diseases

The perils of space flight number in the hundreds, from radiation exposure to the impact of micro-asteroids. But for astronauts who spend an extended amount of time floating weightlessly in the near-endless void of space, muscle atrophy remains the most common health problem. Thankfully, a shipment of RNA-treated worms may help scientists on the International Space Station solve that issue.

Last month, scientists reported that a clinical trial for an HIV vaccine showed the first-ever success in preventing transmission of the virus. However, a number of HIV researchers believe that the enthusiasm for last month's vaccine results should be dampened in light of a more comprehensive review of the data.

In Gattaca’s opening scene, a doctor predicts, at the time of Ethan Hawke’s character Vincent’s birth, the likelihood that Vincent will suffer from a variety of diseases (“Manic depression: 42% probability…Heart disorder: 99% probability”), and determines his life expectancy to be 30.2 years.

While monthly flights to the moon and dating Uma Thurman remain science fiction (or science fantasy) for most, this type of genetic palm reading is now entering the realm of modern-day reality. You can get “sequenced” on the cheap, and at home, with personal genomics – retailed kits that provide users, after they’ve sent a saliva sample back to the company for analysis, with a range of personal genetic information.

But, as in Gattaca, where Vincent beats the odds of his genetic “fate,” a question remains: How useful and predictive are the results of these personal genome tests? Some doctors say the results are not as relevant as one might think.

Last May, scientists met in Geneva, Switzerland, to update the World Health Organization’s plans for pandemic preparedness. It looks like a crisis could arrive sooner rather than later. Thanks to climate change and drug resistance, a handful of deadly organisms are spreading across the globe; some are poised to make a comeback in the U.S. after decades of absence.

Embarking on a trip to Zimbabwe? You might want to check HealthMap.org, a site that tracks disease pathogens on an international scale, first. A detailed and easy-to-use map designed for the average user to find outbreaks by country and region (although it is also used by local public health officials and clinics), HealthMap started as a disease tracking project about two years ago, but has recently started attracting attention as a top public source of disease information.

What makes a disease deadly in the twenty-first century? Medicine has never been more advanced; our understanding of spread and infection, never more sophisticated. And yet, we may be poised for the largest and most devastating pandemic the human race has ever encountered.

With Big Pharma spending upward of $1 billion to bring a single drug to pharmacy shelves, its little wonder that unprofitable afflictions like malaria and African sleeping sickness go largely ignored. Curtis Chong witnessed this neglect firsthand in 2001 as a third-year medical student working in an emergency room in Mozambique. Day and night, malaria patients lined up for treatment, but Chongs medication stockpile was often too low or too antiquated to treat drug-resistant strains of the disease, and people were dying.

Six years later, the 31-year-old pharmacologist is spearheading an innovative way to bring better drugs, and more of them, to the developing world.