Charles Best and Frederick Banting, with one of their research subjects. University of Toronto Archives This post describes some of the many pathways to scientific discovery. No single model applies to all discoveries, and most discoveries contain elements of different models. I will focus on the field I know best, biomedical research. Biomedical discoveries are… Continue Reading
disease
The Fading Memory of Water
Samuel Hahnemann, father of homeopathic medicine. A paper published in the June 30, 1988 issue of the high-profile scientific journal Nature shocked the biomedical research world. Its anodyne title, “Human Basophil Degranulation Triggered by Very Dilute Antiserum Against IgE”, probably didn’t cause any non-scientists to choke on their breakfast cereal. But in the eyes of… Continue Reading
Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: a Molecular Diagnosis
Peter Nowell and David Hungerford in 1960 Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is not a cancer you hear about very often. That’s not because it isn’t serious — until recently, it carried a frightening prognoses. Until about 2000, newly diagnosed CML patients had a 5-year survival rate of 31%. But we don’t hear much about… Continue Reading
The Gila River People, Victims of Modernity
The present-day Gila River in the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area in southeast Arizona. Both nature and nurture affect human obesity. For some people, and for some populations, the genetic tendency to become obese is not fulfilled because of their environment, the circumstances of their lives. But when those circumstances change, the genetic potential… Continue Reading