Guest Post: Sick Monkey Mess

Here’s a mystery story. Characters include: monkeys, a genius-cum-child molester, an obsessive virologist, and a lot of really scary diseases. Oh and animal models. In the mid-1980s, monkeys at the New England Primate Research Center began to die. The disease struck only a handful of rhesus macaques – monkeys from Asia that have bald, pink […]

Drugging Our Way Out of the HIV Epidemic

When antiretroviral drug cocktails hit the scene in 1996, they were so effective they became known as ‘the Lazarus drug.’ Many AIDS patients recovered seemingly overnight. Over the past 15 years, these drugs have saved the lives of millions of people infected with HIV. Several new studies suggest antiretrovirals could save millions more if we […]

Bad Blood

On April 22, Jason Stephany, a researcher in a yeast lab, received an email from his co-worker, a woman whose husband has a fast-growing blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). She explained that her husband would need a bone marrow transplant. In patients with ALL, the bone marrow produces hordes of immature white blood […]

Muppet Messaging

American readers will probably recognize the dopey guy on the right as Elmo, of tickling fame, who lives on Sesame Street. But this isn’t Elmo, it’s his doppelgänger, Neno, who appears on Takalani Sesame, the South African version of the show. The blonde is his co-star, Kami, who will also appear on Sesame Square, a […]