Two Boston University biomedical engineers have won a major National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to continue groundbreaking research aimed at reducing the cost of sequencing individual human genomes to about $1,000.

The MR-OR allows neurosurgeons to take images of the brain before, during and after surgery. On Wednesday, Oct. 25, at 1:00 p.m. EDT, neurosurgeons at Children's Hospital Boston will remove a brain tumor employing functional mapping of the cortex on a 13-year-old pediatric patient during a live Webcast. Children's hosts three to four Webcasts annually to showcase its pioneering care and technology to specialists and referring physicians around the world, and to educate consumers on the latest and most innovative medical treatments available.

Mass vaccination would not be necessary in the event of a large-scale smallpox bioterrorist attack in the United States, according to a study led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that appears online in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

New research offers tantalizing clues as to why some teenagers taking common anti-depressants may become more aggressive or kill themselves. The research is published in the October Behavioral Neuroscience, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Computers that process information using DNA instead of silicon chips could one day lead to faster, more accurate tests for diagnosing West Nile Virus, bird flu and other diseases. Researchers say that they have developed a DNA-based computer that could lead to faster, more accurate tests for diagnosing West Nile Virus and bird flu. Representing the first "medium-scale integrated molecular circuit," it is the most powerful computing device of its type to date, they say.

Feeding babies alcoholic milk may help to protect against some food allergies. Kefir, a traditional fermented drink, is consumed in Eastern Europe as a health food, and is often used to wean babies, as it is easily digested. Food allergy prevalence is especially high in children under the age of three, with around 5-8% of infants at risk. Currently the only treatment is avoidance of the problematic food.

Patients who have high blood sugar before undergoing surgery run an increased risk of developing blood clots, deep vein thrombosis and even pulmonary embolism after surgery.

People addicted to cocaine have an impaired ability to perceive rewards and exercise control due to disruptions in the brain's reward and control circuits, according to a series of brain-mapping studies and neuropsychological tests conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have shown that transplanting human stem cells into spinal cords of rats bred to duplicate Lou Gehrig's disease delays the start of nerve cell damage typical of the disease and slightly prolongs life. The grafted stem cells develop into nerve cells that make substantial connections with existing nerves and do not themselves succumb to Lou Gehrig's, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The study is published in this week's issue of Transplantation.

A novel look at the brains of adults with autism has provided new evidence that various brain regions of people with the developmental disorder may not communicate with each other as efficiently as they do in other people.