JEANENE SWANSON

Writing, Journalism, Digital Content | Science and Health

Virgin Islands (U.S.)

JEANENE SWANSON

Writing, Journalism, Digital Content | Science and Health

Virgin Islands (U.S.)

Researcher with FSHD Awarded MDA Funding
Like many pre-medical students, Justin Cohen discovered along the way that what he really liked was research. However, unlike others who exchange the stethoscope for a microscope, Justin had a strikingly different motivating factor—he has been living with the disease he studies, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), for almost as long as he can remember.
MDA
Do You Know ALS? Diagnosing the Disease is an Odyssey.
While most visits to the doctor lead to a quick diagnosis, the same is not so for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). On average, getting an ALS diagnosis takes 12 months—a long time, considering that on average, ALS patients live for only two to five years after diagnosis. Some might call the process a diagnostic odyssey, in fact.
MDA
Microbes, mood, and mental health
Everyone has had a “gut feeling”—some liken it to “butterflies” in the stomach before a stressful event, while others deem it a type of intuition—and scientists are bringing this age-old phenomenon into the present-day lab in order to better understand how mental health disorders arise and how they might be treated better.
NNR (LabX Media Group)
Personalized Medicine Is Coming to Addiction Treatment
Most drugs have a significant rate of failure. In the pharmaceutical industry, it is widely understood that some 90% of all medicines work adequately in only 30% to 50% of patients. This results in staggering waste in the quality of care for individuals and and costs to the healthcare system. But for people with addiction, the problem is especially acute because there are so few effective drugs available. In addition, the drugs likely have subpar effectiveness, working in a smaller than average percentage of people and with only modest effects.
Pacific Standard
Ten Studies That Shook the Addiction World
Over the past decade, addiction has come out of the shadows and into popular culture as never before. This is a time when the very definition of addiction is hotly contested, and we appear to be a tipping point where the “spiritual” framing of addiction is fast yielding to the “scientific” one. Some of us wonder what has taken so long.
AlterNet
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Disorders
Statistics don’t lie: co-occurring mental disorders and addiction—also called dual diagnosis—go hand in hand. In fact, according to several long-standing epidemiological studies, 50% of general psychiatric patients also have a substance use disorder. That's a harrowing 8.9 million adults, with only 7.4% of individuals receiving treatment for both conditions, this according to The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The Huffington Post
How to Isolate and Treat Protracted Withdrawal Symptoms
No one said recovery would be easy. And for the majority of addicts and alcoholics, detox is just the beginning. While addiction specialists may know about post-acute withdrawal syndrome (protracted withdrawal syndrome), or PAWS, many addicts and much of the public do not. Understanding the lingering effects of substance abuse can go a long way toward educating addicts about relapse prevention and maybe most importantly, giving them hope that this, too, shall pass.
The Huffington Post
A Shot against Breast Cancer
A recently conducted study in mice may someday help doctors develop new treatments for breast cancer. The results, which were published in Science Translational Medicine earlier this month, suggest that it may be possible to stop some abnormal growths from going on to becoming potentially life-threatening tumors.
Scientific American

About

JEANENE SWANSON

I am a writer who specializes in science and health. Whether it's journalistic stories for both consumer and trade publications, or technical writing and digital content management for leading biotechnology companies like Agilent Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and GE Healthcare (now Cytiva), my experience is broad. Areas of recent focus include addiction, mental health disorders, and neuromuscular diseases.

I earned my bachelor's degree (BA) in biology from Northwestern University and a master's degree (MS) in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Lately, I’ve written marketing web page content for a redesign of the Bio-Rad chemistry quality controls website; blog posts and social media copy describing research using 10x Genomics single cell sequencing technologies; and patient-focused content around neuromuscular disease research and advocacy for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, including blog posts and medical education materials.

In another writing life, I wrote journalistic stories for a range of large and small clients, including Scientific American, The Fix magazine, and several rehab facilities, among others.

If you'd like to see more clips of my work, I'd love to hear from you.

Portfolio highlights/Corporate

Bio-Rad QCNet
10x Genomics
Muscular Dystrophy Association

Portfolio highlights/Science journalism
Scientific American
Scientific American eBooks
The Fix magazine
Elements Behavioral Health/Promises treatment centers, Addiction.com
Simply 180/Cornerstone Recovery Center
Substance.com
Rehabs.com
LabX Media Group/Technology Networks

Syndicated on:
AlterNet
Pacific Standard
Salon
The Huffington Post