By Gertrud U. Rey Every year approximately 1800 high school students from more than 80 different countries gather at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), where they display their independent research and compete for more than $5 million worth of prizes. Last month, I had the honor of serving as a Grand Awards Judge …
by Gertrud U. Rey Dengue fever, caused by dengue virus (DENV), is of substantial public health significance in the tropics, where the virus is spread by Aedes mosquitoes. Last week the FDA announced its approval of a first vaccine for the prevention of dengue disease in endemic areas.
by Gertrud U. Rey In 1998, a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the British journal The Lancet. In this paper, Wakefield implied that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may cause developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The paper received wide publicity, and subsequently, MMR vaccination rates began …
by Gertrud U. Rey Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the Berlin patient (reviewed in a previous post), was the only person ever to be cured of HIV/AIDS. Until last week.
by Gertrud Rey Although cancer therapies have improved dramatically in recent years, the main options for treating cancer still consist of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. This limitation is a problem for aggressive cancers like glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), brain cancers which are typically resistant to traditional therapies.
by Gertrud U. Rey Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) include a variety of fatal neurodegenerative diseases caused by infectious proteins called prions. Although prions are not viruses, their ability to self-propagate without a nucleic acid intermediate has always fascinated virologists, causing them to adopt prions into their repertoire of pathogenic agents. Common TSEs comprise scrapie in …
