medicine

Feb 1, 2022

Soft Materials Are an Interdisciplinary Game-Changer

At NC State, transformative research into soft material occurs in numerous colleges and departments. 

Jan 11, 2022

NC State Researcher Develops Soft Material to Preserve Biological Medicines

NC State researchers developed a soft material that can help biological medicines treat infections without the risk of antimicrobial resistance. 

Sep 23, 2013

Researchers Seek to Control Prosthetic Legs With Neural Signals

Most people don’t think about the difference between walking across the room and walking up a flight of stairs. Their brains (and their legs) automatically adjust to the new conditions. But for people using prosthetic legs, there is no automatic link between their bodies and the prosthetics that they need to negotiate the new surroundings.… 

Aug 26, 2013

Stopping Cancer in its Tracks?

We’ve come a long way in cancer treatments – we have powerful, effective drugs for many types of cancer and we’re moving toward ever more specific, less invasive therapies. But the problem with cancer is that it’s always in motion, metastasizing and spreading throughout the body to overwhelm it. What if you could stop cancer… 

Oct 15, 2012

Probing the Brain’s Chemistry

Our brains are constantly awash in chemicals that serve as messengers, transporting signals from one neuron to another.  It’s a really nifty system, although scientists still aren’t clear on how, exactly, those chemical messages end up being converted into behaviors like kicking a ball or doing really complicated mathematical computations. If scientists could get a… 

Jun 14, 2012

The Strain Remains the Same

Sid Thakur is an expert on the kinds of pathogens that like to make their homes in and around our pig populations. He spends most of his time testing the pigs and their environment, identifying potential dangers such as Campylobacter – a nasty little critter that we definitely don’t want in our food supply, particularly… 

Jun 1, 2012

Bartonella: The Epidemic You’ve Never Heard Of, Part 3

This is the final installment of a three-part series on Bartonella, bacteria that are being linked to a wide variety of ailments – many of them chronic, and some of them life-threatening. In part one, we talked about what Bartonella is, and its growing recognition as a potentially wide-ranging and serious infectious disease. Part two… 

Oct 27, 2011

Flu Version 2.0

Every year, it seems the CDC warns us about a new flu variety, bandying about names that seem more like grid locations in a game of Battleship than actual descriptions:  H1N1, H2N1, and now H5N1 – or technically, H5N1 2.3.2.1. This new form of so-called “bird flu” is a highly pathogenic and dangerous strain of… 

Jun 15, 2011

What Is 3D Printing? And How Does It Work?

Three-dimensional (3D) printing holds promise for a wide variety of applications, from biomedical implants to space exploration. But when a friend asked me how it worked, I had no idea. It was a perfect excuse to learn something new. And now, dear reader, I can explain it to you. 3D printing is exactly what it… 

Apr 8, 2011

Taking Infertility out of the Equation

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is one of the leading causes of infertility in women of childbearing age.  But finding the cause is difficult because of female fertility’s complex interplay of hormones and women’s individual cycles. So what is one way the medical community can address the problem? If you answered “with math,” you get a… 

Mar 11, 2011

We Have Found the Enemy and It Is Us

If you suffer from preeclampsia during pregnancy, it could be because your body is fighting against itself. New research from Dr. Jorge Piedrahita, NC State professor of genomics, has found that the placentas of women diagnosed with preeclampsia have more of a gene associated with regulating the body’s immune response than  the placentas of women who… 

Nov 30, 2010

Dispatches From The North Pole: The Science of Santa’s List

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of occasional dispatches from Dr. Larry Silverberg, a researcher at NC State who is leading a visiting scholars program at Santa’s Workshop-North Pole Labs (NPL). Dr. Silverberg is an expert in unified field theory and is accompanied by four other mechanical and aerospace engineers: Drs. Mohammad Zikry… 

Nov 10, 2010

Sci/Med Writers: Are We Part Of The Problem?

Research is an incremental process, and there are precious few “Eureka!” moments when an idea springs forth fully formed, unfettered by qualifiers and questions that muddy the waters. As a result, those of us who write about science and medicine often take pains to ensure that we do not overstate research results. We use our… 

Oct 28, 2010

How Long Should DNA Strands Be?

This is not a purely abstract question (pun intended). Complementary strands of DNA are drawn to one another like magnets and iron filings – a trait that has created the emerging field of DNA self-assembly. But research, and industrial application, in this area has been hampered by a lack of reliability in how the DNA… 

Aug 25, 2010

The Microneedle And (Diagnosing) The Damage Done

A forthcoming paper from Faraday Discussions shows that scientists have been able to create hollow microneedles that can be used to inject quantum dots into skin. Quantum dots are emerging as powerful diagnostic tools for cancers (among other diseases), so this could be a significant advance in medical technology used to diagnose medical conditions. In…