Focus

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. In the suburbs of Maryland, Dr. Jeffery Dormu’s presence is hard to miss. He’s a regular on the local TV station, which has featured him and his practice five times over the past five years. And he smiles down from an electronic billboard outside a...

Neuroscientists think a cluster of cells in the brain that stimulate appetite could be a target for eating disorder therapies Maybe it starts with a low-energy feeling, or maybe you’re getting a little cranky. You might have a headache or difficulty concentrating. Your brain is sending you a message: You’re hungry. Find food. Studies in mice have pinpointed a cluster of cells called AgRP neurons...

About 10% of COVID-19 patients will experience continuing symptoms for 12 weeks or more following diagnosis. Maria Korneeva/Moment via Getty Images ~~~~~~~~~~ A patient of mine, once a marathon runner, now gets tired just walking around the block. She developed COVID-19 during the 2020 Christmas holiday and saw me during the summer of 2021. Previously, her primary care doctor had recommended a...

Genetic conditions like Dravet syndrome, which causes severe childhood epilepsy, are hard to tackle with traditional gene therapy. New approaches in the works include using antisense therapy to boost mRNA splicing. The seizures started when Samantha Gundel was just four months old. By her first birthday, she was taking a cocktail of three different anticonvulsant medicines. A vicious cycle of...

The new drug looked so promising — except for that one warning sign. At the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting in 2008, Duke University’s Dr. John Sundy proudly announced that pegloticase, a drug he’d helped develop, was astoundingly effective at treating severe gout, which affects perhaps 50,000 Americans. In about half of those who had taken it, the drug melted away the...

In 2019, Michelle Przybocki nearly died. She became ill from digestive complications, and later learned she had a severe case of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Michelle, a speech therapist from Las Vegas, managed to push through the illness, but her life would never be the same. From then on, she experienced debilitating pain every time she ate, sometimes immobilizing her for hours. To reduce...