Nathan Seppa

Biomedical Writer (retired September 2015)

All Stories by Nathan Seppa

  1. Health & Medicine

    Preventive drugs protect children

    Preventive treatment with inexpensive drugs decreases rainy-season cases of malaria in Senegal.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Umbilical Bounty: Cord blood shows value against leukemia

    Umbilical cord blood transplants offer a viable treatment alternative for leukemia patients who don't have a matching bone marrow donor.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Problems for Preemies: Early birth is linked to insulin overproduction

    Children born prematurely are more likely than their full-term counterparts to develop insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Staph receptor as drug target

    A receptor molecule on the surface of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus might present an exploitable weak spot in the microbe's defenses.

  5. Health & Medicine

    A vaccine for cervical cancer

    A vaccine against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, has proved 94 percent effective in preventing the virus from infecting women.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Malaria vaccine shows promise in Mozambique

    An experimental malaria vaccine tested on children in Mozambique provides some protection against the potentially life-threatening disease.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Affairs of the Heartburn: Drugs for stomach acid may hike pneumonia risk

    Acid-blocking drugs seem to boost a person's chances of getting pneumonia.

  8. Health & Medicine

    COX-2 inhibitor pulled off market

    Merck's recall of rofecoxib, a COX-2 inhibitor drug for arthritis, raises the question of whether similar drugs might also increase the risk of heart attack.

  9. Health & Medicine

    A Problem of Adhesion: More evidence of sickle-cell stickiness

    Interrupted blood flow in people with sickle-cell disease might arise from stickiness inherent in the unusual red blood cells these individuals have.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Dormant Cancer: Lack of a protein sends tumor cells to bed

    Excess amounts of a protein called Myc triggers cancer in mice, but ratcheting back this supply sends the malignant cells into dormancy.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Carotid Overhaul: Stents and surgery go neck and neck

    Mesh cylinders called stents work as well as or slightly better than surgery in opening blocked carotid arteries in high-risk patients.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Turmeric component kills cancer cells

    Curcumin, the component of turmeric that makes the spice yellow, shows anticancer effects in lab-dish tests and in experiments on mice.