Stem Cells Reveal New Secrets About Mental Illness
Dina Fine Maron, health & science editor at Scientific American, discusses the breakthrough that could help doctors diagnose mental illnesses. Stem cells have enabled researchers to see how lithium affects the brain.
Researchers are converting patients skin cells into brain cells through genetic instruction. This allows them to look at the brain cells of a person with bipolar disorder and better understand how to treat it.
Maron explains this breakthrough will allow doctors to customize a patient's treatment plan, instead of giving them the same treatment given to everyone. Maron says the hope is one day researchers will be able to expose a patient's cells to a particular drug and see how they react before prescribing the drug to an actual patient.
Most scientists agree that the impact of an asteroid hitting Earth played a major role in the extinction of dinosaurs but now there's a brand new theory about how exactly that happened.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Over 240,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year but today's treatments give patients a better chance at beating the disease and living a healthy life. Cheddar News spoke with Dr. Mehran Habibi, director of breast surgery with Staten Island University Hospital; Dr. Holly Marshall, division chief of breast imaging at University Hospitals Cleveland; and Dr. Neil Iyengar, breast medical oncologist with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center about the progress made in treatments.
