Research Stories
From Chinchillas to Humans: Decoding Hearing Loss
Hearing is a complicated process. To help decode how we hear and the issues that can occur within the ear, researchers have been studying chinchillas for over 50 years. Chinchillas hear similarly to the way in which humans do, making them great models for researchers to use. For…
Pioneering Heart Valve Surgery Offers a Lifetime of Hope
Learning that their child has been born with a heart defect is devastating news for parents and for good reason. Some congenital heart defects can be fatal though many, including heart valve abnormalities, can be successfully repaired. The surgical ‘fix’ usually involves replacing a faulty natural valve with…
The Fight for Freedom from PANS
Imagine you wake up one morning with a tickle in your throat and the dull headache of a seasonal cold throbbing behind your eyes. You go to school, thinking it’s just a simple illness and that you can shrug it off. The constant anxiety over your sloppy handwriting…
Processing Problems and Saving Lives: The Increasing Role of Computational Modeling in Drug Discovery
Even though COVID-19 is currently on a downward trend, pharmaceutical scientists are working hard to find additional vaccines and treatments as variants continue to emerge. Computers have also been at the forefront of the fight to understand this disease, from computational modeling of disease trends to determining the…
Swimming in a Laboratory Near You: Fish May Hold the Next Cancer Breakthrough
The general public may think animal research is all about lab rats receiving drug cocktails in some hidden away laboratory. In reality, the field of animal research is rapidly changing, not with lab rats but with invaluable, minuscule fish. Meet the zebrafish. Shorter than your finger, a zebrafish…
Fishy Friends Help Fight Mental Illness
Throughout history, psychiatric disorders have been cast aside or ignored entirely, causing even more problems for the individuals who suffer from them. Decades ago, rather than being considered as something health-related, psychiatric disorders and their symptoms were often thought to be caused by the moon, spirits, witchcraft, or…
What Can Rats Teach Us About Addiction?
In March 2020, the entire world was thrown into turmoil thanks to the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the globe went into lockdown fearing the deadly virus. People purchased masks, hoarded toilet paper, and canned food. Hand sanitizer flew off store shelves. Fast-forward nearly two years later, few…
Could Spiders Spin New Heart Tissue?
On average, one person dies from cardiovascular disease every 36 seconds in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite recent scientific advancements, there hasn’t been much improvement. This is mainly because the loss of cardiac muscle cells is irreversible. However, scientists have…
A Holistic Approach to HIV: Social Disparity and Its Impact
Getting infected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) doesn’t only depend on one’s choices, like choosing to wear a condom while having sex or sharing needles during injection drug use. Instead, there are other societal factors to consider such as one’s income, access to education, and the availability…
Syrian Hamsters Lend a Paw to COVID-19 Research
It was early spring 2020 and things were looking bleak. COVID-19 cases were skyrocketing worldwide. Dr. Kyle Rosenke, a staff researcher at the National Institutes of Health, was uncertain whether his team would find the appropriate small animal model for timely coronavirus research. However, when Dr. Rosenke entered…