Slanted Science

Archive for the ‘New Treatments For Diseases’ Category

Reports are emerging today from a pilot investigation aimed at giving/restoring sight to the blind.

German surgeons claim they have successfully implanted microchips into the eyes of a 45-year old volunteer. The result: he was able to see well enough to find his way around and to read. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)  in Frederick, Maryland work with various nasty pathogens. They’re the kinds of bugs which, experts predict, would be likely candidates for biological terrorist attacks – anthrax, that sort of thing. Well, someone apparently didn’t follow the rigorous safe-handling procedures correctly, as one of the boffins has contracted a disease known as tularemia, or rabbit fever.

We do not believe the reports claiming that co-workers’ suspicions were first aroused when the researcher began ordering 50-lb bags of carrots delivered to their lab. Read the rest of this entry »

New research is showing scientists how sperm production can be increased or decreased by altering the levels of hormone signaling in the testes.

This science is quite clearly a load of balls. Read the rest of this entry »

Saliva science. Not the hottest of research fields, perhaps, but it is apparently drawing in some funding.

Because a new paper published in the Journal of Proteome Research is reporting that the wet stuff changes its chemical composition as women age. Read the rest of this entry »

Work carried out at several North American research institutes, and headed by Dr Stuart Lipton,has come up with a novel strategy for treating the terrible neurodegenerative condition called Huntington’s Disease (or Huntington’s Chorea).

They used a mouse model of the disease and found that, in the mice at least, disease progress can be halted by a drug currently being used to treat patients with Alzheimer’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Great news for skinny guys! Scientists have used gene therapy to successfully increase the size and strength of lab monkeys’ muscles.

But calm down, stickboys: the intended use of this research is in treating degenerative muscular diseases. Better keep paying that gym subscription for a while longer yet. Read the rest of this entry »

ALD, or Adrenoleukodystrophy, is an inherited neurodegenerative disease. Patients’ bodies are unable to break down certain types of fat molecules, and these accumulate to toxic levels in cells of the brain and spinal cord. Those cells gradually die. Thus far, there is no cure.

But scientists have just released details of an apparently successful trial of a new approach in the treatment of ALD: gene therapy. Read the rest of this entry »