Word: molecular
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...likely to develop the disease in three years' time. Last May the Joslin and two other medical centers launched a program to treat identified potential diabetics with an antirejection drug less toxic than cyclosporine. The ambitious goal: to block the onset of disease. In the future, researchers imagine launching molecular missiles that will seek out and destroy the rogue immune cells that cause Type I diabetes. They also envision a vaccine that will rally the immune system against the traitors in its ranks. "Intellectually," says immunologist Dr. Terry Strom of Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, "we are on the right...
...white writing" spread across the surface, bathing the ideographic forms in a diffused glow. But Pousette-Dart really hit his stride in the '60s, through a kind of Impressionism without objects. In it, the Impressionist idea of fidelity to the passing nuances of light was subsumed in rendering a molecular space, dancing and palpitating with perfectly controlled motes of close-valued color and big, tranquil, centered images that resembled stars or novas. One can see them as part of the same (now utterly defunct) fixation on the "spiritual" possibilities of outer space that tinged the culture of the day, whose...
...best way to combat cellular aging is to postpone its effects at the molecular level. Basic research is now under way to understand the mechanisms that make human cells wear out and to try to find the genes that cause the major degenerative diseases of old age -- arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease. This work could have a double benefit: extending life expectancy and helping to make those extra years worth living. But researchers have no idea when, or if, breakthroughs will take place...
...however, the promise of gene therapy appears to outweigh any potential pitfalls. And the acceptance of the new techniques is particularly sweet for longtime advocates. "Twenty years ago, you couldn't utter the phrase gene therapy without being told you were talking nonsense," says Dr. Theodore Friedmann, a molecular geneticist at the University of California, San Diego. "Now it's taken for granted that it's coming." He sees the day when doctors will be able to treat not only the thousands of diseases caused by a single faulty gene but even complex disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer...
...Molecular biologists and researchers in brain chemistry were already challenging the nurturist doctrine long held by psychologists and social scientists. In a 1979 lecture on comparative social theory, Wilson framed the issue much the way Galileo might have when talking to an audience that still thought the sun revolved around the earth. "To be anthropocentric," he said, "is to remain unaware of the limits of human nature, the significance of biological processes underlying human behavior, and the deeper meaning of long-term genetic evolution...