biomedical research

HHS Announces Plan To Cut 10,000 Employees And Close Offices

In a reversal, the Trump administration restores funding for women's health study

8:31pm April 24, 2025

The unexpected elimination of funding for the decades-long research project focused on women's health shocked scientists. They were heartened by the quick restoration of support.

Queue Listen Now

Trump's nominee to run NIH faces Senate scrutiny

9:23am March 05, 2025

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor of health policy, faced tough questioning from the Senate HELP Committee during a confirmation hearing.

Queue Listen Now

A sense of foreboding hangs over the National Institutes of Health

4:12pm February 04, 2025

There's widespread confusion and fear among scientists and doctors on the sprawling National Institutes of Health campus and at institutions dependent on the agency's funding.

Queue Listen Now

Trump turns to critic of COVID mandates to run NIH

9:27pm November 26, 2024

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford health researcher, is in line to lead the National Institutes of Health. Early in the pandemic he argued against lockdowns and focusing on people at highest risk.

Activists protest the prices of prescription drug outside the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., in October 2022.

Health & Safety

White House proposes to 'march in' on patents for costly drugs

3:01pm December 07, 2023

by Sydney Lupkin

To lower drug prices, the Biden administration is looking to assert its authority to license drug patents that rely on government-funded research to drugmakers that would offer cheaper medicines.

Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, questions Dr. Monica Bertagnolli during her confirmation hearing to become director of the National Institutes of Health.

Health & Safety

Sen. Sanders pushes NIH to rein in drug prices

5:12am November 17, 2023

by Sydney Lupkin

The National Institutes of Health has been reluctant to use its leverage as a biomedical research funder to influence drug pricing. Sen. Bernie Sanders is pressing NIH's new director to take action.

Horseshoe crabs are bled alive at a facility in Charleston, S.C., in June 2014.

Environment

Vaccines are still tested with horseshoe crab blood. The industry is finally changing

11:00am September 23, 2023

by Chiara Eisner

The horseshoe crab bleeding industry is in transition. One biomedical company agreed to more oversight, and a regulatory group is paving the way for drug companies to use animal-free alternatives.

Horseshoe crabs are bled at a facility in Charleston, S.C., in June 2014.

Coastal biomedical labs are bleeding more horseshoe crabs with little accountability

11:58am June 10, 2023

by Chiara Eisner

Horseshoe crab blood is used to test vaccines around the world. But while Europe has approved a synthetic alternative, biomedical labs are bleeding more crabs from the Atlantic Coast.

Queue Listen Now

This synthetic fish is powered by human heart cells. Scientists say that they could help lead the way toward building replacement hearts from human tissue.

Watch these robotic fish swim to the beat of human heart cells

8:15pm February 10, 2022

by Jon Hamilton

Tiny, robotic fish powered by human heart cells suggest that scientists are getting closer to their goal of building replacement hearts from living tissue.

Queue Listen Now

Radiation was another treatment that researchers were refining at the time. Gordon Isaacs was the first patient treated with the linear accelerator (radiation therapy) for retinoblastoma. Gordon's right eye was removed January 11, 1957 because the cancer

Health & Safety

50 years ago, Nixon gave the U.S. a 'Christmas present,' launching the war on cancer

11:27pm December 23, 2021

by Gabrielle Emanuel

The National Cancer Act became law 50 years ago. Cancer went from shameful taboo to one of the best-funded areas of medicine. Much of the credit for this transformation goes to one woman, Mary Lasker.