Taking Measure Blog: Health

Health

Peter Beaucage wears safety glasses as he stands in the lab, holding a piece of equipment on display.

Robots and AI Are Working Together to Bring You Better Medicines, Shampoo and More

January 15, 2025

Products you use every day are carefully formulated in a lab. Experts at NIST are now working to revolutionize how those products are made.

A researcher wearing safety gear kneels at the open door of a lab fridge, displaying a tray of samples.

Sinking Our Teeth Into Science: How Biomedical Engineering Can Help Make Us Healthier

September 4, 2024

From safer dental products to tracking the movement of tiny plastics through gut tissues, regenerative medicine can make us healthier.

NIST researchers Elizabeth Strychalski and David Ross program the robotic arm that operates within the box-like structure of the NIST biofoundry.

The Promise of Synthetic Cells: Revolutionary New Drugs, Outer Space Explorers and Pushing Beyond the Limits of Evolution

July 31, 2024

Scientists are getting closer to creating a living cell from scratch. It could help treat diseases or even create life forms that can be better adapted to space

You Don’t Learn This in School: My Experience as a NIST Summer Intern

July 10, 2024

The most important thing I remember from being a NIST intern last summer is the power of persistence in research.

Your Future Medications Could Be Personalized for You on a 3D Printer

June 12, 2024

Your future medications could be made on a 3D printer, and a NIST researcher is working to make sure that process is safe.

NIST biomedical engineer Laurie Locascio places a water sample on a highly sensitive, inexpensive "lab-on-a-chip"

One of NIST’s Most Prolific Inventors Is Also Our Director — and She’s Still an Inventor at Heart

May 22, 2024

Before she was the director of NIST, Laurie E. Locascio invented materials that make us healthier.

George Caceres wears safety glasses and a lab coat as he looks at a plastic test tube he is holding.

Measuring Microplastics: To Solve the Problem, We Have to Understand and Measure It

April 17, 2024

My friends sometimes jokingly ask me, “How many microplastics do you think I consumed this week?” Unfortunately, the answer is not zero.

Melinda Kleczynski poses sitting at her desk, with a monitor showing data and graphs behind her.

From Diamonds in Your Computer to Safer Medications, NIST Researchers Look at What’s Next for 2024 and Beyond

January 3, 2024

Our up-and-coming researchers look ahead to 2024 and beyond — and tell us how their work will impact the world.

Jerilyn Izac sits at a lab bench with her hands inside a plastic shield, using a device to draw liquid from a plastic container into a tube.

How Measurement Science Can Help Protect Us From Viruses

November 29, 2023

Imagine if for the next dangerous virus, we could quickly and easily test everyone’s levels of defenses — known as antibodies.

Several metallic envelopes with NIST labels are displayed with Halloween decorations like cobwebs, skeletons and pumpkins.

There Will Be (Precisely Measured) Blood: A Haunted House Tour Through NIST’s Spookiest Reference Materials

October 27, 2023

This spooky season, join us for a haunted house tour of the scariest standard reference materials in our labs.

Taking Measure