Minimizing the distance to one evader while chasing another

Eugenia Piddini: Chasing how cells outcompete one another

In the tight-knit Sicilian tradition, Eugenia Piddini lived with her parents while attending college at the University of Palermo. But her family had always encouraged her to think ambitiously about her career, and so at 25, she struck out for mainland Europe to launch her research career in cell biology, convincing the EMBL in Heidelberg to give her a PhD candidate spot. There, she studied the...

Chasing red herrings: making sense of the colors while mapping.

One thing leads to another.

In 1956, the JCI published an article by Vincent Dole on a method for titrating plasma fatty acids that uncovered the importance of fatty acids as a substrate for glucose metabolism. When asked to prepare a historical perspective on this very popular paper, I paid Dole a visit and we reminisced. His answer to my question of how he came to do this work on plasma fatty acids was: "Well, one thing...

From One Crayfish to Another

study cultured stem cells from human embryos can proceed without violating the federal ban on embryo research in general. Since that decision, a great deal of excitement has arisen over the possibility that treatment of neurological disease may take a giant leap forward in the near future. The secrets to everything from preventing Alzheimer's Disease to reversing spinal cord damage may soon be ...

Minimizing infant exposure to and risks from medications while breastfeeding.

The advantages of breastfeeding to the mother and newborn are many. Lactating mothers frequently ask about the safety of taking medications and the risk to their newborn. It is well established that all drugs are excreted into breast milk. However, most medications appear in only small amounts within the breast milk. With the availability of numerous resources on drug use while breastfeeding, a...