Sep 14, 2010

$93,000 is a lot of money, but this tidy sum is the cost of a full treatment with Dendreon’s new prostate cancer therapeutic vaccine, Provenge™[1].  The new treatment, recently approved by the FDA[2], is indicated for use in minimally symptomatic, hormone refractory (androgen-independent), metastatic prostate cancer.  In such seriously ill patients, this...

Sep 14, 2010

From the rise of social media and hybrid cars to the completion of the Human Genome Project, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have made great strides over the last decade. We should be proud. Yet, despite our successes, we solved so few of the developing world’s most pertinent problems. Nearly half of the world’s population, more than 3 billion...

Jun 1, 2010

The H1N1 09  Virus: The First Pandemic of the 21st Century. A historic announcement in April 2009 caused global panic and brought immediate attention to the state of public health.  The Mexican Secretariat of Health reported an outbreak of respiratory disease that was later classified as a novel swine origin influence A, H1N1 09.  The WHO quickly...

Apr 11, 2010

In 1989, researchers at the DNA Plant Technology Corporation in Oakland, CA attempted to over-express the enzyme responsible for the violet color of petunias.  They soon came to find that, instead of observing an even deeper violet color, their flowers had turned white.  The following years would be filled with further elucidation of a very mysterious...

Mar 23, 2010

Historical Developments in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Medicine has existed since the dawn of human civilization. Diseases were originally thought to be caused by deities or supernatural forces. Various ancient civilizations, from the Egyptians to the Chinese, developed their own unique systems for practicing medicine in the fields of herbalism, anatomy, public...