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Merck & Company's Development of Gardasil
In 2006, the United States branch of Merck & Co. received FDA approval for Gardasil, a human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine that protects against HPV and the cervical cancer that can come with it. In 1891, George F. Merck founded the US branch of the company to distribute chemicals with high purity for use in research, in New York City, New York, and other areas nearby. HPV is a common sexually transmitted infection that can cause genital warts, regular skin warts, cervical cancer, and other cancers.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations, People, Technologies, Disorders
Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering (MAGE)
Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering, or MAGE, is a genome editing technique that enables scientists to quickly edit an organism’s DNA to produce multiple changes across the genome. In 2009, two genetic researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, Harris Wang and George Church, developed the technology during a time when researchers could only edit one site in an organism’s genome at a time.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Processes
Revive & Restore’s Woolly Mammoth Revival Project
In 2015, Revive & Restore launched the Woolly Mammoth Revival Project with a goal of engineering a creature with genes from the woolly mammoth and introducing it back into the tundra to combat climate change. Revive & Restore is a nonprofit in California that uses genome editing technologies to enhance conservation efforts in sometimes controversial ways.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories, Technologies, Organizations, Ethics
Ernst Gräfenberg (1881–1957)
Ernst Gräfenberg was a physician and researcher who studied sexology, the study of human sexuality, in both Germany and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Gräfenberg researched the use of intrauterine devices as a form of contraception, and he developed the Gräfenberg ring. The Gräfenberg ring was one of the first intrauterine devices that effectively prevented pregnancy without causing infection, and it became the forerunner of all modern intrauterine devices, or IUDs. Gräfenberg also studied the role of the urethra in female orgasm.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Technologies, Reproduction
Kangaroo Mother Care
Physician researchers Edgar Rey Sanabria and Héctor Martínez-Gómez developed the Kangaroo Mother Program in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1979, as an alternative to conventional incubator treatment for low birth weight infants. As of 2018, low birth weight and its associated complications are the leading causes of infant death, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries where access to technology and skilled healthcare providers is limited. Kangaroo Mother Care is a simple and low cost method for treating low birth weight infants.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Susceptibility Assay
Charles Manning Child designed an experimental test, the susceptibility assay, to measure the effects of different toxins on developmental processes. The susceptibility assay measured an organism s vulnerability to death when it was submerged in a noxious solution. The assay involved immersing an organism in a solution that contained a depressant or inhibitory substance, such as alcohol, and then measuring the responses of the organism. Child interpreted these measurements as revealing information about the relative levels of metabolic activity within the organism.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Beadle and Ephrussi's Transplantation Technique for Drosophila
Boris Ephrussi and George Wells Beadle developed a transplantation technique on flies, Drosophila melanogaster, which they described in their 1936 article A Technique of Transplantation for Drosophila. The technique of injecting a tissue from one fly larva into another fly larva, using a micropipette, to grow that tissue in the second larvae, was a means for investigating development of Drosophila. Through this technique, Beadle and Ephrussi studied the role of genes in embryological processes.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Stanley Paul Leibo (1937–2014)
Stanley Paul Leibo studied the cryopreservation of embryos in the US in the twentieth century. Cryopreservation is a method of preserving biological material through freezing. Early in his career, Leibo collaborated with other scientists to study why cells were oftentimes injured during freezing. Later, Leibo and his team accomplished one of the first successful births using previously-frozen mammalian embryos.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Technologies
Gunther von Hagens' Plastination Technique
Plastination is a technique for preserving tissues, organs, and whole bodies for medical purposes and public display. Gunther von Hagens invented a form of the method in 1977 at Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany after observing medical students struggle working with cadavers that quickly decomposed. Von Hagens' body models, referred to as plastinates, have since become widely used educational tools not only for those studying anatomy and medicine, but also for the general public.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Harry Clay Sharp (1870-1940)
Harry Clay Sharp was a surgeon who performed one of the first recorded vasectomies with the purpose of sterilizing a patient. Sterilization is the practice that makes a person unable to reproduce, and vasectomy accomplishes that by severing the vasa deferentia, the sperm-carrying tubes in the male reproductive system. Historically, sterilization procedures have varied in techniques, goals, and risks, but Sharp’s method of vasectomy allowed restriction of a patient’s reproductive functions without significantly affecting other bodily functions.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal, Ethics, People, Organizations, Technologies
No-scalpel Vasectomy
No-scalpel vasectomy, or NSV or keyhole vasectomy, is a surgical method of sterilization that involves puncturing the skin of the scrotum to access the vas deferens, a tube that carries spermatozoa, or sperm, from the testes to the penis. The surgeon performing the procedure blocks the flow of sperm through the vas deferens, sterilizing the patient. NSV is a less invasive procedure, as it does not use a scalpel to make a deep cut on sensitive scrotal tissue.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, People, Organizations, Places, Reproduction
George McDonald Church (1954- )
George McDonald Church studied DNA from living and from extinct species in the US during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Church helped to develop and refine techniques with which to describe the complete sequence of all the DNA nucleotides in an organism's genome, techniques such as multiplex sequencing, polony sequencing, and nanopore sequencing. Church also contributed to the Human Genome Project, and in 2005 he helped start a company, the Personal Genome Project. Church proposed to use DNA from extinct species to clone and breed new organisms from those species.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Technologies
Laparoscopy
Laparoscopy, a subfield of endoscopy, is a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to examine and operate on the internal organs of the abdomen through a small incision in the abdominal wall. The term "laparoscopy" is derived from two Greek words: laparo, meaning the soft space between hips and ribs, and skopie, meaning to examine. Today laparoscopy has broad clinical applications including for diagnosis, fertility procedures, visual representation, and surgery.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
The Game of Life, by John Horton Conway
The Game of Life, or just Life, is a one-person game that was created by the English mathematician John Horton Conway in the late 1960s. It is a simple representation of birth, death, development, and evolution in a population of living organisms, such as bacteria. Martin Gardner popularized the Game of Life by writing two articles for his column "Mathematical Games" in the journal Scientific American in 1970 and 1971. There exist several websites that provide the Game of Life as a download or as an online game.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Endoscopy
Endoscopy is a medical procedure that enables the viewing and biopsy of, and surgery on, internal tissues and organs. Endoscopic examinations are characterized by the introduction of a tube containing a series of lenses into the body through either an incision in the skin or a natural opening or cavity. During the mid-twentieth century, photographer Lennart Nilsson used endoscopes to capture the now-familiar images of embryos and fetuses.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Cerebral Organoid as a Model System in the Study of Microcephaly
Scientists use cerebral organoids, which are artificially produced miniature organs that represent embryonic or fetal brains and have many properties similar to them, to help them study developmental disorders like microcephaly. In human embryos, cerebral tissue in the form of neuroectoderm appears within the first nine weeks of human development, and it gives rise to the brain and spinal cord.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Enovid: The First Hormonal Birth Control Pill
Enovid was the first hormonal birth control pill. G. D. Searle and Company began marketing Enovid as a contraceptive in 1960. The technology was created by the joint efforts of many individuals and organizations, including Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick, Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Syntex, S.A. Laboratories, and G.D. Searle and Company Laboratories.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Martius Flap Procedure to Repair Obstetric Fistulas
The Martius flap procedure is a surgical procedure used to treat obstetric fistulas in women. Heinrich Martius developed the procedure in twentieth century Germany to treat women with urinary incontinence caused by stress, and later doctors used it to repair obstetric fistulas. Fistulas occur in pregnant women when a hole is torn between the vagina and the urinary tract (called vesicovaginal) or the vagina and the rectum (called rectovaginal). The hole, or fistula, occurs in the tissue separating two organs and therefore obstetric fistulas result in either urinary or fecal incontinence.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Disorders
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer in Mammals (1938-2013)
In the second half of the
twentieth century, scientists learned how to clone organisms in some
species of mammals. Scientists have applied somatic cell nuclear transfer to clone human and
mammalian embryos as a means to produce stem cells for laboratory
and medical use. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a technology applied in cloning, stem cell
research and regenerative medicine. Somatic cells are cells that
have gone through the differentiation process and are not germ
cells. Somatic cells donate their nuclei, which scientists
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories, Technologies, Processes
Recombinant Gonadotropins Used in Fertility Treatments
First manufactured in 1988 by Serono laboratories, recombinant gonadotropins are synthetic hormones that can stimulate egg production in women for use in fertility treatments. Recombinant gonadotropins are artificially created using recombinant DNA technology, a technology that joins together DNA from different organisms. In vertebrates, naturally-occurring gonadotropins regulate the growth and function of the gonads, known as testes in males and ovaries in females.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Hysterectomy
A hysterectomy is the surgical removal of a woman's uterus. For many women, a hysterectomy comes as a solution to health problems as diverse as abnormal bleeding to reproductive cancers. First performed in the early 1800s, this procedure has evolved in terms of both technique and popularity. The first successful abdominal hysterectomy was performed by Ellis Burnham in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1853, although earlier attempts were made in the 1840s.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Fate Mapping Techniques
For more than 2000 years, embryologists, biologists, and philosophers have studied and detailed the processes that follow fertilization. The fertilized egg proliferates into cells that begin to separate into distinct, identifiable zones that will eventually become adult structures through the process of morphogenesis. As the cells continue to multiply, patterns form and cells begin to differentiate, and eventually commit to their fate.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Green Fluorescent Protein
Green fluorescent protein (GFP) is a protein in the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria that exhibits green fluorescence when exposed to light. The protein has 238 amino acids, three of them (Numbers 65 to 67) form a structure that emits visible green fluorescent light. In the jellyfish, GFP interacts with another protein, called aequorin, which emits blue light when added with calcium. Biologists use GFP to study cells in embryos and fetuses during developmental processes.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
The e-Mouse Atlas Project (1992- )
The Edinburgh Mouse Atlas, also called the e-Mouse Atlas Project (EMAP), is an online resource comprised of the e-Mouse Atlas (EMA), a detailed digital model of mouse development, and the e-Mouse Atlas of Gene Expression (EMAGE), a database that identifies sites of gene expression in mouse embryos. Duncan Davidson and Richard Baldock founded the project in 1992, and the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, funds the project.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
“HPV in the Etiology of Human Cancer” (2006) by Nubia Muñoz, Xavier Castellsagué, Amy Berrington de González, and Lutz Gissmann
In 2006, the article “HPV in the Etiology of Human Cancer,” hereafter “HPV and Etiology,” by Nubia Muñoz, Xavier Castellsagué, Amy Berrington de González, and Lutz Gissmann, appeared as the first chapter in the twenty-fourth volume of the journal Vaccine. Muñoz and colleagues discuss the role of the Human Papillomavirus, or HPV, in uterine cervical cancers. The authors introduce the mechanisms of HPV infection that lead to genital and non-genital cancers, establishing a link between HPV and multiple human cancers.
Format: Articles
Subject: Disorders, Processes, Technologies