All about the science of disease
A cancer diagnosis is an awful thing. Cancer isn’t simply devastating news for the patient – its consequences ripple through groups of family and friends spreading fear and uncertainty of what the future will bring. While cancer research and treatment has come a huge way since the earlier part of this century, many types of … Read more
Last week some truly exciting work on new therapies for breast cancer patients was published in Science Translational Medicine. These results show how it might be possible in the near future to target immune checkpoints in breast cancer – a malignancy previously thought to be resistant to this type of therapy. An immune checkpoint is a rather … Read more
Everyone remembers the iconic moment in 2013 when Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy to protect herself from cancer. Jolie had undergone genetic testing, which had revealed that she carried a mutation in the BRCA1 gene that dramatically increased her risk of contracting breast cancer. Jolie’s genetic testing results meant she had an 87% chance … Read more
We live in socially and politically turbulent times. In particular, women’s health seems to be an increasingly controversial topic all around the globe. In particular, laws regulating abortion seem to be under increasingly fraught debate. The abortion debate is not only surrounding the legality of abortion per se, but also the rules and regulations that … Read more
An odd thing happened just yesterday that got me thinking about the way the internet works and about the much-talked about issue of confirmation bias. On Friday, I posted an article about the link between cancer and contraception. In the post, I start off explaining that hormonal contraception has been shown to be a very positive thing … Read more
Female contraception is an increasingly hot topic both in the world of politics and in public health circles. Convincing evidence that allowing women to control if and when to have children has a positive effect on society is steadily building up. For one, teen pregnancies negatively affect the ability of young women to graduate from … Read more