Deborah Rudacille

Former News Editor
SFARI.org

Deborah Rudacille earned an M.A. in science writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1998. She worked as a research writer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and as senior science writer at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Rudacille is the author of three books: The Scalpel and the Butterfly (2000), The Riddle of Gender (2004) and Roots of Steel (2010). She joined SFARI.org’s team as news editor in 2010.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

The relationship between structure and function in cortical networks

Michael Reimann explains how the shape of neurons puts strong constraints on how they are wired in a network, and how this affects their structure-function relationships.

By Gaute Einevoll
28 October 2026 | 1 min read
Stock image of branching dendrites.

How brains prevent ‘catastrophic forgetting’

Dendrite-specific inhibition lets overlapping neuronal assemblies form across brain areas without erasing existing memories, a new modeling study suggests.

By Natalia Mesa
28 October 2026 | 6 min read
Research image of whole-brain 3D visualizations of pixels colored by their corresponding lipizone.

Lipids enter brain mapping limelight

Two new studies, including the first whole-brain lipid atlas in mice, uncover unforeseen complexity and influence during pregnancy and aging.

By Lauren Schenkman
27 October 2026 | 6 min read