Both proton and standard photon radiation achieve the same goal of damaging tumor cell DNA. But because protons are heavier, they stop at their target, thus reducing extra radiation to noncancerous areas. This is ideal for treating tumors near sensitive structures, such as the brain or spinal cord, or for treating childhood cancers, as radiotherapy comes with a risk of developing secondary cancers decades later.

Questions about the transmission and pathogenesis of Middle East respiratory syndrome remain as the coronavirus spreads.

It’s the wee hours of the morning, and Joe Thome, a graduate student studying immunology at Columbia University, gets a text message notifying him that someone has just died. It’s not someone he knows. In fact, he’ll never know who it is. The deceased was an organ donor who, in addition to opting to donate life-giving organs for transplantation, donated tissues for research.

Lyme disease–causing bacteria can outmaneuver antibiotics in vitro and manipulate the mouse immune system.

CTE has been a flash point in the debates over whether professional football puts players at risk for neurological disease, ever since pathologist Bennet Omalu first reported the pathology in a retired National Football League (NFL) player. More than ten years later, the inability to diagnose the brain condition during life or ascribe to it specific causes or clinical symptoms add to the contention.

In February 2006, a team of French surgeons captured the world's attention when they appeared at a press conference alongside their patient, Isabelle Dinoire, on whom they had transplanted the lower half of a deceased donor's face just a few months earlier.

By solving a decades-old medical mystery, researchers may have discovered a highly effective cancer treatment.

Once thought only to attack neurons, immune cells turn out to be vital for central nervous system function.

A new class of therapeutics instruct the body to make its own drugs.

A long-neglected virus returns to the top of researchers’ to-do lists.

Outbreaks of infectious disease are becoming more common in many parts of the world. Between 1980 and 2010, the number of outbreaks reported worldwide more than tripled every five years. Unexpected outbreaks caused by viruses such as Ebola and Zika have led researchers to seek faster and cheaper strategies for addressing pathogenic agents they know little about.

Infants and those over 65 are at the highest risk of infectious disease. A better understanding of age-specific immunity is needed to design vaccines that work for them.