Articles

Prized Research Skill? Fluency in Computer Science and Biology

  How Computational Biology Is Driving Treatment Breakthroughs Growing up in South India, Shobha Potluri only knew of two acceptable career paths—engineer or doctor. She chose an engineering college in her home state of Andhra Pradesh and zeroed in on computer science. When she went on to get her master’s degree, she had a career-changing moment when she learned that her “geek” skills could be applied to solve biological problems, and help develop better treatments for sick people.  Potluri...

The ‘Immortalized’ Cells That Sparked an International Incident and Their Role in Producing Medicines

Proteins are the rock stars of biological molecules. They allow cells to carry out crucial functions like growth and differentiation, and enable cells to adapt to changing environments. Because dysfunction in certain proteins can cause disease, manipulating proteins is also the foundation of developing new medicines.  But where do we get enough building blocks to actually manufacture the medicines that patients take? It turns out that living cells—which make proteins as part of a day’s work...

When Cancers Develop Resistance, ‘Stealthy’ Medicines Can Help

In the quest for better cancer therapies, Dr. Martin Edwards is one of the scientists on the frontlines informally known as “drug hunters.” His preoccupation these days is hunting for medicines that are more “stealthy” in their fight against cancer tumors—especially tumors that are resistant to conventional treatments. “There are people today who get cancer for which there is no treatment. Our job is to invent medicines that provide options and give them hope,” says Edwards, Vice President and...

Living & Wellbeing

The Value of AFib Screening: Bridging the Gap Between the Undiagnosed and Early Detection

AFib and the Devastating Impact of StrokePeople who have atrial fibrillation, or AFib, are five times more likely to have a stroke.1 In 25 percent of people who suffer an AFib-related stroke, their stroke was the first sign of previously undiagnosed AFib – meaning they were unaware of having a condition that substantially increased their risk of stroke.2But first, what is AFib?AFib is a common type of irregular heartbeat. While the normal heart beats 60 to 100 times per minute, someone with AFib...

How Finland’s Unique Genetic Heritage Is Being Used to Study the Links Between Genes and Diseases

The unique genetic heritage of the Finns — marked by repeated population bottlenecks and isolation from their neighbors in northern Europe — is helping scientists embark on a search for the complex links between genes and diseases.  Finland also has a robust network of biobanks, and the country has passed laws that make the voluminous biobank data accessible to researchers. The combination of those two factors has set the stage for the FinnGen study, which began in the fall of 2017 and will...

Women in Science Up Close and Personal, Part 5: Success Strategies

In the fifth of our series honoring women in science, Pfizer researchers share their advice for young women who are launching scientific careers — and for the organizations hoping to hire and keep them.  Young women scientists face something of a tightrope walk: Acting as if their abilities won’t be underestimated can help them forge ahead, and yet ignoring how women are sometimes treated differently than their male peers can hold them back.  “I don’t assume that men think I’m less able in my...

Women in Science, Up Close and Personal, Part 4: Next Gen

In the fourth of our series honoring women in science, Pfizer researchers share their suggestions for getting more girls interested in STEM careers.  Efforts to get girls interested in STEM careers have ramped up considerably in recent years, though the jury is still out on which initiatives are most effective. Naturally, scientists love coming up with hypotheses, and Jennifer LaFontaine, Senior Director in Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer’s R&D site in La Jolla, California, has an intriguing one...

Women in Science Up Close and Personal, Part 1: Mentoring Matters

  In the first of our series honoring women in science, Pfizer researchers share tales of mentors who turned them onto science and shaped their ambitions.  Arpita Maiti could have enjoyed her “free” period in high school that day, but instead she elected to go to a special tutorial that her science teacher, Fred Speed, had prepared on the discovery of how HIV was transmitted. The year was 1985, and the breakthrough finding was on the cover of Time magazine. “Mr. Speed’s tutorial was the best...

Hope in the Cancer Battle: Declining Cancer Rates, Innovative Science Breakthroughs

The rate of deaths from all cancers combined continued its quarter-century-long steady decline in the U.S., according to the latest report by the American Cancer Society, with the death rate dropping 1.7 percent between 2014 and 2015— the latest year for which national statistics were available. Since 1991, cancer death rates have decreased 26 percent.Cancer is still the No. 2 killer in the U.S., behind heart disease, but the latest report indicates there’s some promising news to take note of as...

How CRISPR Helps Find the Genetic ‘Needle in a Haystack’ of Diseases

CRISPR is best known as a powerful gene editing tool, but it’s also helping scientists search for the genetic sources of certain diseases. There’s been a lot of buzz in recent years about CRISPR, the powerful genome editing tool that acts like a pair of molecular scissors that can snip out and replace a specific chunk of genetic code, allowing scientists to make precise changes. Recent advances have made CRISPR even more precise, and researchers have likened it to a molecular pencil capable of...

Common Misconceptions About Leukemia Explained

More than 62,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Leukemia a year, a severe blood cancer, where the bone marrow produces abnormal cells.Leukemia, a name derived from the Greek words for “white blood,” is a cancer of the blood cells that begins in the bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside our bones that serves as our body’s blood cell factory. When a patient has leukemia, abnormal immature white blood cells (called blasts) multiply uncontrollably, filling up the bone marrow, and preventing...

Little Ms. Excitable and Mr. Naïve: Meet Some Varied ‘Cell States’

  They get excited. Sometimes they’re a little chatty. And they’ve been known to be naïve.  We’re not describing your average teenager, but rather, we’re talking about our cells, the building blocks of life. We’re made up of some 37 trillion of them. And among this vast megalopolis of cellular matter are some 210 different cell types, from lymphocytes to beta cells to the more descriptively named chandelier and cartwheel cells (two types of neurons). Cells also perform a range of critical...