Scientists at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a method that exploits the multitargeted nature of a chemical inhibitor to pinpoint vulnerabilities within cancer cells.
These strange bacteria conduct electricity through a structure never before seen in nature -- a structure scientists can co-opt to miniaturize electronics, create powerful-yet-tiny batteries, build pacemakers without wires and develop a host of other medical advances.
Insulin triggers genome-wide changes in gene expression via an unexpected mechanism. The insulin receptor is transported from the cell surface to the cell nucleus, where it helps initiate the expression of thousands of genes. Targeted genes are involved in insulin-related functions and disease but surprisingly not carbohydrate metabolism. Findings outline a set of potential therapeutic targets for insulin-related diseases and establish a wide range of future avenues for the study of insulin signaling.
A study of pregnant women with systemic lupus erythematosus has identified early changes in the RNA molecules present in the blood that could be used to determine the likelihood of them developing preeclampsia. The study, which will be published April 8 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, may also help researchers develop treatments to prevent other pregnancy complications associated with lupus, including miscarriage and premature birth.
The Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) was awarded $17.5 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to fund the IGS Genome Center for Infectious Diseases (GCID) for another five years.
In the years following bariatric surgery, a person’s overall eating behaviors and the amount of time spent watching television, playing video games and using a computer are a better indication of long-term weight loss success than specific weight control practices like counting calories.
Scientists have developed a novel fabrication method to create dyed threads that change color when they detect a variety of gases. Woven into clothing, smart, gas-detecting threads could provide a reusable, washable, and affordable safety asset in medical, workplace, military and rescue environments. The study describes the fabrication method and its ability to extend to a wide range of dyes and detection of complex gas mixtures.
More than 125 million people worldwide wear contact lenses, and while many are exposed to relatively common bacteria through their contact lenses, not all contract an eye infection. Researchers at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and University Hospitals (UH) Cleveland Medical Center will study whether a contact-wearer’s genetics may play a role in who does or doesn’t contract infection—especially Microbial keratitis (MK), a bacteria-caused infection of the cornea, which, if left untreated, can cause blindness.
Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation have revealed an open-access, web-based portal that integrates more than 40 advanced bioinformatics data sources to allow non-technical users to generate insights in one click. Called Metascape, this tool removes data analysis barriers—allowing researchers to spend more time on important biological questions and less time building and troubleshooting a data analysis workflow. The platform was described today in Nature Communications.
In a first on the quest to cure HIV, University of Pittsburgh scientists report that they’ve developed an all-in-one immunotherapy approach that not only kicks HIV out of hiding in the immune system, but also kills it. The key lies in immune cells designed to recognize an entirely different virus.
Biomedical engineers have developed a smartphone app for anemia screening that can assess blood hemoglobin levels through the window of the user’s fingernail. The medical results are based on the coloration of the fingernail bed; the quick and pain-free screening could benefit a vast number of people who are affected by anemia around the world.
At USC, researchers have published a new study that tackles a long-standing problem for autonomous vehicle developers: testing the system’s perception algorithms, which allow the car to “understand” what it “sees.”
Cancer immunotherapy shows surprising successes but also dramatic failures. An emerging activity sensor at Georgia Tech warns clinicians of immunotherapy failures so that they can adjust treatments on time. The sensor is injected intravenously and is read in a urine test.
A large genomic study of nearly 275,000 people led by Penn Medicine researchers revealed new insights into genetic drivers of heavy drinking and alcohol use disorder (AUD), the uncontrollable pattern of alcohol use commonly referred to as alcoholism. In the largest-ever genome-wide association study (GWAS) of both traits in the same population, a team of researchers found 18 genetic variants of significance associated with either heavy alcohol consumption, AUD, or both.
Alzheimer's disease wreaks emotional havoc on patients, who are robbed of their memories, their dignity, and their lives. To date, there have been very few successes in the pursuit of a treatment. But one drug that looks at AD from a different angle is now ready for its first round of testing in humans.
A study from Sanford Burnham Prebys has demonstrated a causal link between the gut microbiome and the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. The researchers identified a cocktail of 11 bacterial strains that activated the immune system and slowed the growth of melanoma in mice. The study also points to the role of unfolded protein response (UPR), a cellular signaling pathway that maintains protein health (homeostasis). Reduced UPR was seen in melanoma patients who are responsive to immune checkpoint therapy, revealing potential markers for patient stratification. The study was published in Nature Communications.
Leveraging the power of the Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego, campus researchers have demonstrated they can efficiently analyze more than 1,000 EEG 128-channel high-density data sets via the new Open EEGLAB Portal running on SDSC’s Neuroscience Gateway (NSG).
In a study that will be published April 1 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, researchers from the Institut Pasteur and INSERM reveal that chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells can induce tumor regression by directly targeting and killing cancer cells, uncovering new details of how these immune cells work and how their effectiveness could be improved in the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other B cell cancers.
An inhibitor drug that targets a specific mutation in relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) helps patients live almost twice as long as those who receive chemotherapy.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine have found the most efficient length for cilia, the tiny hair-like structures designed to sweep out the body's fluids, cells and microbes to stay healthy.
A medicine currently being tested as a chemoprevention agent for multiple types of cancer has more than one trick in its bag when it comes to preventing stomach cancer, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.
As many as a billion people could be newly exposed to disease-carrying mosquitoes by the end of the century because of global warming, says a new study that examines temperature changes on a monthly basis across the world.
For the first time, a person living with HIV has donated a kidney to a transplant recipient also living with HIV. A multidisciplinary team from Johns Hopkins Medicine completed the living donor HIV-to-HIV kidney transplant on Mar. 25. The doctors say both the donor and the recipient are doing well.
Researchers have shown, in mice, that one type of stem cell that makes adult neurons is the source of this lifetime stock of new cells in the hippocampus. These findings may help neuroscientists figure out how to maintain youthful conditions for learning and memory, and repair and regenerate parts of the brain after injury and aging.
Researchers have developed a method to grow and maintain olfactory stem cells. The work is a launch pad for developing stem cell transplantation therapies or pharmacologic activation of a patient’s own dormant cells, to restore the sense of smell where it has been damaged by injury or degeneration.
A little goes a long way. Tiny blood vessels are essential for regenerative engineering and a team led by engineers from Michigan Tech has detailed innovative methods to ensure highly aligned, dense and mature microvasculature in engineered tissue that can be used for cardiac patches.
In a breakthrough study of sickle cell disease, biomedical engineers in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering have revealed that the building blocks of the disease are much less efficient at organizing than previously thought. The findings open the door to new treatments, including new medicines that could be prescribed at lower doses, for the approximately 20 million people worldwide who suffer from the lifelong disease.
Scientists from UC San Diego have confined a long-contemplated diatomic molecule by isolating a metal compound containing the elusive “BF.”
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are looking at bee "glue" as a potential bioinspired adhesive because of its unique adhesive properties and ability to remain sticky through a range of conditions.
Imagine wounds that heal without scars. It’s possible with electrospun nanofibers. A team from Michigan Tech streamlined the tissue scaffold production process, cutting out time spent removing toxic solvents and chemicals. Using a unique blend of polymers, they hope to speed up biomedical engineering prototyping using identical materials for a range of tests.
Using graphics processing chips designed for gaming applications and software that runs on ordinary web browsers, researchers are modeling deadly spiral wave heart arrhythmias on less costly computers, and even high-end smartphones. The move could advance treatment options.
Experimenting with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have successfully used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to calculate in real time how much of an immunotherapy drug reaches a tumor and what parts of a cancer remain unaffected.
Researchers in Spain have discovered that a hormone secreted by fat cells that is present at higher levels in women can stop liver cells from becoming cancerous. The study, which will be published April 3 in the ournal of Experimental Medicine, helps explain why hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is more common in men, and could lead to new treatments for the disease, which is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide.
The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, along with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the Norton Thoracic Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Arizona, have received a $3.5 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the cause of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) the nation’s most common and severe form of fibrotic lung disease.
Working with mice, a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has developed a relatively inexpensive, portable mini microscope that could improve scientists’ ability to image the effects of cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions in the brains of living and active mice over time. The device, which measures less than 5 cubic centimeters, is docked onto animals’ heads and gathers real-time images from the active brains of mice moving naturally around their environments.
Choroid plexus carcinoma (CPC) is a particularly challenging type of brain cancer. The tumor most commonly arises in infants under the age of one—who are too young to undergo radiation treatment. Only 40 percent of children remain alive five years after diagnosis, and those who do survive often suffer devastating long-term damage from the treatment. Progress in developing effective therapies has been hindered by the lack of models that could help researchers better understand the cancer. Now, scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys have developed a novel mouse model of CPC and have used it to identify multiple potential drug compounds with biological activity that may be therapeutically useful. The study was published in Cancer Research.
Researchers funded by NIBIB have designed neuron-like probes that can be implanted and remain viable for long-term use to study and treat the brain.
Nurses play critical roles in patient safety and are often the last line of defense against medical errors and unsafe practices. Considerable research has explored the relationship between the nurse work environment and a variety of patient and nurse quality and safety outcomes. But until now, no synthesis of this body of research has been made to clearly articulate the association between nurse work environments and health care quality, safety and patient and clinician well-being.
Probiotics – which are living bacteria taken to promote digestive health – evolve once inside the body and have the potential to become less effective and sometimes even harmful, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings suggest that developers of probiotic-based therapeutics must consider how the probiotics might change after administration.
Family planning for women might one day be as simple as putting on an earring. A report published recently in the Journal of Controlled Release describes a technique for administering contraceptive hormones through special backings on jewelry such as earrings, wristwatches, rings or necklaces.
A research team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has developed an innovative computational tool offering researchers an efficient method for detecting the different ways RNA is pieced together (spliced) when copied from DNA.
In the largest study of its kind, involving more than 100,000 people, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have applied a novel machine learning method to identify 413 genetic associations with schizophrenia across 13 brain regions.
The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), along with Profectus Biosciences, Inc., the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc., and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), have been awarded up to $24.5 million to advance treatments for the highly lethal henipaviruses, Nipah and Hendra.
Mitochondria manufacture energy in every cell of the body, including heart muscle cells. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that cardiac mitochondria are abnormal in the offspring of mouse mothers that become obese due to a high-fat, high sugar diet. Those offspring then pass on the mitochondrial defects at least two more generations.
Roughly a quarter of patients overdue for colorectal cancer screening mailed completed screening kits back within two months, whether or not they were given a financial incentive to do so.
In a surprising finding, researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center showed the protein NLRP6 aggravated the difficult symptoms of gastrointestinal graft-vs.-host disease. Knocking out this protein in mice led to significantly better survival and less severe GVHD.
In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind systematic look at pregnancy frequency and outcomes among imprisoned U.S. women, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine say almost 1,400 pregnant women were admitted to 22 U.S. state and all federal prisons in a recent year. They also found that most of the prison pregnancies — over 90 percent — ended in live births with no maternal deaths.
In a first, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Magee-Womens Research Institute have reported in a non-human primate model that immature testicular tissue can be cryopreserved, and later be used to restore fertility to the same animal.
Spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB), defined as birth before 37 weeks of gestation, and the related complications, are the largest contributors to infant death in the United States and worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have discovered that bacteria and innate immune factors in a woman’s birth canal and cervix may increase the risk of spontaneous preterm birth or provide protection against such births.
A new study, published this month in Lancet HIV by Penn Medicine researchers, shows that a naltrexone implant placed under the skin was more effective at helping HIV-positive patients with an opioid addiction reduce relapse and have better HIV-related outcomes compared to the oral drug.
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