The Awesome Power of Natural Products
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Interview with Dr Ada Yonath, a 2009 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
Posted by Abel Pharmboy on December 14, 2009 Last week in Stockholm (and Oslo), the 2009 Nobel Prize winners were gloriously hosted while giving their lectures and receiving their medals and diplomas. In Chemistry this year, the Nobel was shared by Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A Steitz, and Ada E Yonath for their studies on the structure and function of the ribosome, a remarkable…
Sir John Crofton, TB combination therapy pioneer – a long and admirable life
Posted by Abel Pharmboy on November 20, 2009 Denise Gellene in the New York Times is reporting this morning that Scottish physician, Sir John Crofton, passed away on 3 November at age 97. Crofton is best known for implementing a combination drug regimen to treat tuberculosis, the insidious lung infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis which decimated the US early last century and still kills…
On the Origin of Witches, Broomsticks, and Flying
Posted by Abel Pharmboy on October 31, 2009 This post appeared here originally on 31 October 2007 Have you ever wondered, perhaps on 31 October, why witches are depicted as riding brooms? The answer is alluded to by Karmen Franklin at Chaotic Utopia in her post as to why witches need to know their plant biology. The excerpts I’m about to give you…
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz, and Ada Yonath win 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Posted by Abel Pharmboy on October 7, 2009 Welcome visitors coming from a recommendation by Dr Carmen Drahl at C&ENtral Science, the blog of the American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN): Terra Sig has a fantastic post about the chemistry prize. The money quote: “If I see electrons being pushed around, it’s chemistry.” Thank you for the kind words, Dr Drahl.…
Pediatric cancer patient checks in at age 55; beneficiary of Dr Charlotte Tan’s actinomycin D work
Posted by Abel Pharmboy on June 30, 2009 I love it when new readers stumble upon old posts. Such was the case when I received the following delightful comment from Seattle-based psychologist, Dr Gary Grenell, on my April 2008 post about the passing of Dr Charlotte Tan, a pediatric cancer chemotherapy pioneer: I was probably in one of her earliest actionmycin-D trial groups…
On the Origin of Witches and Broomsticks
Posted by Abel Pharmboy on October 31, 2007 Welcome, Reader: This post was updated on Halloween 2009 to remedy linkrot and add an interesting tidbit on the famous Macbeth passage. As it is likely you ended up here via a search engine, click here to go to the updated post. Have you ever wondered, perhaps on 31 October, why witches are depicted as…