News

There are currently no vaccines or antiviral drugs for many of the most troubling viruses, in part because of the traditional one drug/one bug strategy to developing antiviral drugs. Stanford scientists are developing a new approach that could help identify drug pathways that could be effective across entire families of viruses. Full story »

Since a 2010 podcast with Beverly Mitchell, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Stanford Cancer Institute, there have been dramatic advances in the use of genomic analysis, molecular biology, imaging technologies and data management to make cancer treatment less toxic and more individualized. Full story »

Aspirin can check off one more box when it comes to prevention – a new study has found that women who took aspirin on a regular basis reduced their risk of developing melanoma by an average of 21 percent. The drug has already been shown to have protective effects on cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer in women, so these findings may play a more important role in strategies for preventing other kinds of cancer. In this podcast, Stanford dermatologist Jean Tang, MD, PhD, discusses the study and why, despite the promising results, she’s not ready to say that an aspirin a day will keep melanomas away. Length: 18 min. Full story »

Do the brains of different people listening to the same piece of music actually respond in the same way? An imaging study says the answer is yes. Full story »

Researchers have shown it's possible to perpetuate an anti-cancer immune response in mice by blocking the activity of immune cells with specific antibodies injected directly into the tumor. Full story »

Scientists have shown that their previously identified therapeutic approach to fight cancer via cells called macrophages also prompts the disease-fighting killer T cells to attack the cancer. Full story »

Mining the records of routine interactions between patients and their care providers can detect drug side effects a couple of years before an official alert from the FDA, a study shows. Full story »

Researchers have exposed the possible function, in the healthy brain, of a mysterious molecule that has been strongly implicated in Parkinson's disease. Full story »

Researchers have identified a group of proteins that are mutated in about one-fifth of all human cancers, suggesting that they work to suppress tumor development in many types of tissues. Full story »

Researchers at the School of Medicine have identified genetic mutations that may be associated with sporadic Lou Gehrig's disease. Full story »