by: Katie Foulger Affecting one million Americans per year, of an unknown cause, with no treatment plans in place — the disease Multiple Sclerosis (MS) truly is an enigma. MS is an autoimmune disease that directly affects the central nervous system (CNS), consisting of the brain and spinal cord. The immune system malfunctions and begins […]
Lung Cancer Screening Saves Lives: What if We Started Using Blood Plasma?
by: Hiba Elkhatib “Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in the US and around the world. Almost everyone is going to know someone with lung cancer at some point. So, the goal is to try to diagnosis lung cancer as early as possible when patients have that possibility of a cure.” […]
Identifying Amyloid Deposits Using PET to Detect Earlier Stages of Memory Decline
by: Catherine Kim Recent studies reported that late intervention resulted in memory decline in cognitively normal (CN) individuals who tested negative for β-amyloid (Aβ). Researchers found that therapeutic interventions typically occur when individuals test positive for Aβ, which may be too late. Exactly how to identify those Aβ negative (Aβ-) individuals with cognitive decline using […]
Attention!
by: Amy Wise How does our brain decide between passively processing what we see and integrating the world around us into perception and experience? Numerous psychological studies seek to understand the basis of attention. Attention is the foundation of learning because it allows our brain to process information and begin to develop perception. If we […]
3D Printed Absorber for Capturing Chemotherapy Drugs
by: Jose Avila Imagine a world set in the future where technology has advanced so far that it is capable of carrying out complicated medical procedures with extreme precision. Imagine this world has found the key to better cancer treatments that are much more effective and have few negative after-effects. Well, perhaps that future is […]
Targeting the Undruggable Proteome – one probe at a time
by: Brandon Chan Recent advances in utilizing chemoproteomic platforms for drug discovery poses an enormous potential for investigating new novel therapeutics. This greatly expands the scope of discovering promising treatments for diseases, particularly in the realm of targeting proteins for degradation. Much interest has been devoted to understanding this strategy, as the hallmark of many […]
At Home EEG: Comparing the Effectiveness of the Wireless EEG System
by: Amy Wise Every second of every day, every network of cells in our brain is sending signals at specific rhythms that allow us to transmit an enormous amount of information. Brain cells communicate with each other through electrical impulses. An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test used to evaluate the electrical activity in the brain […]
The Heart of an Industry: The Long Term Impacts of Historical Gold Mining
by: Katherine Stenger In 1849, California was considered to be the land of gold; today, it is a region filled with more toxins than shiny metals, a direct consequence of mining activity from the California Gold Rush nearly 200 years ago. Community members in the Sierra Nevada foothills had been particularly concerned for decades, worried […]
Hacked – When Life-Saving Technology becomes a Life-Threatening Risk
by: Katherine Stenger The withholding of a pacemaker shock after cardiac arrest. The delivery of an extremely high dose of insulin. The prevention of access to medical files in an emergency room. All three of these potentially fatal situations can be created with simple hacks to extremely vulnerable medical devices. For a growing number of […]
Sleep Patterns: The Key to Predicting Alzheimer’s
by: Doris Ma Sleep patterns could be the key to predicting one’s likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A recent study published in JNeurosci shows that the accumulation of β-amyloid and tau proteins are associated with the disease which could be an early indicator of AD. Two proteins are thought to be the culprits of […]