The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, preceded by decades of breakthroughs in genetics. It eventually gave us a sequence of the human genome. Yet, while the physical rules behind the genome’s organization remain an active area of research, many questions are still largely unanswered. Among these is the impact of an omnipresent force influencing life on Earth: gravity. A new study, which appears in the journal Science Advances, addresses some of these weighty questions by using an innovative technique: creating a zero-gravity, or microgravity, environment in order to reveal gravity’s impact on a human cell. 

A team of Vanderbilt Health investigators has identified several drugs with previously unrecognized potential as treatments for preterm labor, according to a paper recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.