Hooray for Basic Science!

With all of the commotion over health care reform these days, today’s announcement that the 2009 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Ph.D., Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.,  and Jack W. Szostak, Ph.D., for their discovery of telomeres and the related enzyme telomerase, serves as a timely reminder of the [...]

Cancer As Chronic Disease

from the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando
It’s a rare treat for the lone medical reporter to get together with others of our kind.  I had dinner tonight with the other EGMN reporters and editors covering ASCO.  We can’t help ourselves and we mostly talk shop.  There was a lot [...]

What’s So Hot About GWAS?

From the National Cancer Institute’s Science Writers’ Seminar, Gaithersburg, Md.
If you’ve read any medical literature or been to a medical meeting lately, chances are that you’ve heard of GWAS—genome-wide association studies.  GWAS are hot and with good reason. Genetic studies of the past have been limited either to looking at linkages among related individuals or to the [...]

SABC: What’s Up With the Badge Nazis?

San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
I—and the other attendees of SABC—have been pestered over and over again by the badge nazis here in the convention center.  These are individuals employed to keep people without badges from the presentations, the posters, and the press room.  They are more polite than the Soup Nazi of Seinfeld fame but [...]

Supportive Oncology: Listening is Free

From the Fourth Annual Chicago Supportive Oncology Conference, Chicago, Ill.:
 
I’ve been covering oncology for a few years now, and usually go to the big, high-powered meetings like ASH and ASCO. This time, I’m covering supportive oncology. Unlike the “three ring circuses” I’m used to, this meeting is being held in one, albeit large, room. The [...]