Nathan Seppa

Biomedical Writer (retired September 2015)

All Stories by Nathan Seppa

  1. Health & Medicine

    Preventive drugs protect children

    Preventive treatment with inexpensive drugs decreases rainy-season cases of malaria in Senegal.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Umbilical Bounty: Cord blood shows value against leukemia

    Umbilical cord blood transplants offer a viable treatment alternative for leukemia patients who don't have a matching bone marrow donor.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Drugs counteract irritable bowel syndrome

    Antibiotics can knock out bacteria overload in the small intestine, temporarily reversing irritable bowel syndrome.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Problems for Preemies: Early birth is linked to insulin overproduction

    Children born prematurely are more likely than their full-term counterparts to develop insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Trials affirm value of drug

    The drug STI-571, previously shown to work against chronic myelogenous leukemia, also helps patients who have slipped into an acute, highly lethal form of this cancer.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Old and new drugs may fight myeloma

    In some people with a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma, treatment with thalidomide or PS-341, which induces programmed cell death, may improve their chances of survival.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Antibiotics, vitamins stall stomach cancer

    A 6-year study shows that vitamin C, beta-carotene, and antibiotics can reverse premalignant conditions that could otherwise lead to stomach cancer.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Staph receptor as drug target

    A receptor molecule on the surface of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus might present an exploitable weak spot in the microbe's defenses.

  9. Health & Medicine

    A vaccine for cervical cancer

    A vaccine against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, has proved 94 percent effective in preventing the virus from infecting women.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Marker signals esophageal cancer

    Silencing of the gene that encodes the cancer-suppressing protein APC is common in people with esophageal cancer, suggesting that physicians might use this genetic abnormality as a marker for the disease.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Is penicillin-allergy rate overstated?

    A study finds that 20 of 21 people who reported having a penicillin allergy when filling out paperwork during a hospital visit in fact don't have one, suggesting that the prevalence of this allergy is overstated.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Malaria vaccine shows promise in Mozambique

    An experimental malaria vaccine tested on children in Mozambique provides some protection against the potentially life-threatening disease.