Karen O'Hanlon Cohrt

In the modern fast-paced worlds of research and medicine, disease models that take us closer to the real-life situation are highly desirable. While we can’t discredit the power of in vitro cell culture methods to provide important clues about biological processes, mechanisms of disease, and response to drugs, the availability of life-like tissue systems such as organoids provides obvious opportunities to study these aspects of human biology in a much more realistic manner. Image Credit: Yale Rosen (http://bit.ly/2I306Cf)

Experienced Science Communicator (SciComm), Karen O’Hanlon Cohrt, explains why she enjoys writing for Research Features magazine and how her background in research makes her well placed to do this.

Anyone who follows popular science news will have noticed that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have gained traction in recent years. Alleviating chronic back pain, enabling stroke sufferers to walk again,...

Have you heard of the retinal pigment epithelium? Well, the retinal pigment epithelium (or RPE) is located at the interface between the light-sensitive outer parts of the visual cells (photoreceptors)...

How do vertebrate brains integrate information from external social cues and internal physiological states to produce appropriate behaviours? This is one of the big questions that Dr Karen Maruska and...

Cover Photo credit: affen ajlfe (http://bit.ly/2icjHHU) In our last post, we walked through some of the canonical hypotheses surrounding Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), but what about all the other hypotheses that...

Cover Image Credit: FuFu Wolf If you’re thinking of taking a job in biotech, you’re probably wondering how much you’ll be paid. Here’s our analysis of what you can expect from biotech salaries!

Why are we not talking about invasive fungal diseases? In this article for Wide Orbits, I hope to increase awareness about the diseases that are often forgotten about in the...

For decades, researchers have strived to understand how the immune system recognises and fights cancer, ultimately aiming to exploit and augment these processes to create more effective cancer therapies. Dr...

Anthracyclines such as doxorubicin, daunomycin and darubicin belong to a class of chemotherapeutic drugs that is widely used to treat paediatric cancers. Advances in chemotherapy, other treatment strategies and supportive care have led to significant improvements in paediatric cancer outcomes, with current five-year survival rates exceeding 80%. Improved survival rates mean that there are now more than 400,000 long-term childhood cancer survivors in the U.S, and this number is steadily growing.

Besides struggling with ambitious New Year’s resolutions and post-holiday diets, January is a time where many of us re-examine our finances and budget for the year ahead. With money on the brain, we thought it would be a good time to do a roundup of Europe’s best-funded private biotechs. Cover Image Credit: Ervins Strauhmanis

In multicellular organisms e.g., humans, other animals, and plants, almost every cell contains identical genetic information. However, not all cell types behave in the same way. For example, white blood cells are distinct from bone cells in appearance and function. Chromatin is a dense complex found in the nucleus of the cell that contains the majority of our DNA, along with RNA and associated proteins. It plays a critical role in establishing and maintaining these intracellular differences (or

In one of our recent posts, we addressed the types of genetic variability that exist in humans and why a greater understanding of these is critical in diagnostics, for predicting our response to new drugs, and in the development of personalized treatments. Here, we will look at how genetic variability can serve as a tool to expand our understanding of disease susceptibility and mechanisms, using schizophrenia as a case study. Image Credit: Mark Turnauckas

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States (US), where it is directly responsible for more than 500,000 deaths each year. Worldwide, approximately 44 million people live with AD, and with an ageing population, this number is expected to rise significantly over the next three decades.

Most of us were introduced to phagocytosis as a cellular event where dead host cells, microbial cells or their components, or other foreign bodies are engulfed and often destroyed by specialized cells known as phagocytes. During my undergraduate studies, phagocytosis was a small topic within immunology and macrophages were the crème de la crème of phagocytes, patrolling the body’s tissues for foreign invaders, much like security guards patrolling their territories.

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a serious cause of disease and mortality worldwide, especially in developing countries. Co-infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) aggravates this situation, and puts intense pressure on national healthcare services in sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 80% of TB patients are HIV-infected, and where TB is now the leading cause of death in HIV-infected individuals.

Coastal marine ecosystems represent the most diverse and productive parts of the world’s oceans, providing a range of crucial ecosystem services such as food, protection, and recreation to humankind. Unfortunately, coastal ecosystems are threatened due to marine climate change, marked by three related and concomitant oceanic changes: warming, acidification (increased carbon dioxide levels), and declining oxygen levels.

Genetic variability can be defined as the genetic differences that exist within or between populations of individuals, and explains the remarkable differences between humans, despite the fact that we share 99.5 % of our DNA with each other. Image Credit: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann

For anyone who has studied biology, macrophages have most likely been on your reading list at one point or another. Microglia on the other hand are less likely to feature on your undergraduate syllabus (or else I’m older than I like to admit!). In this post, we introduce both cell types and point out their similarities and differences. Image Credit: Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca VHIR

Dr C. James Lim, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, as well as Investigator at the Michael Cuccione Childhood Cancer Research Program...