Feature Channels: All Journal News

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The likelihood of a family member or friend stepping in to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a person suffering from a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) at home decreases with the victim’s age, suggests a new study from Penn Medicine that also found low CPR training rates among older Americans. The results were published this week in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

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Whole genome sequencing (WGS), which is the process of determining an organism’s complete DNA sequence, can be used to identify DNA anomalies that cause disease. Identifying disease-causing DNA abnormalities allows clinicians to better predict an effective course of treatment for the patient. Now, in a series of recent studies, scientists at the University of Missouri are using whole genome sequencing through the 99 Lives Cat Genome Sequencing Consortium to identify genetic variants that cause rare diseases, such as progressive retinal atrophy and Niemann-Pick type 1, a fatal disorder in domestic cats. Findings from the study could help feline preservationists implement breeding strategies in captivity for rare and endangered species such as the African black-footed cat.

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A diagnostic MRI followed by one of three MRI-guided biopsy strategies is a cost-effective method to detect prostate cancer, according to a new study out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

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Physical pain—often "self-medicated" without help from healthcare professionals—is an important contributor to non-medical prescription opioid (NMPO) use by young adults, suggests a study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

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One in three patients hospitalized for medical problems experienced a drop in their red blood cell count due to the hospitalization – a concept called hospital-acquired anemia, new research showed.

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Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical that is used in a variety of consumer products, such as food storage containers, water bottles and certain resins. In previous studies, Cheryl Rosenfeld, an investigator in the Bond Life Sciences Center, along with other researchers at the University of Missouri, Westminster College and the Saint Louis Zoo, determined that BPA can disrupt sexual function and behavior in painted turtles. Now, the team has identified the genetic pathways that are altered as a result of BPA exposure during early development.

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Analysis of a Greenland ice core shows that during large climate swings, chemically reactive oxidants shift in a different direction than expected. The results mean rethinking what controls these molecules in our air.

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New biomarkers identified by a research team in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania could help predict which Parkinson’s disease patients will suffer significant cognitive deficits within the first three years of their diagnosis. The results of the analysis from the international Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) are published this week in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

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A new technology generates cellular images detailed enough to distinguish cancerous from normal tissue. Researchers are working on speeding up the technology so it can be used during surgery, allowing surgeons to know if they have removed all the cancer while they still have time to take out more.

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Biomarkers in the teeth of wild orangutans indicate nursing patterns related to food fluctuations in their habitats, which can help guide understanding of breast-feeding evolution in humans, according to a study published today in Science Advances.

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Children of migrants to Chinese cities have lower rates of obesity than youngsters in more affluent established urban families - probably because their grandparents are not around to over-feed them, a new study has found.

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A Cedars-Sinai-led team of investigators has successfully repaired severe limb fractures in laboratory animals with an innovative technique that cues bone to regrow its own tissue. If found to be safe and effective in humans, the pioneering method of combining ultrasound, stem cell and gene therapies could eventually replace grafting as a way to mend severely broken bones.

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Researchers have identified a new drug target for the two most common types of myeloid leukemia, including a way to turn back the most aggressive form of the disease.

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At a glance: BioPlex network identifies protein interaction partners for more than 5,800 protein-coding genes, representing more than a quarter of the human genome. The network maps over 56,000 unique protein-to-protein interactions among nearly 11,000 proteins, significantly expanding coverage of the human interactome. 87 percent of identified interactions were previously undescribed. BioPlex serves as “social network,” providing functional insights into protein communities involving many areas of biology, from development to disease.

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Algal blooms deplete oxygen in lakes, produce toxins, and end up killing aquatic life in the lake. Researchers are tracing the role of bird feces, which are rich in phosphorus and nitrogen.

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Patients who received their first opioid prescription for an ankle sprain treated in U.S. emergency departments commonly received prescriptions for anywhere from 15 to 40 pills, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Those who received 30 or more pills compared to less than 15 pills were twice as likely to fill an additional opioid prescription within three to six months. The authors say the results point to the urgent need for policies and guidelines to address when opioid medications are indicated for minor injuries and to reduce the number of pills supplied for opioid prescriptions.

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In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Magdeburg University (Germany) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong report that for rats and mice, repetitive transorbital alternating current stimulation (rtACS) may help preserve visual neurons from cell death after injury.

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FDA approves brigatinib as a second-line therapy for ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer

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Sleep is important, but if there is something more important or interesting to do—for example, taking care of a baby, finishing a grant proposal before a deadline, or reading a fascinating book—we may stay up late. Sleep in fruit flies is a lot like human sleep, and like humans, flies can keep themselves awake if there is something important to do. In research published on May 16th in eLife, researchers report discovery of neurons that allow male fruit flies to suppress sleep so they can court female flies.

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A study at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) found that a novel device can significantly reduce contamination of blood cultures, potentially reducing risky overtreatment and unnecessary use of antibiotics for many patients. This approach could also substantially reduce healthcare costs, according to the study. Thousands of U.S. patients get their blood drawn every day for blood cultures in order to diagnose serious infections such as sepsis, which can be a deadly condition. A small but significant percentage of the blood cultures are contaminated, due in part to skin fragments containing bacteria that are dislodged during a blood draw. This leads to false results that can mislead clinicians into thinking a patient has a potentially serious bloodstream infection. The consequences are costly and put patients at risk.

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Newswise hosts a virtual live press briefing on upcoming journal study with research results concerning a new blood collection technique that reduces contamination of blood samples and improves treatment outcomes.

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Stop-and-go traffic is typically a source of frustration, an unneccesary hold-up on the path from point A to point B. But when it comes to the molecular machinery that copies our DNA into RNA, a stop right at the beginning of the path may actually be helpful. Recent research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research shows that this stop prevents another machine from immediately following the first, presumably to better control the traffic and avoid later collisions.

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New study shows that bystander CPR is associated with favorable neurological survival for drowning victims in cardiac arrest

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In a small and preliminary clinical trial, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators have shown that an experimental gene therapy that uses viruses to introduce a therapeutic gene into the eye is safe and that it may be effective in preserving the vision of people with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

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Scientists for the first time have assembled a "disease in a dish" model that pinpoints how a defect in the blood-brain barrier can produce an incurable psychomotor disorder, Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome. The findings point to a path for treating this syndrome and hold promise for analyzing other neurological diseases.

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Paper on immunotherapy for head and neck cancer reports favorable results.

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Increased investment in "pharmacovigilance surveillance"—systems to proactively monitor safety problems with new medications—has the potential to avoid harmful drug effects while lowering healthcare costs, according to a study in the June issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

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A Cornell College professor just wrapped up a three-year project to research the story behind one Iowa public school’s struggle to deal with diversity and cultural differences following the initiation of a controversial federal program.

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Workplace bullying victims get plenty of advice on how to respond to the situation and make it stop. While well intentioned, much of the advice is impractical or makes the situation worse. Despite the bad advice, most victims said they would tell others to do the same thing.

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By using induced pluripotent stem cells to create endothelial cells that line blood vessels in the brain for the first time for a neurodegenerative disease, University of California, Irvine neurobiologists and colleagues have learned why Huntington’s disease patients have defects in the blood-brain barrier that contribute to the symptoms of this fatal disorder.

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A new WCS study finds that leopards are abundant in tea-garden landscapes in north-eastern India, but that their mere presence does not lead to conflicts with people.

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Hundreds of thousands of children with chronic illnesses who used to die are now surviving their disease and treatment—which is amazing. But their brains are being damaged in the process of keeping them alive. This first ever research quantifies the IQ impact of six main illnesses and looks and the common threads that connect them. It also takes next steps on how psychologists can team up with surgeons/oncologists, etc. to help treat kids and their parents, so they can thrive in school and life.

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A University of Delaware professor teamed with a local high school student on research that found injured plants will send out warning signals to neighboring plants. The signals are sent through airborne chemicals released mainly from leaves, and plants that received them boosted their defenses.

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Beaumont Research Institute investigators are hopeful that their study involving small molecules in saliva will help identify those at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

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This electron microscope-based imaging technique could help scientists optimize the performance of ionic liquids for batteries and other energy storage devices.

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The team’s findings, published today in eLife, shed light on how immune cells might be harnessed to someday help stimulate tissue regeneration in humans.

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A team of investigators led by Rohit Kohli, MBBS, MS, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, has identified key inflammatory cells involved in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

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A University of Colorado Cancer Center clinical trial is now recruiting prostate cancer patients who would otherwise be on a watch-and-wait protocol to test the ability of grape seed extract to slow the rise of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a common marker of prostate cancer progression.

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Compound could serve as basis for drugs to prevent neurological complications of Zika

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Finding will aid global public health officials as they develop early warning systems for dengue, Zika and chikungunya and find ways to reduce the risk of exposure to disease-carrying mosquitoes.

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Sunscreen can be a valuable tool for skin cancer prevention — but only if it’s used correctly. When applying sunscreen, many people make mistakes that could compromise their protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays, which may increase their risk of skin cancer.

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A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles have used the cells of AHDS patients to recreate not only the disease, but a mimic of the patient’s blood-brain barrier in the laboratory dish using induced pluripotent stem cell technology.

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Penn Medicine’s Pennsylvania Hospital (PAH) and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) have received a three-year, $1.35 million grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health to design an innovative and replicable program for promoting and evaluating safe sleep practices for newborns. The Philadelphia Safe Sleep Awareness for Every Well Newborn (S.A.F.E.) Program will be rolled out to hospitals, ambulatory care settings, communities, and homes and addresses the population-specific problem through nurse, parent and community education, development and dissemination of practice and education resources, and a community partnership with the Maternity Care Coalition (MCC).

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Researchers at Mayo Clinic have identified a possible cause for a rare infection in heart and lung transplant recipients: the donor. The way in which heart and lung transplant recipients acquired a specific species of bacteria, Mycoplasma hominis, had been previously undefined, and the bacterium was difficult to test. Originally, this bacterium was considered to reside exclusively in, and be a potential pathogen of, the area of the reproductive and urinary organs – the genitourinary tract.

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Can playing video games make you a better writer?

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Most transistors are silicon-based and silicon technology has driven the computer revolution. In some applications, however, silicon has significant limitations. Silicon devices are prone to faltering and failing in difficult environments. Addressing these challenges, Jiangwei Liu, from Japan’s National Institute for Materials Sciences, and his colleagues describe new work developing diamond-based transistors this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing.

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A good reputation can be bad for business, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

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A research team in China have developed a new CESL method that introduces tensile stress into both the channel and the drift region, improving overall performance by offering low drift resistance, high cut-off frequency and desirable breakdown characteristics. Their work is described in an article appearing this week in the journal AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing.

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Researchers have developed a new tool for detecting early pancreatic cancer. The tool bounces light off targeted tissue to detect structural changes in the tissue, a method called light-scattering spectroscopy. The researchers performed a series of pilot studies using LSS and accurately distinguished benign cysts, cancerous cysts, and those with malignancy potential 95 percent of the time. The Harvard University team reported their results in the March 13, 2017, issue of Nature Biomedical Engineering.

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As thyroid cancer rates rise, more people are having surgery to remove all or part of their thyroid. A new study suggests complications from these procedures are more common than previously believed.