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Delthia Ricks

Delthia Ricks

Author

Delthia Ricks is an award-winning science writer and author with stories published in Newsday, Discover Magazine, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. She has written four books, most recently "100 Questions and Answers About Coronaviruses." She holds degrees from UCLA and Columbia University, with an M.S. in Biology.

Articles by Delthia Ricks

Medical Xpress / On the trail of a medical mystery: Scientists zero in on elevated MRSA susceptibility after liver transplants

For decades, recipients of liver transplants have been inexplicably vulnerable to MRSA infection after their lifesaving surgeries, but the molecular mechanisms underlying that risk had remained stubbornly mystifying, at least ...

Sep 30, 2021
Medical Xpress / Vaccination guards against certain bacterial infections and slows the spread of superbugs in populations

Vaccines that boost immunity against bacteria can protect the immunized from contracting drug-resistant infections, according to a team of scientists in the U.K. who also underscore that the shots can slow the spread of resistant ...

Sep 28, 2021
Medical Xpress / First responders haunted by 9/11 terrorism for 20 years to be treated with minute doses of electricity

Twenty years after the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, survivors still suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder—PTSD—a condition that New York researchers will attempt to control through bioelectronic medicine, ...

Sep 13, 2021
Medical Xpress / Scientists in Sweden discover a rare, aggressive form of Alzheimer's that begins in the early 40s

A newly discovered gene mutation linked to early onset Alzheimer's disease has been discovered by an international team of scientists, who traced the DNA flaw through multiple members of a single family.

Sep 1, 2021
Medical Xpress / A turncoat protein allows viruses to ride roughshod in the liver, paving the way to cancer

Chronic viral infections in the liver can lead to organ dysfunction and ultimately to liver tumors in a progression invariably characterized by viruses that proliferate free of immune system restraints.

Aug 24, 2021
Medical Xpress / The antibody with a secret: Scientists uncover IgA antibodies' ability to fight malaria

Antibodies have drawn a spotlight over the past year and a half as scientists and lay people alike have asked how long the infection-fighting proteins persist in the face of a formidable enemy—a pandemic virus that has been ...

Aug 2, 2021
Medical Xpress / Battle fatigue can drive T cells to exhaustion: Cancer and viruses are tough to fight

Just as it is for marathoners who've completed a 26-mile run, or shrubs that have gone without water in a heatwave—exhaustion is an unavoidable fact of life. Dogs get exhausted after herding sheep; birds turn in for the night ...

Jul 29, 2021
Medical Xpress / Is it possible to deliver a knockout punch to HIV?

With a global focus on strategies to curb expansion of a fast-moving coronavirus pandemic, the question again has arisen: What more is being done about HIV, a scourge that has lasted more than 40 years—is a cure finally in ...

Jul 26, 2021
Medical Xpress / Are we ready? Advances in CRISPR means the era of germline gene editing has arrived

Quick, accurate and easy-to-use, CRISPR-Cas9 has made genomic editing more efficient—but at the same time has made human germline editing much more feasible, erasing many of the ethical barriers erected to prevent scientists ...

Jun 25, 2021
Medical Xpress / How a protein named STING assaults viruses and cancer cells that invade us

The molecular world is full of surprises, and none more stunning than those occurring among the infinitesimal proteins that drive the activities guarding against viral infections and cancer.

Jun 21, 2021
Medical Xpress / Tweaking gene therapy: Scientists experimentally boost red blood cells to aid sickle cell and other hemoglobin diseases

A series of laboratory studies is underway in the United States to improve gene therapy worldwide for sickle cell disease, a complex and sometimes deadly heritable blood disorder that dramatically affects the structure and ...

Jun 1, 2021
Medical Xpress / 153 years after discovery of the immune system's dendritic cells, scientists uncover a new subset

When pathogens invade or tumor cells emerge, the immune system is alerted by danger signals that summon a key battalion of first responders, the unsung heroes of the immune system—a population of starfish-shaped sentinels ...

May 27, 2021
Medical Xpress / The global race for a T cell receptor that zeros in on—and annihilates—solid tumors

Immunobiologists in China have designed a synthetic T cell receptor for anticancer therapy, engineering the protein not only with a capability to seek and destroy solid tumors, but endowing this cancer fighting weapon with ...

Apr 30, 2021
Medical Xpress / The secret lives of T cell receptors and their role in the immune response

Canadian immunologists have identified a mechanism that promotes the activation of T cell receptors by altering how one of its components interacts with the cell membrane.

Apr 23, 2021
Medical Xpress / PET and CT scans provide keen views of lungs with active TB, and are better assessment tools than sputum tests

In clinical trials, a time-honored but old-school way to determine if TB is being knocked out by antibiotics involves having study participants cough up phlegm for a sputum culture, a test that can gauge whether the bacteria ...

Mar 26, 2021