Living with Cancer: Testing New Cancer Treatments
Before any drug is approved for use by the Federal Drug Administration it must be rigorously tested, not only in the laboratory but with patients. Today most children with cancer and young men with testicular cancer are being cured with new drugs th...
The Code: Genetic Screening Prior to and During Pregnancy
Because of their family history some couples request screening for recessive genetic diseases prior to conceiving a child. If they are already pregnant, and both parents turn out to be carriers for diseases such as Tay Sachs of Sickle Cell, tests ca...
The Code: The Genetic Blueprint
Every cell of the human body carries 23 pairs of chromosomes. The chemical substance within each chromosome--the DNA--contains hundreds, sometimes thousands of different genes, depending on the size of the chromosome. Genes direct the formation of t...
The Code: Genetic Testing
The Human Genome Project has revealed a number of genes that contribute to genetic diseases. In fact the onset of a disease that has genetic roots can be detected decades before the first symptom. Such extraordinary advances have generated a host of...
The Modern Plague: Search for an HIV Vaccine
The development of a vaccine against HIV is proving to be a daunting task. Alexandra Levine talks of her work with Jonas Salk on what was to be his last major project, looking for either a way to kill the virus or use it as a therapeutic vaccine dur...