Velocity continues to increase for turning cutting edge molecular biology into businesses and new treatments. On March 14, the UK announced fast advancing plans to emulate the US FDA’s approach to fast-tracking "breakthrough" drugs for "early access" for serious medical conditions with unmet medical needs. E.g. Alzheimer’s, Lou Gerigh’s disease, diabetes, and most cancers. The pharma industry of course is pleased (except for increased costs), and has been pushing for greater

Digital data today pours out in immense quantities. How to see and convey the signal? With that in mind, Edward Tufte will soon be speaking in Chicago and in Champaign-Urbana at the University of Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Mr. Tufte is considered one of the masters of conveying information visually. His four books are beautiful and full of examples of ways to convey both meaning and detail. One chart he cites communicates in detail the awful hu

Are you in general healthy? Are you free of the major risk factors for near term death (smoking, obesity, excess alcohol, lack of exercise, poor diet lacking in fruit and vegetables)? Do you want to know if you have an excess risk of dying in the next five years for some unknown reason? Or, on the other hand, the test may show your relative risk is very low. Those are just some of the intriguing questions raised by a recent article on the use of a biomarker test that was ab

This WSJ article/op-ed provides insights and predictions into the relatively near-term future of personalized medical monitoring, and the role of your phone and other computers. Some excerpts are pasted below but read it all: "Thanks to more than 20 Silicon Valley startups and advances in microfluidic technology, smartphones will soon be able to function as a mobile, real-time resource for rapidly obtaining all the studies done currently in a medical laboratory, including ch

"Nine blood stem cell colonies are illustrated in the image, which have developed into differentiated cell types, particularly into white blood cells (leukocytes).") (Photo courtesy of the Department of Clinical Research of the University of Bern, Tumor-Immunology Research Group) _______________________________________________________________________________ Stem cell niches. Researchers know in general that niches are important places in bone marrow, and are where stem cells

How much change is ahead in molecular science, and then toxic torts? Consider this. A new paper reports that the University of Chicago’s "Beagle" supercomputer analyzed 240 whole genomes in two days, using only 25% of the computer’s capacity. The same task would take an estimated 47 years on a regular desktop. A key point from the story: "The implications go beyond diagnosis. Spotting genetic mutations early, before a person is symptomatic, can help scientists not only diagno

How many medical journal articles did you and your toxic tort team review in depth in 2013? Perhaps you have a deep and skilled team, and maybe made it through 100 medical journal articles? Perhaps your team has fewer resources and made it through 50 medical journal articles? And is it correct to think the team is not reviewing any hard core journals about genomics, and/or molecular chemistry or…..? Imagine your team instead going through over 22 million scientific journals

Change is happening. Even the ever stodgy Economist is paying attention to and writing optimistically about genetic therapies. #Science

A new book, the Second Machine Age, makes the point that human minds do not do well in grasping exponential errors or levels of change. So, I’ve been watching lately for examples of exponential differences. One popped up this week thanks to Bits, Bots, and Biomarkers. According to a new CDC study, Lyme disease may be 10X more common than we’ve been thinking. That’s not good, especially for a nasty and potentially fatal disease. #Science

Another week and more revolutionary findings about stem cells and their ability to turn into any kind of cell. Why mention here these developments in hard core science? Because they illustrate the exponential pace of progress in molecular biology. First, researchers in Japan announced finding a simple way to transform mature cells back into a state that looks very much like a pluripotent embryonic stem stem. In short, the process is to put them briefly in a solution of a we

(Credit: Alex Jerez Roman, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology) What can you get when you combine heart cells, wire and polymer shaped liked sperm? A synthetic swimming bio-bot. The cells organize themselves into a useful alignment, and then synchronize their "heart beat" to swing the tail and move forward. And, double-tailed structures move even faster. The engineering and creativity is from Taher Saif and other Beckman Center researchers at the University

Illumina is the world leader in sequencing genes. From 1988-2003, the government-sponsored Human Genome Project blazed a wonderful trail that took about a decade, and it cost about $3.8 billion to produce one sequence of one genome. Craig Venter and others added massively to the trail-blazing. The return on investment has been extraordinary in terms of changing science and lives. In addition, the HGP produced exponential financial returns. Since then, gene sequencing science

Welcome to 2014. Researchers took a succesfull first step on generating organized sets of eye cells using ink jet printing systems. This does not mean creating eye cells from ink. It means instead using biologic processs to multiply extracted eye cells and then using the ink jet system to generate organized sets of copies that potentially could be implanted. In this first test, the newly generated cells appeared normal and capable of surviving. Set out below are key excerpts

Ever wondered when and how biologists started using mice for cancer experiments? The answers are in an easy to read article from researchers working at Cold Spring Harbor, one of the world’s great centers for fundamental research on biology and cells. The article is free, and is titled: Of Model Pets and Cancer Models: An Introduction to Mouse Models of Cancer, doi:10.1101/pdb.top069757, Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2014, © 2014 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. The abstract

Thinking long-term. It’s not necessarily a strength of lawyers or their clients. For scientists, however, it’s often a priority. Thus, the world of science today includes an ever-increasing number of ongoing, long-term studies aimed at understanding why people contract diseases and looking for markers of disease. And, of special note, some of the studies include regular sampling of fluids and tissues of members of the study. The researchers may not know what they are looking

Superstars of Science. It’s a helpful web site full of information about great scientists. It could be useful for litigation, and certainly for homework research for children. #Science

Amazing images of cells, and you can vote for a favorite. #Science

A new study suggests objective ways to measure the likelihood of a successful marriage. One of the points is that people may vocalize one thing (we will be very happy) but other reactions may more accurately predict the outcome. While of course one study does not mean the findings are correct, it is interesting to note the increasing scientific attention to human behavior. And some day we will see even more of this science make its way into jury selection and into arguments

"CAT scans for the earth." That’s the analogy used by researchers who devised new methods for figuring out where oil well waste waters are going, and whether in fact they are polluting drinking water. Thus, yet another example of how changes in science may influence litigation and regulation. #Science

A new research article indicates that stem cells from umbilical cords can be used to more rapidly generate skin cells for burn victims. Yet another reason to put umbilical cords into biobanks, and to invest in stem cell research. #Science