Summer E. Allen is a scientist-turned-writer and editor. She has a PhD in neuroscience from Brown University. She specializes in writing about science, health, and biotechnology.
New Apps Drive Health Care Innovation, Access to Care
With the ubiquitous nature of smartphones, apps are a regular part of our day-to-day lives. They are also becoming a larger presence in health care, where they have the ability to expand access to care, help people monitor health changes, provide support for people living with chronic conditions, and coordinate communication between patients and their doctors. From detecting skin cancer to helping people with diabetes, new apps aim to change how people think about their health.
How to experience more wow
Summer Allenis a freelance science writer and former neuroscientist. She served as a research and writing fellow for the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Mindful magazine, and other outlets. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Need to know
On a crisp, clear day in January about four years ago, my children and I joined a few thousand Rhode Islanders in a protest march against a recent change in law that restricted t...
Improving Psychotherapy With AI: From the Couch to the Keyboard
Enhancing quality, expanding access, and measuring outcomes with the aid of artificial intelligence means better care for patients
Determining How Antibodies Target the Virus That Causes COVID-19
COVID-19 has claimed millions of lives since the outbreak began in late 2019, prompting a wave of research into vaccines and therapeutics to end the pandemic. Studying the naturally occurring human antibodies created in response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, helped researchers develop new therapies that can prevent and treat COVID-19 infections.
Engineering New Treatments for Cancer
Trametinib, one example of a class of drugs known as MEK inhibitors, is a drug used to treat specific forms of skin and lung cancer and may be useful for treating several other forms of disease.
Five Reasons to Share Your Mental Health Struggles
Now, more than ever, we need to help people—and particularly young adults—who are struggling with mental health challenges. This will require training more mental health care practitioners and reimagining ways that schools and workplaces can buffer stress rather than promote it. Just as importantly, we need to change the way people talk about mental illness and work to reduce stigma. And one way to do this is to teach people how to talk about their journey through mental illness.
A new qualit...
Probing the Future of Psychedelics for Mental Health
Mounting evidence suggests that psychedelics may be useful for treating a range of different neuropsychiatric conditions that currently have limited treatment options.
We Want to Have Deeper Conversations With Strangers. Why Don’t We?
When we talk to strangers, if we talk to them, we often default to “small talk” or “chit-chat.” We may muse about the weather or a recent movie or what we did over the weekend. This surface-level talk may keep us comfortable, but it’s often unfulfilling.
What prevents us from deepening our conversations with strangers?
Engineering Enzymes to Tackle Plastic Waste
Plastic waste is one of the world’s largest environmental challenges. One type of plastic, called Poly(ethylene terephthalate) or PET, makes up 12% of solid waste on Earth. A new study, which involved experiments performed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source (APS), demonstrates a robust closed-loop recycling process for PET using an enzyme designed with artificial intelligence.
Seeking Pain Relief With Fewer Side Effects
Light therapy, nanotechnology, and transcutaneous electrical acustimulation offer surprising benefits in the quest to diminish pain
The Search for Pain Biomarkers
For many medical conditions, clinicians can collect quantitative indicators of disease, such as heart rate, body temperature, or levels of a specific protein in a blood sample. For chronic pain, however, such biological markers have not yet been identified. This information gap occurs even though chronic pain is one of the most common reasons why adults seek medical care.
How Biology Prepares Us for Love and Connection
Humans are social creatures with a propensity to connect with others and to form relationships. Our relationships can be sources of fun, gratification, peace, well-being, obsession, love, pain, and grief. They inform the rhythms of our days, the work that we do, and how we feel about ourselves—and they add meaning to our lives.
But our social nature isn’t just a product of the way we are raised or the culture we live in. It’s actually visible in the design and function of our brains and the i...
Finding New Ways to Treat Diabetes and Other Inflammatory Diseases
Currently, more than 460 million adults worldwide live with diabetes and its complications. That number is expected to grow to 700 million adults by 2045. Unfortunately, available treatments for type 2 diabetes, which make up approximately 90 percent of adult cases, can have serious adverse effects including gastrointestinal problems, hypoglycemia, increased cholesterol, and even heart failure. A new study carried out by a multinational, multi-institution research group, which involved collec...
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Psychiatry
Shortages of psychiatrists and therapists worldwide may lead to a rise in AI solutions for mental health
Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month: Three research advances that may improve patient care
In recognition of Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month, this article explores three new advances that may change how healthcare providers diagnose and care for people with Alzheimer's disease.