After multiple deployments with the US Army Special Forces, Joe Hudak returned home in 2011 changed by his time in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South America. He was quickly diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He tried talk therapy and a range of medications, but they didn’t help. He attempted suicide twice …
Read More »A Gel Injected Into the Scrotum Could Be the Next Male Contraceptive
Vasectomies are on the rise, but not all men are ready to commit to a permanent form of birth control. While the surgery can sometimes be reversed, it's expensive and doesn’t always work. What if there was another option? Virginia-based biotech company Contraline is testing a new type of male …
Read More »The Race to Put Brain Implants in People Is Heating Up
In September, Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink announced the much-anticipated news that it would start recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial to test its device. Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, it collects electrical activity from neurons and interprets those signals into commands to control an external device. While …
Read More »The Age of Crispr Medicine Is Here
Jimi Olaghere used to end up in the emergency room so often that the hospital reserved a bed for him. Sickle cell disease dominated his life. A genetic defect he was born with meant that instead of having flexible, round red blood cells like most people do, his were sticky …
Read More »In a World First, a Patient's Antibody Cells Were Just Genetically Engineered
Our B cells help prevent us from getting sick. Their job is to make antibodies, immune system proteins that fight off viruses and other foreign invaders. And they make a lot of antibodies—thousands of them every second. What if these antibody factories could be harnessed to make other things the …
Read More »The First Crispr Medicine Is Now Approved in the US
The US Food and Drug Administration today approved a first-of-its kind medical treatment that uses Crispr gene editing. Called Casgevy, the therapy is intended to treat patients with sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that affects more than 100,000 people in the United States. The UK first approved the …
Read More »Want to Store a Message in DNA? That’ll Be $1,000
You probably keep a backup of important personal files, photos, and videos on a flash drive or external hard drive. In the not-too-distant future, you might store that data in DNA instead. French company Biomemory wants to bring personal DNA-based data storage to the public. Today, the company announced the …
Read More »A Cutting-Edge Cancer Treatment May Cause Cancer. The FDA Is Investigating
The US Food and Drug Administration says it is investigating cases in which some patients who received a type of cutting-edge cancer treatment later developed new cancers. Known as CAR-T cell therapy, the treatment involves removing certain immune cells called T cells from patients and genetically modifying them to find …
Read More »A Life-Extension Drug for Big Dogs Is Getting Closer to Reality
There’s a well-established inverse relationship between a dog’s size and its expected lifespan. Bernese mountain dogs and Great Danes live just six to eight years, for example, while corgis can live up to 15 years and Chihuahuas up to two decades. San Francisco biotech company Loyal wants to close that …
Read More »The First Crispr Medicine Just Got Approved
The first medical treatment that uses Crispr gene editing was authorized Thursday by the United Kingdom. The one-time therapy, which will be sold under the brand name Casgevy, is for patients with sickle cell disease and a related blood disorder called beta thalassemia, both of which are inherited. The UK …
Read More »