Stephanie DeMarco
Verified
sci-steph.bsky.social
Managing Editor @DrugDiscovNews | @AAASMassMedia ‘19 at @latimes | PhD in Mol Bio @UCLA | theater nerd | travel adventurer | she/her
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Stephanie DeMarco
Cancer Researchers and Patients Take the TEDx Stage
When Diane Simeone was leading the Pancreatic Cancer Center at New York University Langone Health in the late 2010s to early 2020s, the field had begun to realize that early detection of pancreatic cancer vastly improved survival outcomes. She and her team started a program called Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection (PRECEDE) to identify people who might be at risk and encourage them to get screened. Diane Simeone directs the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health.
Gene Therapy Reverses Fragile X Deficits in Mouse Study
Skip to main content A new AAV-based gene therapy successfully improved seizures, behavior, and brain activity in fragile X syndrome mice, paving the way for clinical development. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD A new gene therapy restored the expression of fragile X messenger ribonucleoprotein in the brains of mice with fragile X syndrome.
A T. Rex Leather Bag Is up for Auction. Is It Really Dinosaur Collagen?
Move over Louis Vuitton and Prada, an even more exclusive handbag has entered the fashion zeitgeist: a Tyrannosaurus rex leather purse. In a feat of bioengineering that began approximately 68 million years ago, researchers created a teal-colored handbag out of leather made from reconstructed T. rex collagen. Scientists from The Organoid Company and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. collaborated with the marketing firm VML to bring the product to life. The T.
Vitamin D-Like Drug Plus Chemotherapy Proves Safe in Pancreatic Cancer Trial
One of the reasons pancreatic cancer is so difficult to treat doesn’t have to do with the tumor cells themselves but with the dense mesh of extracellular matrix surrounding them. In pancreatic cancer, fibroblasts become activated, leading to the production of this physical barrier that is thought to reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy. This matrix also promotes an immunosuppressive environment around the tumors, preventing immune cells from attacking the cancer, allowing it to flourish.
Engineered Enzymes Streamline Synthesis of an Oral Cholesterol Drug
Often described as “Goldilocks drugs,” macrocyclic peptides are smaller than biologics like antibodies but larger than small molecules. With their just-right size, macrocyclic peptides can travel into spaces too small for biologics to reach and, thanks to their structural rings of amino acids, can target protein-protein interactions that evade small molecules.
Multiomics Reveals How Macrophages Contribute to Liver Disease
Using spatial multi-omics, researchers identified shifting macrophage populations in MASLD progression, identifying markers to aid patient stratification in clinical trials. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD Distinct populations of liver macrophages contribute to the progression of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.
Biosecurity Comics Help Communicate Risk and Inform Policy
In 2024, an interdisciplinary group of scientists and bioethicists shook the synthetic biology world when they published a paper arguing against pursing a certain line of research—the creation of mirror life.1 Mirror life refers to organisms that would be made up of molecules with the opposite chirality, or “handedness,” of the ones that occur in nature.
How an H5N1 Outbreak in Elephant Seals Can Inform Pandemic Readiness
The first sign that something was wrong came during a survey walk in Año Nuevo State Park, a stretch of beach along the central coast of California. In January 2026, researchers at the University of California (UC), Davis and UC Santa Cruz had noticed increasing numbers of sick marine birds in the area. Worried that influenza activity was rising on the coast, the researchers ramped up their surveillance for sick animals, which could indicate a viral outbreak.
Smart Underwear Tracks Farts in Real Time
Just one bite of ice cream or a sip of a milkshake can’t hurt too much, right? Anyone with lactose intolerance knows that this bargaining usually results in some uncomfortable gut sensations and stinky side effects about 30 minutes to a couple of hours later. People with lactose intolerance cannot breakdown lactose, the natural sugar in dairy products. When gut microbes encounter this unabsorbed lactose, they ferment it and release hydrogen gas, which exits the body as flatulence.
Deciding Authorship Order? Tally Up Your Dragon Kill Points!
One of the most stressful parts of finishing a manuscript comes long before hitting the submit button on the journal website—it’s deciding who gets to be an author and in what order. While some disciplines or individual laboratories have standard ways to determine authorship, such as ordering names alphabetically, this is not the case in all fields.
Next-Generation Precision Medicine Platforms Come for Cancer
As a person’s own cells that have gone rogue, cancers are as unique as the people they come from. This diversity makes a one-size-fits-all approach to cancer treatment next to impossible. Instead, patients need therapies that can go head-to-head with the exact cancer they’re facing. For years, precision medicine focused on developing therapies directed toward a cancer’s unique genetics, but the development of new cancer treatment strategies has widened its scope immensely.
The Matilda Project Spotlights Overlooked Female Scientists through Art
To this day, Shehroze Saharan vividly remembers the moment when his 11th grade biology teacher asked the class to open their textbook to the section on the discovery of the structure of DNA and to read what was written there. “I remember, we all went through the story of how Watson, Crick, and Wilkins discovered the shape of the double helix,” said Saharan, who is the managing director of The Matilda Project.
Infant Heart Surgery Mends Brain Networks Too
Babies with congenital heart disease have altered brain activity in regions involved in movement and emotions, but heart surgery restored these brain networks to healthy connectivity. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD Congenital heart disease affects about one in 100 newborns.
FDA Proposes Speedy “Plausible Mechanism Framework” for Rare Disease Drug Development
New FDA guidelines for personalized genomic drug development are a step forward in advancing new therapies for ultrarare diseases, but industry leaders need further clarification. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD The FDA’s new framework aims to accelerate the development of personalized genomic treatments for ultrarare diseases.
Marine Microbes Flourish in Diverse Ocean Environments
Register for free to listen to this article About half a kilometer beneath the surface of the ocean, currents move large masses of water slowly throughout the world’s oceans. Physical oceanographers have characterized ocean water masses by their salinity, temperature, age, and a variety of other physical and chemical features. Now, researchers have a map of how ocean microbes associate with these water masses too. Adapted from Figure 4 in Kolody BC, et al.
Ovarian Cancer May Finally Get a More Effective Treatment
Ovarian cancer standard of care has not advanced in over 30 years, but a new DNA-based immunotherapy could be a gamechanger, showing major survival gains in clinical trials. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD Published |Updated |4 min read A DNA-based IL-12 therapy boosts survival in advanced ovarian cancer by 13 months.
A Breath of Air Could Help Diagnose Gut Microbiome Disruptions
In the depths of the human colon, gut microbes help keep the body healthy by aiding digestion and producing vital metabolites. Disruptions to this bustling microbial community are associated with diseases including asthma and serious infections in preterm infants. However, quickly identifying the gut microbiome changes that can lead to these conditions in a hospital is not feasible with current methods.
Aging Research Takes the Spotlight at the 2026 Biotech Showcase
Aging is a fact of life, but growing older doesn’t necessarily need to come with the various degenerative diseases associated with it. Researchers and industry leaders at aging-focused biotech companies want to help people maintain their health while living longer. This week, scientists, investors, and biotech and pharma professionals descended on San Francisco for the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.
How Ocean Currents Shape the Marine Microbiome
Wind howls and waves roar as storms rage over the open ocean. But even as gusts reach hurricane strength and swells rise as high as six-story buildings, the violent effects of these storms only reach about 500 meters beneath the surface. “The ocean's four kilometers deep, so there's a whole lot more going on,” said Bethany Kolody, a microbiologist at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). Beneath that half kilometer depth, the ocean is quiet.
Some Dogs Can Learn New Words Just by Eavesdropping
Both toddlers and Gifted Word Learner dogs can learn new words by listening to people, providing new insight into the social and cognitive cues involved in learning language. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD Miso is a 6-year-old male border collie from Canada who knows the names of about 200 toys. Image credit:Veronica Suen Register for free to listen to this article Most dogs can understand lots of different words like sit, stay, and—most importantly—treat.
Injured on Your Period? Healing May Take Longer
Monthly hormone fluctuations associated with the menstrual cycle affect multiple aspects of women’s bodies, from metabolism and the cardiovascular system to neuromuscular functions.1 Because the menstrual cycle has such a significant effect on physiology, researchers have long wondered how it affects female athletes and their risk of injury.
From Lemurs to Lab Mice, Hibernators Reveal Insights into Human Health
As leaves fall off the trees and temperatures grow bitingly cold, many animals prepare to hibernate for the winter. During this period, animals enter a state of torpor wherein they reduce their metabolic activity and lower their body temperature, which helps them conserve energy. Organisms can also enter other kinds of dormancy or adaptations to stressful environments that resemble hibernation.
Feeling Asocial When Sick? A Brain-Immune Connection May Be Why
As sniffles and sneezing set in, the last thing anyone wants to do is leave the house to socialize with people. When feeling sick, hunkering down in bed under a cozy pile of blankets is often the only thing that sounds good. This desire to avoid other people when feeling under the weather is an evolutionary one: It both helps the sick person rest and recover more quickly, while also preventing their infection from spreading to more people.
Sex Differences in the Brain Get Down to the Molecular Level
Neuroendocrinologist Catherine Woolley and her team at Northwestern University were studying synaptic modulation in female mice when they ran into some trouble. They were attempting to replicate experiments that had been done in male mice, but the researchers soon realized that they couldn’t.
Criticism of Autism-Gut Microbiome Research Sparks Pushback Original
Over the past few decades, researchers studying the gut microbiome have noted associations between gut microbes and neurological conditions from depression and Parkinson’s disease to autism spectrum disorders.1 With bidirectional communication between the gut and the brain via the vagus nerve, the potential role of the gut microbiome in autism spurred numerous investigations from human observational and mechanistic mouse studies to interventional clinical trials.
Chronic Noise Exposure Led to Parkinson's Disease Symptoms in Mice
Frequent rock concert attendees, those who work in manufacturing, or even people living in dense cities may want to invest in ear protection.
Spiders Spin Web Decorations That May Help Detect Prey
Embellishments called stabilimenta helped propagate waves along simulated spider webs when prey landed on them, shedding new light on these decorative structures. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD Image credit:© iStock, Wirestock Register for free to listen to this article Whether tucked into the corners of a haunted house or shining with drops of morning dew between tree branches, spider webs are homes to the eight-legged critters.
Mambas, Cobras, and Rinkhals Beware! New Antivenom Targets 17 Deadly Snakes
New broad-spectrum antivenom, made up of just eight nanobodies to counter venom from diverse sub-Saharan African snake species, shows success in mice. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD A new recombinant antivenom that targets multiple venomous snake species—including the African spitting cobra, shown here—could lead to both safer and more effective snake bite treatments.
The Secret to a Smooth Pasta Sauce Wins Ig Nobel Prize
On September 18, 2025, the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes were announced, celebrating scientific achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” The ten prizes awarded this year fit the theme “Digestion” with awards honoring lizards’ pizza preferences to how biting flies avoid feeding from cows painted with black and white stripes.1,2 This year’s Ig Nobel Physics Prize honored a delicious finding: the physics of the perfect cacio e pepe recipe—a deceptively...
Mirror Microbes Could End All Life on Earth. How Do We Stop Them?
In 1847 when Louis Pasteur first methodically separated left- and right-handed tartrate crystals from the cork of a wine bottle, the idea of creating life from oppositely handed molecules was almost 200 years away.1 Pasteur had discovered the property of chirality or handedness. Many molecules have a natural chirality: DNA molecules are right-handed, while proteins are left-handed. Some molecules, like tartrate, can exist in both left- and right-handed forms, and other molecules are achiral.
RNA and Sulfur Compounds Possibly Created the First Peptides on Earth
Long before dinosaurs munched on leafy greens or photosynthesizing algae soaked up the sun, a lifeless soup of simple molecules floated through the watery and rocky landscape of early planet Earth. Today, complex molecular processes in cells create the building blocks of life: proteins, lipids, and more. But how did life emerge before these systems evolved?
Microglia Get Exhausted in Alzheimer’s Disease
A single-cell spatial proteomic atlas of microglia in human brains revealed broad functional changes in Alzheimer’s disease. Written byStephanie DeMarco, PhD Register for free to listen to this article For years, researchers considered Alzheimer’s disease (AD) an amyloid beta and neuron-related condition. But having trained as a pathologist, Thomas Montine, who is now a neuropathology researcher at Stanford University, didn’t think that was the whole story.
How Whipworms Tunnel Through the Gut
While often considered a neglected tropical disease, whipworm infections can occur all over the world—and have throughout history. “We have archeological findings showing that these worms were infecting Vikings and Romans, and we actually found that the worms were inside Ötzi [the Iceman],” said Maria Duque-Correa, an immunologist focusing on host-parasite interactions at the University of Cambridge.
Hearing Loss May Be the Canary in the Coal Mine for Dementia
Around his second birthday, Uri Manor’s parents realized that their son had severe hearing loss. Manor, who is now an imaging scientist and organelle researcher at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive hearing loss to develop new treatments for it. But his own experience with hearing loss is not what inspired him to study the topic. It was not, ‘Oh, woe is me. I have hearing loss. I need to work on this,’” he said.
First Use of Click Chemistry in Humans Safely Treats Cancer
Chemotherapy, although lifesaving, causes a lot of side effects as it travels through the body to reach a cancerous tumor. From nausea to hair loss, these reactions arise because these drugs also inadvertently affect healthy cells.
Coenzyme Q10 Precursors Reverse Motor Decline in a Young Patient
While mitochondria may be the powerhouses of the cell, coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is the engineer that keeps mitochondria going. Nestled in the mitochondrial membrane, CoQ10 shuttles electrons through the electron transport chain to help mitochondria generate energy for the cell.
How will AI affect cancer treatment and diagnosis?
From the 2024 Nobel Prize for artificial intelligence (AI)-based protein design to the rollout of a new AI tool at the FDA to accelerate reviews and other agency processes, AI has become a key player in drug discovery and development.
Annihilating PFAS with an AI-designed enzyme
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, a team of researchers engineered an enzyme to degrade toxic PFAS molecules — and they’re only in high school. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, a team of researchers engineered an enzyme to degrade toxic PFAS molecules — and they’re only in high school.
Curing rare childhood blindness with a special gene therapy
Via a unique regulatory route in the UK, scientists found that a gene therapy restored vision in young kids with a very rare and severe retinal dystrophy. Credit: iStock.com/OlyaKomarova Via a unique regulatory route in the UK, scientists found that a gene therapy restored vision in young kids with a very rare and severe retinal dystrophy.
New cancer fitness drugs aim to trigger tumor death
While oncogenes are notorious for causing cancer when mutated, they are not the only genes that keep cancer alive and spreading. Cancer fitness genes don’t cause cancer, but they help cancer cells avoid death through a variety of different mechanisms including by keeping oncogenes functioning, promoting certain signaling pathways, or sustaining an immunosuppressive environment around the tumor.
Targeting solid tumors two ways with one cancer vaccine
In their quest to proliferate and spread, cancer cells will do anything they can to avoid being killed. Most often they develop mechanisms to suppress attacks by their would-be killers — immune cells. One way researchers and clinicians fight back against this suppression is with cancer vaccines that help immune cells recognize and attack cancer cells. But recognizing tumor cells is just one half of the equation.
Making mass spectrometry more accessible with automation
Whether identifying metabolic dysfunction in a newborn baby or the levels of a drug in a person enrolled in a clinical trial, mass spectrometry can provide a window into how individual molecules pulsing through the body affect health. While mass spectrometry is a very sensitive analytical technique, it is a complex procedure to perform. The traditional mass spectrometry workflow often requires a series of manual and complicated steps to prepare samples before they even reach the mass spectrometer.
Hope for deadly brain cancers with a mitochondrial drug
Backed by patient data and an AI platform, the BPGbio team presented promising results for a mitochondrial-targeted therapy in glioblastoma at AACR 2025. Credit: iStock.com/Sci-Monde Backed by patient data and an AI platform, the BPGbio team presented promising results for a mitochondrial-targeted therapy in glioblastoma at AACR 2025.
Which clinical developments are cancer experts watching closely?
At the recent American Association for Cancer Research meeting (AACR 2025), we asked cancer researchers working in biotech, pharma, and academia which cancer clinical trials or developments they’re keeping track of. Which cancer clinical developments are you watching closely? Because we're interested in colorectal cancer, specifically microsatellite stable colorectal cancer, we're really curious to see what cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) inhibition will do.
How turmoil at the NIH is affecting cancer research
As more than 20,000 researchers, clinicians, patients, and students from all over the world descended on Chicago for the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR)’s 2025 Annual Meeting, the recent upheaval at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) never seemed far from people’s minds. Over the past few months, delays or outright cancellations of NIH grants and firing of NIH staff have halted critical research.
Letter to the Editor: Road Collapse Incident and Political Concerns in Downe Township
By Stephanie Demarco A 2024 vehicle accident involving the stepson of Downe Township Mayor Mike Rothman has ignited controversy, as residents question the use of taxpayer funds to settle the matter and demand more transparency from local officials. On June 21, 2024, Nicholas (Nico) Haines was driving along Maple Avenue in the Dividing Creek section of Downe Township when the roadway allegedly collapsed beneath his truck.
Editing precious patient cells in a single drop
Genetic screens can give researchers all sorts of insights into how a particular small molecule or drug candidate might act in a given disease. While these kinds of screens work well when scientists are working with a cell type that they can easily culture and expand, their task becomes much harder if they want to perform the same experiments in rare patient cells or cells that are more difficult to culture.
2025 Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences announced
Advances in GLP-1 research for diabetes and obesity, multiple sclerosis discoveries, and DNA editing are awarded in this year’s prestigious prize. Credit: Breakthrough Prize Advances in GLP-1 research for diabetes and obesity, multiple sclerosis discoveries, and DNA editing are awarded in this year’s prestigious prize.
Overcoming delivery hurdles, IL-12 tackles ovarian cancer
A targeted interleukin-12 gene therapy plus chemotherapy increased survival in advanced ovarian cancer, setting the stage for a new first-line drug. Credit: iStock.com/koto_feja A targeted interleukin-12 gene therapy plus chemotherapy increased survival in advanced ovarian cancer, setting the stage for a new first-line drug. | 7 min read Stephanie DeMarco, PhD Register for free to listen to this article Deep within the abdomen, on either side of the uterus, sit the ovaries.
Armoring up CAR T cells to fight solid tumors
Whether facing down a virus-infected cell or a cancerous one, T cells fight off threats to keep the body healthy. To make these T cells even more effective, particularly in treating blood cancers, scientists created chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that recognize these cancerous cells by the CD19 marker on their cell surface. So far, the FDA has approved seven different CAR T cell therapies for hematological cancers.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Stephanie
Contact Stephanie, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack