel's and Brenner's work over the past 35 years, the fly Drosophila melanogaster, t