Medical Research

In Incurable Me, a maverick physician brings transparency to some of medicine's most closely guarded secrets. As he establishes a link between commerce and medical research, K. P. Stoller also explains how to treat some of the most worrisome diseases and conditions afflicting humans today - including Lyme disease, brain trauma, dementia, and autism.

This is Mary Lasker's story. Americans now recognize the National Institutes of Health as the national treasure that it is, but when she began her crusade, her first challenge was persuading elected leaders and federal officials that the health of the American public was even their problem. Armed with the knowledge she was right, and supported by her husband, the famed ad man Albert Lasker, and close friend Florence Mahoney, she built a coalition of noted physicians and scientists that fundamentally changed how we think about medical research funding.

Over the last decade, scientists have discovered the importance and widespread presence in the body of a remarkable family of proteins known as prion proteins. Research links various types of prion proteins to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's—and this has fueled the search for new drugs that could halt the progression of these terrible disorders. Other discoveries have revealed the essential roles prion proteins play in memory and immunity, and the part they may have played in the beginnings of life on our planet.

Have we advanced so far that we have arrived full circle with the technology of ancient times? Dr. James Bartlow thinks so. Appointed by the president of the United States to head the country's first national center for live fetal-tissue research, Bartlow stumbles upon an ancient, unknown technology that he believes will open the gateway to a whole new paradigm.

The growth of careers and career pathways within medicine and health care can be confusing, yet it reflects the evolution of modern medicine which relies upon a myriad of different specialists each able to contribute their own particular skills to the care and wellbeing of the patient or client. Careers within the NHS are many and varied, with opportunities to train not only as nurses and doctors but also as dieticians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech and language therapists.