A ‘sniff test’ signals consciousness after a brain injury, study shows
An unconscious person’s response to odors after a serious brain injury may be a simple…
Category: In the Lab
STAT Plus: ‘GI tract outside the body’ tests how well oral drugs are absorbed
When people swallow a pill, they expect the medicine to quickly reach the source of…
International trial uses AI to rapidly identify optimal Covid-19 treatments
Treating patients with the never-before-seen Covid-19 is forcing doctors to choose between two equally unpalatable…
You need a special lab to study the coronavirus. Here’s what it takes to get one up and running
Before the pandemic, there was only a small group of researchers dedicated to studying coronaviruses….
‘Smart toilet’ could monitor for signs of illness in urine and stool, study finds
Analyzing urine and stool to get a picture of health has traditionally been the work…
MIT’s Koch Institute wins STAT Madness with technology to see tiny ovarian tumors
Carbon nanotubes rule. In this year’s STAT Madness, a bracket-style competition to honor the best…
STAT Plus: ‘It’s the disparity in who gets affected’: A sickle cell doctor tracks dollars and drug development
Sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis are both rare, genetic diseases. While there are three…
CRISPR pioneer Doudna opens lab to run Covid-19 tests
A team of academic and industry researchers led by Jennifer Doudna, the researcher best known…
What it’s like to go into the lab at a biopharma company during the coronavirus pandemic
Like grocery store clerks and Amazon delivery drivers, they’re among the essential workers of the…
A call to scientists idled by shuttered labs: Share your bench skills and resources to fight Covid-19
His lab shut down last week by coronavirus precautions like many others across the U.S.,…
Revealing the hidden beauty of research: MIT’s 2020 images award winners
Sometimes the most beautiful images are ones that can’t be seen with the naked eye….
Near-lockdown in the Bay Area ‘ratchets up’ challenges for local biotechs and labs
At the stroke of midnight on Tuesday morning, seven counties in the San Francisco Bay…
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Microbial signatures in the blood could offer new avenue for liquid biopsies to detect cancer
The many companies developing liquid biopsies to try to detect cancer early have so far…
To develop a coronavirus vaccine, synthetic biologists try to outdo nature
Even as companies rush to develop and test vaccines against the new coronavirus, the Bill…
From ferrets to mice and marmosets, labs scramble to find right animals for coronavirus studies
One lab is digging into its freezer to thaw out the archived sperm of SARS-susceptible…
New surgery and AI give amputees more precise control of a prosthetic hand, study shows
People with limb injuries severe enough to require an amputation have few options to regain…
In its first use inside the human body, CRISPR genome editing tested as blindness therapy
Scientists say they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR inside someone’s body for the…
STAT Plus: They have ‘Alzheimer’s brains’ but no symptoms. A new wave of drug developers wants to know why
For years they were flukes of the Alzheimer’s world: elderly people who died at an…
Researchers develop AI-based intervention for kids with autism
Everyday social interactions with family members and peers can be challenging for children with autism…
Aided by machine learning, scientists find a novel antibiotic able to kill superbugs in mice
For decades, discovering novel antibiotics meant digging through the same patch of dirt. Biologists spent…
Scientists turn organs transparent — and use a new technique to capture 3D pictures of what’s inside
Scientists in Germany have turned human organs transparent and captured pictures of the complex cellular…
Priscilla Chan charts an ambitious, unglamorous course to fight disease. (Her husband is involved, too.)
SAN FRANCISCO — Dr. Priscilla Chan was just over a year out of her pediatric…
The vodka trial: In search of a treatment for vocal disorders, a researcher puts patient anecdotes to the test
Mondays are vodka days. For the members of Dr. Kristina Simonyan’s lab, this is not…
Study is halted as HIV vaccine fails test in South Africa
The latest attempt at an HIV vaccine has failed, as researchers announced Monday they have…
Brain-imaging study shows ‘hot spot’ that may explain why African Americans feel greater pain
To be black in America is to literally feel greater pain than non-Hispanic white people…
DNA sleuths read the coronavirus genome, tracing its origins and looking for dangerous mutations
As infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists race to contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus…
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Mount Vesuvius blast turned ancient victim’s brain to glass
MILAN — The eruption of Mount Vesuvius turned an incinerated victim’s brain material into glass,…
Researchers have already grown miniature brains and lungs. Next up: snake venom gland organoids
It’s not every day that a press release for biomedical research conjures up the Barbasol…
A fitting memorial: Superbug treatment named for the patient who inspired its discovery
Even for the most elite of bacteria-killers, these superbugs were a challenge. They’d delayed Mallory…
It’s been sequenced. It’s spread across borders. Now the new pneumonia-causing virus needs a name
Ebola, SARS, swine flu, MERS. With the reality that a previously unknown animal virus has…
A ‘landmark’ achievement: Scientists trace full wiring diagram of the fly brain’s core
Particle physicists are used to popping champagne corks when they make discoveries at lilliputian scales,…
STAT Plus: Could a drug for arthritis in dogs also fight cancer in people?
Drugs for diabetes, inflammation, alcoholism — and even for treating arthritis in dogs — can…
Tweaking how CAR-T therapy kills tumors could stop a dangerous side effect, study finds
As every trauma surgeon knows, there are messy bullet wounds and there are neat ones,…
He Jiankui, who created world’s first CRISPR’d babies, sentenced to three years in prison
A Chinese court on Monday sentenced He Jiankui, the scientist who made the world’s first…
What will 2020 bring for medicine and science? We asked 16 leaders for predictions
Last year, when we asked science and health care soothsayers to peak ahead to 2019,…
Unorthodox Alzheimer’s researcher Robert Moir dies at age 58
When science reporters look for researchers to profile, we put a premium on the importance…
Scientists aren’t sure why identical twins differ. Armadillo quads offer an answer
One of the armadillo quadruplets runs away when she hears Amanda Withnell approaching; her three…
STAT Plus: Creating Pig3.0, the world’s most CRISPR’d animal, raises hopes of transplantable organs
A biotechnology company that is trying to create CRISPR-edited pigs so their organs could be…
Experimental vaccine patch embeds invisible dots under the skin, leaving record of immunization
Ana Jaklenec readily acknowledges she’s inspired by “Star Trek.” The Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist…
New study in mice points to why melanoma spreads — and perhaps how to prevent metastasis
In some melanoma patients, the tumor cells stay in the skin where they started, never…
STAT Plus: In novel partnership with cancer group, biotech venture firm doles out grants for research
The whole point of a biotech venture capital firm is to make money for itself…
Female researchers are less likely than men to frame their work with positive words, study finds
Are men more impressed with their own scientific research than women? Or are women warned…
STAT Plus: Watch: Dr. James Wilson, a scientific pioneer, on the future of gene therapy
Dr. James Wilson is a pioneer in gene therapy. That does not mean he is…
Research using brains-in-a-dish forces a radical rethinking of Huntington’s disease
Even allowing for the fact that these were lilliputian brains, they were not behaving at…
Warning: Swimming and deep brain stimulation do not mix
For people with Parkinson’s disease, deep brain stimulation can calm the tremors and tame the…
For babies born with HIV, start treatment right away, study says
WASHINGTON — When babies are born with HIV, starting treatment within hours to days is…
Across several continents, infecting mosquitoes with bacteria results in dramatic drops in dengue illness, trials show
The number of people infected by dengue and at least one related virus has plunged…
STAT Plus: Gene therapy pioneer says the field is behind — and that delivery technology is ‘embarrassing’
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Gene therapy pioneer Dr. James Wilson is disappointed by the progress in…