検索キーワード： 著者 "Anna Nowogrodzki" すべてのカテゴリー

For 51 years, newborn babies have gotten a heel-prick test in which their blood is screened for dozens of congenital disorders. Routine newborn screening has basically eliminated the risk of death or irreversible brain damage that some of these disorders can pose if they are not identified right away. Now some researchers in Boston are trying to find out if genomic sequencing at birth would be as successful.

Biology professor Erin Lindquist was in the middle of class when she got the phone call telling her that a prenatal test had returned abnormal results. Lindquist, who was 36 and pregnant with her second child, had had noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), which looked for abnormal chromosomes in her blood. Since about 10 percent of DNA in maternal blood comes from the fetus, this test is used to detect fetal genetic abnormalities. The results were "very devastating", says Lindquist: an extra copy of chromosome 13 and a missing copy of chromosome 18.

Engineers at Harvard have developed a soft robotic glove that allows people with limited hand mobility to grasp and pick up objects. The device could help the estimated 6.8 million people in the United States who have hand mobility issues, whether from a degenerative condition, stroke, or old age.