By digging through dusty storerooms and reading dead people’s mail, science historian and philosopher Michael Dietrich keeps biologists attuned to the past and mindful of the present.

Weird and wonderful, plant DNA is challenging preconceptions about the evolution of life, including our own species.

Joel Cohen uses the tools of mathematics to deconstruct questions of life.

Researchers are piecing together the devilishly complex sets of genetic alterations underlying schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

By audaciously pursuing an abandoned area of research, Ana María Cuervo discovered how cells selectively break down their waste, and revealed the health consequences when that process malfunctions.

Researchers use molecular keys, chisels, and crowbars to open the last great biochemical barricade in the body—the blood-brain barrier.

Thanks to a book, a war, and a big green caterpillar, John Hildebrand found himself mapping the exquisite and surprising wiring of the insect olfactory system.

Companies are bursting at the seams with tools to engineer pharma’s next magic bullet: the new and improved antibody.

From a tiny marine research center on the Louisiana coast, Nancy Rabalais has led the charge to map, understand, and reduce dangerous “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico.

Unafraid to tackle cancer disparities across races, Olufunmilayo “Funmi” Olopade has demonstrated that genomics research can make a big impact on public health.

Already a world leader in high-tech entrepreneurship, Israel is now flexing its biotech muscles.

While tracing the tricky and sometimes surprising paths of multipotent cells in the skin, mammary gland, and heart, Cédric Blanpain has repeatedly turned the stem cell field on its head.