That's three for three

Three of the biggest, most influential life science funding agencies in the US have taken big initiatives toward multi-disciplinary research in recent months. In it’s FY 2004 Plans and Priorities for Cancer Research the NCI said:

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Small but mighty

Here’s one for the Fascinating Little Gizmos file. The Quallion company is making a battery the size of a pencil lead to be implanted to energize artificial neurons that will control, among other things, urinary incontinence. The battery is wrapped in a little coil that will enable it to be recharged from an external electricity source. Another company is making a system that can communicate to and from the device to adjust it and to reprogram it while inside the body.

This is interesting because one of the technologies we’re sure to see much, much more of is implantable devices. But they’ll all need energy and to be able to communicate back and forth across the skin.

And think of the teensy-weensy flashlight you can make!

Excellent article on cancer

While we’re making reference to articles about cancer, I want to make sure everyone is aware of the excellent update Scientific American did back in July on recent evidence affecting theories of cancer. To my way of thinking it’s a must read. One interesting statement:

One day science will produce a definitive answer to the question of what causes cancer. It will probably be a very complicated answer, and it may force us to shift our hope from drugs that cure the disease to medicines that prevent it.

“Untangling the Roots of Cancer“

At what price?

One last idea to think about from The Scientist. It was a sidebar to an article so I’m going to quote it in full here. It raises some questions about what the cost will be–financial and otherwise–with more targeted and presumably, more effective cancer treatments.

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