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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 / Heart failure: Researchers make headway against diastolic dysfunction

Heart failure is a major public health concern, a disease that affects tens of millions of people around the world—forcing many into a vicious cycle of hospitalizations, discharges and frequent readmissions.

Jan 30, 2020
Medical Xpress / Eyeing a cure: Scientists examine strategies to end the global HIV/AIDS pandemic

As infectious diseases that are new to science continue emerging around the world, researchers have not forgotten older foes, and are doubling down on efforts to conquer them. For HIV/AIDS, they've begun looking toward a ...

Jan 21, 2020
Medical Xpress / Wonder drug? Exploring the molecular mechanisms of metformin, a diabetes drug with Medieval roots

At only pennies per dose, metformin is a Type 2 diabetes drug with distant roots in Medieval folk medicine and a powerful capacity to reduce body weight, fat mass, circulating glucose—and prevent the disorder altogether in ...

Jan 10, 2020
Medical Xpress / How signalling proteins affect wound healing

What do a scraped knee, a paper cut, or any form of surgery have in common? The short answer is a wound in need of healing—but the long answer lies in a series of biological activities that allow tissues to repair themselves.

Dec 27, 2019
Medical Xpress / New Insights: Armies of strategically stationed T cells fight viral infections, cancer

The immune system mounts robust responses to infections, vaccines and cancer, but only now have scientists fully begun to unravel how non-circulating populations of T cells that reside in the body's "mucosal barrier tissues" ...

Dec 23, 2019
Medical Xpress / Eavesdropping on intimate 'crosstalk': Communication between immune and nervous systems in vaccination

Inhale flu viruses after vaccination and the body responds with an explosion of flu-fighting antibodies courtesy of a deep-seated memory in the immune system, a response scientists are now finding relies heavily on a complex ...

Dec 17, 2019
Medical Xpress / Shaped like a cone: The configuration of 'virulence factors' that allow TB to invade the lungs

The bacterial pathogen that causes tuberculosis is a master of deception, a king of clever tricks—an enemy agent that not only infiltrates but can become a long-term stowaway in patients' lungs.

Dec 10, 2019
Medical Xpress / The biological basis of economic behavior: How the brain perceives value and reward

Holiday shopping season is in full force and consumers who are on the lookout for deals in stores or online may be surprised to learn that a considerable amount of research is underway to elucidate the neuroscience underlying ...

Nov 29, 2019
Medical Xpress / Hardening of the arteries: Platelets, inflammation and a rogue protein conspire against the heart

The Lipid Hypothesis of coronary artery disease has long held that a high level of cholesterol is the causative factor of atherosclerosis, but a group of New York scientists is making a powerful case for platelets as the ...

Nov 26, 2019
Medical Xpress / Protein protects the mitochondria and surprisingly rescues neurons from stroke-like damage

A protein newly discovered by scientists in China is aiding in the dramatic reversal of stroke-like damage in laboratory animals and may one day rescue humans from neurological injury, the research team is predicting.

Nov 21, 2019
Medical Xpress / Cryptosporidium: Hot on the trail of a new anti-infective

Developed countries and resource-poor nations alike report Cryptosporidium infections but doctors in nations rich and poor are stymied in efforts to effectively treat it in extremely vulnerable patients—particularly babies—for ...

Nov 18, 2019
Medical Xpress / Cracking the mystery of a rare bleeding disorder—and pursuing 'off-the-shelf' drugs to treat it

Consider for a moment that your life is dominated by spontaneous nosebleeds, chronic stomach hemorrhaging, persistent anemia and a complex constellation of other manifestations, some potentially life-threatening.

Nov 11, 2019
Medical Xpress / Rotavirus vaccine: A potential new role as an anticancer agent

Numerous vaccines, from flu shots to those those that help thwart chickenpox and measles, are widely used to guard against contagion, but researchers in France are proposing a breakthrough role for rotavirus vaccines: deploying ...

Oct 31, 2019
Medical Xpress / Inflammation and autism—an important piece of the puzzle

Autism spectrum disorder has neither a distinct pathogenesis nor pharmaceutical treatment, yet evidence continues to mount demonstrating immune dysfunction and inflammation in specific brain regions of children diagnosed ...

Oct 22, 2019
Medical Xpress / Microbiome: Untapped source of novel antimicrobials

Just as Gold Rush prospectors once mined the Northern California hills for the shiny precious metal, "bioprospectors" are searching for a new prize: potential antimicrobial molecules—and they are hunting them down in the ...

Oct 21, 2019