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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 / Can deep sleep help devastating brain disorders? Scientists studying Parkinson's want to find out

Sleep may be one of the most potent medicines for the brain, scientists are discovering, as they explore the inner labyrinths of the three-pound organ during deep sleep and dream cycles in both health and disease.

Jan 27, 2022
Medical Xpress / In the lab: T cells artificially endowed with 2 cancer-seeking receptors aim to be an elite army of cancer killers

Despite high remission rates for patients treated with T cells that are supercharged in laboratories into elite cancer warriors, there is still a considerable population of patients who eventually relapse, their cancers invariably ...

Jan 14, 2022
Medical Xpress / HIV patients 'cured' by their own unique biology may harbor secrets to end the global scourge

Some people diagnosed with HIV are able to eradicate the virus without antiretroviral medications or even stem cell transplants, possessing the ability to naturally suppress the virus and achieve a medically verifiable cure.

Dec 31, 2021
Medical Xpress / Tiny device with a titanic impact: How neurosurgeons are treating one of the most dangerous brain aneurysms

Even as scientists in dozens of disciplines have turned their attention to the urgent needs of the global pandemic, an elite cadre of surgeon-scientists in the United States has been focusing on a potentially deadly brain ...

Dec 27, 2021
Medical Xpress / Scientists find additional molecular miscues in a genetic heart disorder that primarily afflicts young people

New research involving a devastating genetic heart condition suggests that mutations in adhesion proteins—molecules that should support the heart—apparently play a role in disrupting the integrity of the organ's outermost ...

Dec 14, 2021
Medical Xpress / Combat stress: A fact of life for T cells fighting cancer or viral infections

The immune system is an extraordinarily complex network made up of components that simultaneously launch attacks and mount defenses.

Dec 1, 2021
Medical Xpress / Secrets of antibodies: When it comes to dengue and Zika, dengue antibodies can knock out Zika—and vice versa

Cross-protective antibodies from dengue and Zika last far longer than previously thought, scientists have found in a massive study involving more than 4,000 children in Nicaragua.

Nov 19, 2021
Medical Xpress / Has a treatment for Alzheimer's been sitting on pharmacy shelves for decades? Scientists have two possible candidates

Two drugs approved decades ago not only counteract brain damage caused by Alzheimer's disease in animal models, the same therapeutic combination may also improve cognition.

Nov 1, 2021
Medical Xpress / A page from the COVID therapy playbook: Unleashing a flood of neutralizing antibodies against HIV

For more than 40 years a goal that too often has proved elusive is a pharmaceutical defeat of the human immunodeficiency virus—HIV. And the thrust in recent years has emphasized bringing newer, stealthier weapons to the fight.

Oct 25, 2021
Medical Xpress / A new way to prevent COVID-related clots and a biomarker that spots who's at highest risk

No aspect of SARS-CoV-2 infection has been more startling—or problematic—than the elevated risk for blood clotting, a concern that throughout the pandemic has been associated with severe COVID-19, frequently characterized ...

Oct 15, 2021
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