Curated News: Grant Funded News

• share
• favorite_border

The researchers will investigate how to design antibodies to deliver drugs to fight chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Université de Montréal and the research centres of the CHUM and CHU Sainte-Justine are banding together to conquer this rare orphan pediatric disease. They have recently proven what scientists had already suspected: the disease is autoimmune, which means that it attacks patients using their own immune system.

• share
• favorite_border

Beta blockers have become a prescription drug staple for recovering heart attack patients. However, these blood pressure-reducing medications cannot be tolerated by many patients who are at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, the elderly, and diabetics. As seen in the March 26 issue of Thyroid, researchers at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) now pose a new treatment for patients with beta blocker intolerance: thyroid hormone therapy.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a way to study the brain of a bat as it flies, recording for the first time what happens as a roving animal focuses and refocuses its attention.

• share
• favorite_border

Experts in pediatric kidney disease have published a new staging system to help doctors better predict the length of time until a child with chronic kidney disease will need to undergo a kidney transplant or start receiving dialysis. Although this type of prognostic guide exists for adults, this is the first such tool specific to children.

• share
• favorite_border

For the first time, a team of neuroscientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has demonstrated circadian control of aggression in male mice and identified the specific neurons and circuitry regulating the daily pattern.

• share
• favorite_border

Sanford Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) researchers recently discovered that that inactivation of a protein called p62 in fat cells fuels aggressive, metastatic prostate cancer in mice. The findings suggest that mTOR inhibitors currently used to treat a wide range of cancers may have the unintended consequence of shutting down fat tissue metabolism and fueling tumor growth.

• share
• favorite_border

Studying data from more than 125,000 individuals, an international team of researchers led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified genetic links between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia. The link between the seemingly unrelated disorders suggests that some drugs developed to treat ALS also may work against frontotemporal dementia and vice versa.

• share
• favorite_border

UCLA researchers have tweaked CRISPR technology, enabling them to monitor the outcome of tens of thousands of gene edits in the time it currently takes to analyze a few. The advance will improve scientists’ ability to identify the genetic changes most likely to harm cells and contribute to disease.

• share
• favorite_border

A new smartphone app allows Parkinson's disease patients and their doctors to better track the progression of symptoms, such as tremors and walking difficulties, that can vary dramatically over days, or even hours.

• share
• favorite_border

New research shines a light on specific cell types that drive normal or diseased kidney function at the molecular level.

• share
• favorite_border

One third of children who have autism spectrum disorder also have epilepsy. It’s related to a major autism risk gene, which is mutated in patients with autism. But scientists didn’t now why the mutation, catnap2, caused seizures.Now Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered the mutation acts like a bad gardener in the brain.

• share
• favorite_border

Lucia Leone and her team will expand their successful Veggie Van project by helping organizations across the Northeast and Southeast start mobile produce markets using the Veggie Van model.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and colleagues have discovered how two brain regions work together to maintain attention, and how discordance between the regions could lead to attention deficit disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression.

• share
• favorite_border

It’s hard enough for parents to have “the talk” about sexual health with their kids, but parents of LGBTQ children feel especially uncomfortable and unequipped when they try to educate them about sex and dating, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.The study examined parents’ attitudes toward talking about sexual health with their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer teens (LGBTQ).

• share
• favorite_border

A study from Indiana University has found differences in the brains of athletes who participate in contact sports compared to those who participate in noncontact sports.

• share
• favorite_border

A national working group led by an investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has developed a Consensus Statement intended to inform safe prescribing of opioids for hospitalized adults with acute pain.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have learned to combine up to eight different metals in a single tiny, uniformly mixed nanoparticle.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers are now able to use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to form a model of human adult-like cardiac muscle by introducing electric and mechanical stimulation at an early stage.

• share
• favorite_border

The findings could shed light on sickle cell diseases and other disorders where red blood cells are deformed.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at MGH identified genes associated with the body’s response to relaxation techniques and sheds light on the molecular mechanisms by which these interventions may work to lower blood pressure. The findings were published today in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

Belly fat affects the odds of women surviving kidney cancer but not men, according to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings suggest that kidney cancer may develop and progress differently in women than men.

• share
• favorite_border

Material left out of common processes for sequencing genetic material in cancer tumors may actually carry important information about why only some people respond to immunotherapy, possibly offering better insight than the type of material that is being sequenced, according to a study by Mount Sinai researchers published on April 3 in Cell Reports.

• share
• favorite_border

Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers have shown that mifepristone, a drug currently FDA-approved for chemical abortion, prevents the growth of vestibular schwannoma (also known as acoustic neuroma) cells. This sometimes-lethal intracranial tumor typically causes hearing loss and tinnitus. The findings, published online today in Scientific Reports, suggest that mifepristone is a promising drug candidate to be repositioned for the treatment of these tumors.

• share
• favorite_border

In the tiny brain space where two nerve cells meet, chemical and electric signals shuttle back and forth, a messaging system that ebbs and flows in those synaptic spaces, sometimes in ways that scientists believe aid and abet learning and memory. But because most of the proteins found in those synapses die and renew themselves so rapidly, scientists have had a hard time pinning down how synapses are stable enough to explain the kind of learning and memory that lasts a lifetime.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of computational biologists has developed an algorithm that can ‘align’ multiple sequencing datasets with single-cell resolution. The new method has implications for better understanding how different groups of cells change during disease progression, in response to drug treatment, or across evolution.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research has awarded a grant to researchers at New York University College of Dentistry to explore the biological mechanisms that contribute to poor oral health and related bone loss among people with diabetes.

• share
• favorite_border

One in 10 electronic dance music (EDM) party attendees have misused opioids in the past year, exceeding the national average, finds a study by the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU Meyers College of Nursing.

• share
• favorite_border

Very slow brain waves, long considered an artifact of brain scanning techniques, may be more important than anyone had realized. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that very slow waves are directly linked to state of consciousness and may be involved in coordinating activity across distant brain regions.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have previously shown that when one animal watches another performing a motor task, such as reaching for food, mirror neurons in the motor cortex of the observer's brain start firing as though the observer were also reaching for food. New Duke research appearing March 29 in the journal Scientific Reports suggests mirroring in monkeys is also influenced by social factors, such as proximity to other animals, social hierarchy and competition for food.

• share
• favorite_border

Dining out more at restaurants, cafeterias and fast-food outlets may boost total levels of potentially health-harming chemicals called phthalates in the body, according to a study out today.

• share
• favorite_border

In response to repeated calls for an integrated emergency care system in the U.S., the University of Pittsburgh rose to the challenge and divided the nation into hundreds of referral regions that describe how patients access advanced care, in a way that respects geopolitical borders.

• share
• favorite_border

Doctors recommend against taking antibiotics for viral infections because they don't work – antibiotics don't kill viruses – and do promote antibiotic resistance. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests another reason to avoid the pills: Taking antibiotics increases susceptibility to subsequent viral infection, at least in mice.

• share
• favorite_border

Actuarial math and computer science come together in a new study that aims to convince policymakers to invest in infrastructure cybersecurity.

• share
• favorite_border

Head and neck cancers (squamous cell carcinomas or HNSCC) represent more than half-a-million cases and 300,000 deaths a year, making them the sixth-leading cancer worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. A Case Western Reserve University-led research team will analyze computerized images of tissue samples for patterns which could become "biomarkers," or predictors, for determining relative risk for recurrence in one particularly common type of head and neck cancers.

• share
• favorite_border

A systematic study of seven antioxidants commonly taken by or suggested to benefit children and adults affected with mitochondrial disease provides intriguing clues that at least two compounds should be further evaluated in clinical trials. There are currently no proven, effective treatments for mitochondrial disease.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and MimiVax LLC, published in Clinical Cancer Research, shows that survivin — one of the most commonly occurring molecules in cancer cells — may be an attractive target for a broad range of immunotherapy approaches, including CAR T.

• share
• favorite_border

Plaques of a brain protein called amyloid beta are a characteristic sign of Alzheimer's disease. But nestled within the plaques are small amounts of another Alzheimer’s protein: APOE. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have shown that an antibody not only targets APOE for removal but sweeps away plaques in mice. The findings could lead to a way to halt the brain damage triggered by amyloid plaques while the disease is still in its early stages, perhaps before symptoms appear.

• share
• favorite_border

A public health research team at Washington University in St. Louis has taken one of the most effective diabetes intervention programs and made it more accessible by partnering with an existing home-visit organization.

• share
• favorite_border

The most frequent and public opioid users may be the best available candidates for naloxone training, according to a new study from scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• share
• favorite_border

An international research team, led by Washington University in St. Louis, studied vocal expressions uttered by people in the United States, Australia, India, Kenya and Singapore, and found that people were better at judging emotions from fellow countrymen.In a separate study, researchers discovered that Aussies and Indians could read each other pretty well despite cultural barriers.

• share
• favorite_border

A Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researcher has compiled evidence from more than 100 publications to show how obesity increases risk of 13 different cancers in young adults. The meta-analysis describes how obesity has shifted certain cancers to younger age groups, and intensified cellular mechanisms promoting the diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Tufts University have created a genetically modified yeast that can more efficiently consume a novel nutrient, xylose, enabling the yeast to grow faster and to higher cell densities, raising the prospect of a significantly faster path toward the design of new synthetic organisms for industrial applications, according to a study published today in Nature Communications.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have developed a stretchable, flexible patch that could make it easier to perform ultrasound imaging on odd-shaped structures, such as engine parts, turbines, reactor pipe elbows and railroad tracks—objects that are difficult to examine using conventional ultrasound equipment. The ultrasound patch is a versatile and more convenient tool to inspect machine and building parts for defects and damage deep below the surface.

• share
• favorite_border

With the ability to leech heavy metals from the environment and digest a potent greenhouse gas, methanotrophic bacteria pull double duty when it comes to cleaning up the environment. But before researchers can explore potential conservation applications, they first must better understand the bacteria's basic physiological processes. Amy C. Rosenzweig's laboratory at Northwestern University has identified two never-before-studied proteins, called MbnB and MbnC, as partially responsible for the bacteria's inner workings.

• share
• favorite_border

“This study is a good example of a host/pathogen arms race playing out in real-time—this time with the host a likely winner."

• share
• favorite_border

A well-studied enzyme called SIRT1 declines in the blood vessels with age and restoring it reverses the effects of vascular aging in mice. After receiving a supplement called NMN, older mice showed increased capillary density, blood flow, mobility, and endurance

• share
• favorite_border

-Scientists identify mechanism behind vascular aging, muscle demise in mice. -Treatment with chemical compounds reversed vascular aging, stimulated blood vessel growth and blood flow, boosted exercise capacity in aging animals. -Findings set the stage for therapies in humans to stave off a range of conditions linked to vascular aging.

• share
• favorite_border

Cervical fluid samples gathered during routine Papanicolaou (Pap) tests are the basis of a new screening test for endometrial and ovarian cancers developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

• share
• favorite_border

Miniaturized sensors when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on sugars, alcohol and salt. Researchers note that future adaptations of these sensors could enable the detection and recording of a wide range of nutrients, chemicals and physiological states.