Over the years, laboratories at Dartmouth, with support from undergraduates, have borne lab bench discoveries with immense clinical relevance.

The academic research environment at Dartmouth and elsewhere provides scientists with the intellectual liberty to pursue new ideas and the resources needed to define them.  Laboratory directors are not beholden to profit margins or the marketability of their work.  This is even more true at Dartmouth, where the immense contribution from undergraduates — most of whom certainly lack anything other than intellectual interest — drives much of the scientific discovery.

Dartmouth, unlike some of its peer institutions, maintains a tradition of collaboration and congeniality among its laboratories.  This practice ensures that the scientific progression is driven by the passionate search for truth and not personal gain, that the yearning for discovery outweighs monetary incentive.

That being said, Dartmouth and its researchers understand that the clinical application of scientific discoveries is limited if the private sector and corporate enterprise are not involved.  This fact is evidenced by three Dartmouth professors whose academic discoveries have transitioned into the clinical realm through a commercial conduit (Colby Chiang ’10, p. 19).  Dartmouth provides fertile ground for the basic science; industry provides a path to implementation.

The 21st century has already brought an explosion of new treatments and therapies, giving doctors and patients innovative options to treat some of the deadliest diseases. In this issue of the DUJS, Dylan Thomas ’09 explores the potential power of medically controlling angiogenesis to treat a wide array of diseases from Alzheimer’s to arthritis. Sunny Zhang ’10 discusses the importance of understanding acetylcholine receptors in the brain in the development new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders. In addition, Colby Chiang ’10 reviews the new cancer treatments spawned by a fresh paradigm linking stem cells to tumors.

Along with other news and review articles, we also continue to bring you the best in original research by Dartmouth undergraduate students. This issue features studies from the Biology Foreign Study Program in Costa Rica and the Caribbean, where Yiran Gu ’09 and Alanna Purdy ’09 investigate schooling patterns of surgeonfish, and Samantha Kaplan ’09, Lia Cheek ’09, Alex Spinoso ’08, Jenna Sullivan ’09, and Tiffany Chang ’09 follow the flight and feeding patterns of fish-eating bats. Plus, Laura Calvo ’11 and Amaris Galea-Orbe ’11 examine the deadly interplay between HIV and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

We hope you enjoy this issue of DUJS, and continue to stay tuned for weekly science news updates at DUJS Online.