Christen Brownlee

All Stories by Christen Brownlee

  1. Hand gels falter

    Alcohol-based gels may not effectively eliminate from people's hands a type of virus that causes millions of cases of diarrhea worldwide each year.

  2. Herpes Runs Interference: Researchers discover how virus sticks around

    Herpes simplex virus 1, which causes cold sores, uses a short, double-stranded RNA to outwit a cell's defensive measures.

  3. Big Oil, Tiny Barons: Microbes can unleash trapped petroleum

    Specialized microbes can lift trapped oil from wells long gone dry.

  4. Eye for Growth: New protein prompts optic nerve regrowth

    A protein recently isolated from white blood cells could offer a new way to repair nerve cells damaged by injury or disease.

  5. Cancer gene is also important for growth

    A certain tumor-suppressing gene appears to also control development in immature animals.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Now Hear This

    Genetics research, work with stem cells, and studies of the inner ear's delicate architecture suggest that it might be possible to restore cells pivotal to hearing.

  7. Sharing the Health: Cells from unusual mice make others cancerfree

    Immune-cell transplants from an extraordinary strain of mice that resists cancer can pass this trait to mice that aren't as lucky.

  8. Health & Medicine

    An aging protein?

    The defective protein that, when defective, causes a premature-aging disease may also play a role in normal aging.

  9. Blood Sucker: Like the adult heart, the developing heart takes advantage of suction

    The embryonic heart works more like the adult heart than scientists had long assumed.

  10. Nixing Malaria: DNA segment provides parasite resistance

    A section of the mosquito genome appears to give the insects a natural resistance to malaria.

  11. Mutation blocks fat absorption

    A newly discovered gene in zebrafish seems to prevent the animals from absorbing fat molecules from their diets.

  12. Me and My Metabolism: Personalized medicine takes new direction

    Researchers may be better able to predict drug toxicity in individual patients by examining their metabolisms than by focusing on their genes.