Nathan Seppa

Biomedical Writer (retired September 2015)

All Stories by Nathan Seppa

  1. Health & Medicine

    Herpes vaccine progresses

    A new vaccine for genital herpes protects some women but not men.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Herpes vaccine progresses

    A new vaccine for genital herpes protects some women but not men.

  3. Health & Medicine

    New tests may catch bicyclers on dope

    Two new tests, on blood and urine, detect the presence of synthetic erythropoietin, a drug that boosts red blood cell counts and enhances stamina.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Did colonization spread ulcers?

    A comparison of strains of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes ulcers, suggests that colonists brought it to the New World.

  5. Health & Medicine

    First-Line Treatment: Chronic-leukemia drug clears a big hurdle

    In its first large-scale test on newly diagnosed leukemia patients, the drug imatinib—also called Gleevec and STI-571—stopped or reversed the disease in nearly all patients receiving it.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Visionary science for the intestine

    A tiny disposable flash camera that a person swallows can detect problems in the small intestine.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Bone scan reveals estrogen effects

    Using a scanning technology called microcomputerized tomography, scientists have a new way to look at the difference between bone exposed to estrogen and bone deprived of it.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Common antibiotic may cure river blindness

    Tests in cows suggest that tetracycline might kill the tiny worm that spreads river blindness, a disease that infects about 18 million people.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Imaging Parkinson’s

    A new brain-imaging technique can supply proof of Parkinson's disease in people whose symptoms fall short of the standard definition of the disease.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Zapping bone brings relief from tumor pain

    By unleashing radio waves inside bone, researchers have stopped intractable pain in people with cancer that has spread to their skeletons.

  11. Health & Medicine

    An alternate approach to Parkinson’s

    While levodopa is the treatment of choice for Parkinson's disease, drugs called dopamine agonists, which mimic the neurotransmitter dopamine, may work as well early in the disease, cause fewer side effects, and preserve levodopa's effectiveness.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Bypass surgery in elderly works fine

    Coronary bypass surgery works as well in people over age 75 as it does in people 15 years younger.