In a fascinating front page article in today’s Boston Globe, Carey Goldberg tells “the story”:http://tinyurl.com/3hhjs of how Dr. Vikas Sukhatme and Dr. S. Ananth Karumanchi at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center figured out what seems to be a major piece of the puzzle in the fight against preeclampsia, “a long-baffling syndrome that kills an estimated 76,000 mothers worldwide each year”. The description of the science involved and the serendipity of discovery and the role of intuition is very nice.
What struck me was here we have a prime example of the importance of medical research relying on knowledge of genetics and genetic variation. At the same time once again, school boards and commissioners in various parts of the nation are trying to keep biology teachers from teaching evolution and genetics. For excellent coverage, see Paul Z. Myers’ site “Pharyngula”:http://pharyngula.org/.
I guess the US is lucky that it can still attract scientists like Dr. Karumanchi, who was trained in India (where one supposes science teachers are not subject to interference from religious fanatics).
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This entry was posted by fintel on Friday, February 6th, 2004, at 9:42 am.
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