Search

Displaying 26 - 50 of 558 items.

"Veterans and Agent Orange Update 1996: Summary and Research Highlights" by the US National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine

In March 1996, the National Academy of Sciences of the United States released 'Veterans and Agent Orange Update 1996: Summary and Research Highlights,' which summarized research on the health effects of Agent Orange and other herbicides used in the Vietnam War. In their 1996 report, the National Academy connects Agent Orange exposure with two health conditions: spina bifida, a birth defect that occurs when the spinal cord develops improperly, and peripheral neuropathy, a nervous system condition in which the peripheral nerves are damaged.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Johns Hopkins Fertility Center

Johns Hopkins Medical Center, located in Baltimore, Maryland, opened in 1889; its associated medical school opened four years later. Today the hospital, a leading research center, contains many departments, including a fertility center that is renowned for taking on difficult cases that have been rejected by other fertility clinics. The fertility center was founded by physician Georgeanna Seegar Jones in 1939 as the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology in the gynecology department. The division expanded once formal training in reproductive endocrinology began in 1973.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations, Reproduction

Keith Henry Stockman Campbell (1954-2012)

Keith Henry Stockman Campbell studied embryo growth and cell differentiation during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the UK. In 1995, Campbell and his scientific team used cells grown and differentiated in a laboratory to clone sheep for the first time. They named these two sheep Megan and Morag. Campbell and his team also cloned a sheep from adult cells in 1996, which they named Dolly. Dolly was the first mammal cloned from specialized adult (somatic) cells with the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Nikolai Ivanovic Vavilov (1887-1943)

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov proposed theories of plant genetic diversity and participated in the political debate about genetics in Soviet Russia in the early twentieth century. Vavilov collected plant species around the world, building one of the first and most comprehensive seed banks, and he spent much of his life researching plant breeding and genetics. Vavilov also developed a theory of the historical centers of origin of cultivated plants. Vavilov spent most of his scientific career in Russia, although he studied abroad and traveled extensively.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

“Women’s Right to Know” Informed Consent Informational Materials

As of 2021, twenty-eight US states have informed consent laws for abortion, which is a medical procedure to terminate pregnancy, often called Women’s Right to Know laws. Those laws often require the state government to develop informational materials that healthcare providers must give to women before an abortion. Informational materials generally include information about the process of fetal development, accompanied by illustrations or pictures, risks and effects of abortion, and alternatives to abortion.

Format: Articles

Subject: Legal

"β-Catenin Defines Head Versus Tail Identity During Planarian Regeneration and Homeostasis" (2007), by Kyle A. Gurley, Jochen C. Rink, and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado's laboratory group has employed molecular tools to investigate old questions about regeneration and as a result have identified some of the molecular mechanisms determining polarity. Recent work by his group has shown Wnt-β-catenin signaling determines whether a tail or a head will form during regeneration in planarians. This study was motivated by work Thomas Hunt Morgan conducted in the late nineteenth century.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments

"Contributions to the Development of the Embryo. On the Artificial Production of One of the First Two Blastomeres, and the Later Development (Postgeneration) of the Missing Half of the Body" (1888), by Wilhelm Roux

Wilhelm Roux was an influential figure in the early history of experimental embryology. Although he originally studied medicine, he was invited to be a Privatdozentur, or unsalaried lecturer, at the Anatomical Institute in Breslau (Wroclaw), Poland, in 1879. He spent the next ten years at this institute, working his way from Dozent to associate professor and finally, in 1889, to director for his own institute, Institut für Entwicklungsgeschichte, or Institute for Developmental History and Mechanics.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments

"The Limited In Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains" (1964), by Leonard Hayflick

Leonard Hayflick in the US during the early 1960s showed that normal populations of embryonic cells divide a finite number of times. He published his results as 'The Limited In Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains' in 1964. Hayflick performed the experiment with WI-38 fetal lung cells, named after the Wistar Institute, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Hayflick worked. Frank MacFarlane Burnet, later called the limit in capacity for cellular division the Hayflick Limit in 1974.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments

"Gene Regulation for Higher Cells: A Theory" (1969), by Roy J. Britten and Eric H. Davidson

In 1969, Roy J. Britten and Eric H. Davidson published Gene Regulation for Higher Cells: A Theory, in Science. A Theory proposes a minimal model of gene regulation, in which various types of genes interact to control the differentiation of cells through differential gene expression. Britten worked at the Carnegie Institute of Washington in Washington, D.C., while Davidson worked at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Their paper was an early theoretical and mechanistic description of gene regulation in higher organisms.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Roy John Britten (1919-2012)

Roy John Britten studied DNA sequences in the US in the second
half of the twentieth century, and he helped discover repetitive
elements in DNA sequences. Additionally, Britten helped propose
models and concepts of gene regulatory networks. Britten studied the
organization of repetitive elements and, analyzing data from the
Human Genome Project, he found that the repetitive elements in DNA
segments do not code for proteins, enzymes, or cellular parts.
Britten hypothesized that repetitive elements helped cause cells to

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Conrad Hal Waddington (1905-1975)

Conrad Hal Waddington was an embryologist and theoretical biologist. His early experimental work investigated aspects of embryonic induction and the properties of the organizer first identified by Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold, while his later studies focused on genetic assimilation. Waddington is probably best known for developing the concept of the epigenetic landscape, and he also held significant interest in many different areas ranging from the visual arts and poetry to philosophy.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

James William Kitching (1922-2003)

James William Kitching collected and studied fossils of dinosaurs and early humans in the twentieth century. He worked at the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research in South Africa. During the fifty-three years he worked at the institute, Kitching spent eighteen of those in the field uncovering fossils. Kitching recovered fossils of early human ancestors, later called Australopithecines, as well as fossils of dinosaurs and ancient mammals. When he died in 2003, the Bernard Price Institute housed one of the largest fossil collections in the southern hemisphere.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Nightlight Christian Adoptions, et al. v. Thompson, et al. (2001)

Nightlight Christian Adoptions et al. v. Thompson et al. was a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on 8 March 2001. The suit was filed because Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a frozen embryo adoption agency, felt that the Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells published by the National Institutes for Health were unlawful and violated the restrictions on human embryo research put into place by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. Additional plaintiffs with this suit were the Christian Medical Association, adult stem cell researcher Dr.

Format: Articles

Subject: Legal, Reproduction

Vincenz Czerny (1842–1916)

Vincenz Czerny was a surgeon in the nineteenth century who specialized in cancer and women’s surgical care. Czerny performed one of the first breast augmentations using a reconstruction method to correct asymmetry and disfigurement of a woman’s breasts. Additionally, Czerny improved the safety and efficacy of existing operations, such as the vaginal hysterectomy, which involves the surgical removal of some or all of a woman’s reproductive structures. He contributed to other surgeries involving the esophagus, kidneys, and intestines.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

York v. Jones (1989)

In the case York v. Jones (1989), the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia was one of the first US courts to address a dispute over a cryopreserved preembryo. Steven York and Risa Adler-York (the Yorks), a married couple, provided their gametes to doctors who created the preembryo, which the court referred to as a pre-zygote, as part of an in vitro fertilization (IVF) program at the Howard and Georgeanna Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine (Jones Institute) in Norfolk, Virginia.

Format: Articles

Subject: Legal

John Craig Venter (1946- )

John Craig Venter helped map the genomes of humans, fruitflies, and other organisms in the US in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and he helped develop an organism with a synthetic genome. In February 2001, Venter and his team published a human genome sequence after using a technique known as Expressed Sequence Tags, or ESTs. Venter worked to bridge commercial investment with scientific research. Venter founded a number of private companies, including the for-profit Celera Genomics, headquartered in Alameda, California, as well as research institutes, such as the not-for-profit J.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

David Wildt's Evolving Ethics Concerning the Roles of Wildlife Reproductive Sciences in Species Conservation

David Wildt is an animal reproductive biologist who directs the Conservation Biology Institute in Fort Royal, Virginia. In 1986, Wildt argued that artificial reproductive technologies should only be used for species conservation efforts if standard techniques to aid natural reproduction are not effective. Between 1986 and 2001, Wildt revised his views and values primarily in relation to two things: which methods captive breeding programs ought to use, and how reproductive scientists ought to contribute to the larger work of conservation.

Format: Articles

Subject: Ethics

"Human Factor IX Transgenic Sheep Produced by Transfer of Nuclei from Transfected Fetal Fibroblasts" (1997), by Angelika E. Schnieke, et al.

In the 1990s, researchers working at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, performed cloning experiments in collaboration with PPL Therapeutics in Roslin, Scotland, on human coagulation factor IX, a protein. The team of scientists used the methods identified during the Dolly experiments to produce transgenic livestock capable of producing milk containing human blood clotting factor IX, which helps to treat a type of hemophilia.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments

Sir Graham Collingwood Liggins (1926-2010)

Sir Graham Collingwood Liggins devoted much of his professional life to obstetric research. Liggins demonstrated that hormones created by the fetus helped initiate labor, rather than hormones originating solely from the mother. Liggins also discovered that cortisol given to pregnant mothers helped delay premature labor, and that it increased the likelihood that premature infants would breathe normally after birth. Prior to cortisol treatment, premature infants often died of respiratory distress syndrome characterized by the inability to inflate immature lungs.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

"How do Embryos Assess Risk? Vibrational Cues in Predator-Induced Hatching of Red-Eyed Treefrogs" (2005), by Karen Warkentin

In 'How do Embryos Assess Risk? Vibrational Cues in Predator-Induced Hatching of Red-Eyed Treefrogs' (2005), Karen Warkentin reported on experiments she conducted to see how red-eyed treefrog embryos, Agalychnis callidryas, can distinguish between vibrations due to predator attacks and other environmental occurrences, such as storms. Though the ability of red-eyed treefrogs to alter their hatch timing had been documented, the specific cues that induce early hatching were not well understood.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments, Organisms

Emma Wolverton (1889–1978)

Emma Wolverton, also known as Deborah Kallikak, lived her entire life in an institution in New Jersey after psychologist Henry Goddard classified her as feeble-minded. He also wrote a book about Wolverton and her family that psychiatrists previously used to show that intellectual disability is hereditary. At the time, researchers in the psychology field, including Goddard, were working to understand differences in people’s intellectual abilities. They used the term feeble-minded to refer to those they described as having lower intellectual functioning.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Disorders

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1890- )

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a non-profit research institution that specializes in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, quantitative biology, and genomics. The organization is located on the shores of Cold Spring Harbor in Laurel Hollow, New York. The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences established the CSHL in 1890, to provide scientists with facilities to research Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory. The first mission of CSHL was biological science education.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations

"Transplantation of Living Nuclei from Blastula Cells into Enucleated Frogs' Eggs" (1952), by Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King

In 1952 Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King published their article, "Transplantation of Living Nuclei from Blastula Cells into Enucleated Frogs' Eggs," in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the culmination of a series of experiments conducted at the Institute for Cancer Research and Lankenau Hospital Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In this paper Briggs and King examined whether nuclei of embryonic cells are differentiated, and by doing so, were the first to conduct a successful nuclear transplantation with amphibian embryos.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado (1964- )

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado is a Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine and is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, 24 February 1964, Sánchez Alvarado left his home to pursue education in the United States, where he received a Bachelor of Science in molecular biology and chemistry from Vanderbilt University in 1986 and a Doctorate in pharmacology and cell biophysics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1992.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Endometriosis

Endometriosis is a medical condition that involves abnormal growths of tissue resembling the endometrium, which is the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus. Those growths, called endometrial lesions, typically form outside the uterus, but can spread to other reproductive organs such as ovaries and fallopian tubes. Endometrial lesions swell and bleed during menstruation, which can cause painful and heavy menstruation, as well as infertility.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders, Reproduction, Theories