Patrick Barry

All Stories by Patrick Barry

  1. Health & Medicine

    Linking stress and senility

    A gene that's active in the brain may help explain why emotional stress seems to increase a person's likelihood of getting Alzheimer's disease.

  2. Tech

    Life Swap: Switching genomes converts bacteria

    Transplanting the entire genome of one species of bacteria into another paves the way for making synthetic microbes with manmade DNA.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Nerves are key to longevity effect

    The life-extending effect that some animals get from calorie-restricted diets may depend on signals from the brain.

  4. Tech

    A computer in every cell

    Artificial genes inserted into cells make RNA molecules that can perform logical computations.

  5. Crossing the Line: Technique could treat brain diseases

    With the help of a molecule from the rabies virus, scientists have for the first time selectively ferried a drug across the blood-brain barrier to treat a neurological disease in mice.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Fluorine highlights early tumors

    Microscopic, fluorine-packed particles can make small, cancerous growths easier to detect.

  7. New player in cancer risk

    RNA snippets of a newly discovered type could be involved in the mechanisms of cancer.

  8. Breast Cancer Lead: Overactive gene is linked to disease

    A mutated gene that's overly active in breast cancer cells could offer a new target for cancer drugs.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Visualizing Cancer: Images of tumors can detect gene expression

    Subtle features in X-ray images of tumors let radiologists infer which genes are active in the cancerous growth.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Stem cells not required

    Insulin-producing cells in the pancreas proliferate by cell division, unlike other body tissues, which regenerate from adult stem cells.

  11. Unintended consequences of cancer therapies

    Radiation and chemotherapy can destroy a tumor, but they may also indirectly promote metastasis, the spread of cancerous cells to other organs.

  12. Another Layer of Complexity: Short lengths of RNA could provide new form of genetic control

    Researchers have discovered a new way that so-called junk DNA could help regulate gene activity.