Mouse hair development patterns follow Turing's predictions
In the 1950s, computer science pioneer Alan Turing suggested an elegantly simple mechanism for how biological patterns such as scales, feathers, and hair might form. Now, more than fifty years later...
Apr, 01, 2007
POINT/
NO: Grant applications for the development and maintenance of software and infrastructure should compete with basic research applications.
Biomedicine has a strong...
Jul, 01, 2009
How Tat crosses the lipid bilayer--with help from the bilayer.
A powerful snippet of protein called the Tat peptide ferries itself across cell membranes dragging just about anything it’s attached to along with it. How it accomplishes this feat has been a...
Jul, 01, 2008
How mathematical models are transforming the fight against cancer
The most common test for prostate cancer (known as PSA screening) misses aggressively growing prostate tumors—the type typically seen in young patients. It’s a fact that was accepted by...
Apr, 01, 2007
How errors in data, software, and methodology can teach us how to do better
In 2006, a paper in Nature Medicine suggested a novel and potentially revolutionary method for predicting patient responses to cancer therapies using gene signatures. The finding piqued the interest...
Sep, 01, 2011
Transparent peer review, replication studies, and journals of negative results all suggest change is on the horizon
As I was writing this editorial, I learned about yet another scientific paper being retracted. This time it was a genetics paper in Science, one of the hundreds of retractions that the blog...
Sep, 01, 2011
To understand biology—and provide appropriate medical care—scientists need to understand interactions across multiple scales. Hence the Physiome.
This is the reality of human biology: events span a 109 range in lengthscale (molecular to organismal) and a 1014 range in timescale (molecular movement to years). To understand this biology—...
Jun, 01, 2010
The flu virus is an evolutionary marvel. Teams of experts design an appropriate flu vaccine annually just to keep up with the microbe’s ability to evade the human immune system. Multiple...
Jul, 01, 2006
Pattern-classifiers interpret fMRI data
Peek inside the skull of a couch potato watching reruns on TV and you’ll see non-stop patterns of blood flow throughout the brain. If you learn to pick out which activity patterns match up with...
Oct, 01, 2010
Mechanical forces drive many processes in the human body, from organ and tissue formation during development, to stem cell differentiation, to wound healing. Until recently, scientists could only...
Oct, 01, 2009