In a new study published in Cancer Letters, American University researchers show how, as body mass index increases, so does the growth and spread of the blood cancer multiple myeloma, which accounts for about 10 percent of all blood cancers in patients.
There are a couple strains of herpes so common that researchers estimate 90% of the human population have them. These strains, human herpes 6 and human herpes 7, usually do not cause severe symptoms when people acquire them. But researchers know that under certain circumstances, dormant herpes viruses in the body can unexpectedly come roaring back and cause complications not typically associated with herpes virus.
As human language and birdsong are both acquired through vocal practice, different patterns emerge among individuals. These distinctions play an important role in communication and identification. Until now, however, it was unclear how individual birds learned slightly different vocal patterns.
But some studies are showing that these reactive oxygen species (ROS) molecules sometimes can aid in maintaining health—findings now boosted by a surprising discovery from Joslin Diabetes Center researchers.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified the protein that norovirus – the most common cause of viral diarrhea – uses to invade cells. The discovery could lead to new ways to study the virus, which has been hard to study because it grows poorly in the lab.
New research from the laboratory of Zachary T. Schafer, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, could lead to new therapies to treat patients who suffer from metastatic disease.
Nobel laureate and University of Colorado Cancer Center investigator, Thomas Cech, PhD, uses CRISPR gene editing technology and live cell, single molecule microscopy to watch in real-time, for the first time, the essential interaction between telomerase and telomeres.
A biological anthropologist at the University of Arkansas and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Marquette University have received a $219,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study skull and jaw anatomy in 16 closely related primate species, including humans.
Neuroscientists have long known that brain cells communicate with each other through the release of tiny bubbles packed with neurotransmitters—a fleet of vessels docked along neuronal ends ready to launch when a trigger arrives. Now, a study conducted in mice by neurobiologists at Harvard Medical School reveals that dismantling the docking stations that house these signal-carrying vessels does not fully disrupt signal transmission between cells.
Kim O’Connor, a professor in Tulane University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a three-year $599,638 grant from the National Science Foundation to study ways to improve the survival of mesenchymal stem cells once they are implanted in patients.
Yong was selected for his excellence in science writing, which includes his popular blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, his work with national publications such as The Atlantic and National Geographic, and his first book, I Contain Multitudes, which focuses on microbiology.
Scientists have discovered a new way to attack Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. The team, from Imperial College London, have revealed how the bacteria regulates its salt levels.
There is new hope in the fight against Huntington's disease. Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes discovered that changing a specific part of the huntingtin protein prevented the loss of critical brain cells and protected against behavioral symptoms in a mouse model of the disease.
Researchers in North Dakota State University’s College of Health Professions have received a $435,000 three-year grant award for colon cancer research that focuses on creating more effective therapies to combat colon cancer and lessen chemotherapy side effects.
A large international study of metformin, the world’s most commonly used type 2 diabetes drug, reveals genetic differences among patients that may explain why some respond much better to the drug than others.
Given the choice, many dogs prefer praise from their owners over food, suggests a new study published in the journal Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. The study is one of the first to combine brain-imaging data with behavioral experiments to explore canine reward preferences.
A UCLA study is the first to show that Latinos age at a slower rate than other ethnic groups. The findings may one day help scientists understand how to slow the aging process for everyone.
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) bend and twist easily in solution, making them adaptable for biological uses like DNA analysis, drug delivery and biomimetic applications, according to scientists at Rice University.
In the late 1800s, William B. Coley created a concoction out of bacteria and injected it into cancer patients. The first patient treated with what became known as “Coley’s Toxins” — a 21-year-old man with an inoperable tumor — was cured of his cancer. Though that might not have been the very first foray into immunotherapy as cancer treatment, it certainly was one of the earliest. Coley spent decades studying how bacterial infections affected cancers, earning him the moniker of the “father of immunotherapy.” Since then, the field has come a long way.
Seven milliliters of a king cobra’s venom can kill 20 people. But what exactly is in the snake’s venom? Researchers have pursued that question for decades.
One of the many insults of adolescence is pimple-speckled skin. Sebum, an oily skin secretion, plays a major role in causing zits. But “the knowledge of what exactly in sebum is responsible for the occurrence of acne is rather limited,” says Emanuela Camera at the San Gallicano Dermatologic Institute in Italy.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have created a ribozyme that can basically serve both to amplify genetic information and generate functional molecules, a big step toward the laboratory re-creation of the “RNA world,” generally believed to have preceded modern life forms based on DNA and proteins.
Scientists have found a variation of the miR-182 gene in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma that results in this overexpression, said Dr. Yutao Liu, vision scientist and human geneticist in the Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
Deborah Deas, M.D., M.P.H, Dean and CEO for Clinical Affairs at the University of California, Riverside, has been appointed to the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state’s stem cell agency.
An international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of the tobacco hornworm--a caterpillar species used in many research laboratories for studies of insect biology.
It isn’t often that a graduate student makes a spectacular technical leap in his field, or invents a process that can have a significant impact on a real-world problem. Di Liu did both.
Using technology they developed, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a previously unknown role of a certain class of proteins: as regulators of gene activity and RNA processing.
Scientists in Germany have developed a new approach that may prevent leukemia and lymphoma patients from developing graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) after therapeutic bone marrow transplants. The researchers describe the successful application of their strategy in mice in “Exogenous TNFR2 activation protects from acute GvHD via host T reg cell expansion,” which will be published online August 15 ahead of issue in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Harvard Medical School scientists have identified a new family of proteins that virtually all bacteria use to build and maintain their cell walls. The discovery of a second set of cell wall synthesizers can help pave the way for much-needed therapies that target the cell wall as a way to kill harmful bacteria, said study leaders David Rudner and Thomas Bernhardt.
Gingivitis, a common and mild form of gum disease can progress to periodontitis, a more serious infection that damages the soft tissue of the gums and sometimes even destroys the bone supporting the teeth. An international team of researchers and clinicians has charted the microbial ecology of the mouth at all stages of this progression, in nearly 1,000 women in Malawi. This work is laying a foundation of knowledge that could lead to better oral health. The research is published August 12 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
Cell division is a fundamental process of life, producing two cells from one single cell at each cell division. During animal development, a fertilized egg divides many times, increasing the number of cells, which are precisely organized within the animal's body. How many times a cell undergoes cell division and how the two daughter cells are positioned after the division can be critical for shaping the animal. Although the machinery essential for cell division is well characterized and evolutionarily conserved, it remains unknown in most animals how a cell division can become oriented relative to the animal's body axis. The work by Negishi et al., published recently in the electronic journal eLife, has revealed that in the sea squirt (Ciona intestinalis) embryo, the orientation of the cell division machinery in epithelial cells is controlled by a unique cell membrane structure, which we call an "invagination".
Amateur and professional entomologists are experts at their own version of Pokémon Go. After all, part of their job is to search for and collect rare insect species that are stored in the archives of natural history museums.
Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a potential antifungal mechanism that could enable combination therapy with fluconazole, one of today’s most commonly prescribed fungal infection treatments. Severe, invasive fungal infections have a mortality rate of 30-50% and cause an estimated 1.5 million deaths worldwide annually.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute have identified a key molecule that directs stem cells in the planarian flatworm to make copies of themselves.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic have reported a causal link between senescent cells — cells that accumulate with age and contribute to frailty and disease — and osteoarthritis in mice.
Study maps out abnormal signaling pathways in prostate cancer cells and provides computational approaches to identify individualized targets for therapy
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified a new disease gene that, when mutated, appears to increase the risk in a small number of people of developing emphysema and a lung-scarring condition known as pulmonary fibrosis.
In a study spanning molecular genetics, stem cells and the sciences of both brain and behavior, researchers at University of California San Diego, with colleagues at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and elsewhere, have created a neurodevelopmental model of a rare genetic disorder that may provide new insights into the underlying neurobiology of the human social brain.
Many cancers only become a mortal danger if they form metastases elsewhere in the body. Such secondary tumours are formed when individual cells break away from the main tumour and travel through the bloodstream to distant areas of the body. To do so, they have to pass through the walls of small blood vessels. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim and Goethe University Frankfurt have now shown that tumour cells kill specific cells in the vascular wall. This enables them to leave the vessels and establish metastases, a process facilitated by a molecule called DR6.
A research team, led by Emeritus Professor Kazuhiro Nakaya of Japan's Hokkaido University, analyzed world-first footage captured by public broadcaster NHK in which two goblin sharks separately captured prey on a total of five occasions. The research has unraveled a century-old mystery surrounding how the deep-sea shark utilizes its protruding jaws, among other factors, to feed itself.
University of Helsinki researchers have previously demonstrated that a point mutation in a gene of serotonin 2B receptor can render the carrier prone to impulsive behaviour, particularly when drunk. Now the research group has established that the same mutation may shield its bearers from obesity and insulin resistance, both of which are associated with type 2 diabetes.
Michigan Technological University scientists have developed a process that could lead to stickier—and better—gene therapy drugs. The drugs, called antisense DNA, are made from short, single strands of synthetic DNA.
Most molecular biologists look at how to switch on and regulate single genes. Scientists at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre (CSC) have gone further, and have explored how to reawaken an entire set of inactive genes, a chromosome, that is present in every female human cell.
Schizophrenic psychoses are a frequently occurring group of psychiatric disorders caused by a combination of biological, social and environmental factors. These disorders are associated with changes to the brain structure: for example, the hippocampus in the temporal lobe is usually smaller in affected individuals than in healthy ones. It is not yet known whether these changes to the brain structure are a result of the disorders and their accompanying medications, or whether they are already present before the onset of symptoms.
A new study in mice suggests that in a tumor’s pre-clinical stages, long before a human tumor would be clinically recognizable, certain immune cells can recognize changes that make these cells behave as cancerous cells and attempt to launch an immune attack. However, the T cells that are recognizing these “driver” mutations in the tumor are rapidly turned off and then permanently silenced, making the cells non-functional and thereby protecting the tumor from an immune attack. If researchers can find a way to reverse that silencing, the tumor-recognizing T cells could be rescued and could potentially improve the performance of certain immunotherapies, including that of so-called checkpoint inhibitor drugs that release some of cancer’s brakes on the immune system.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the U.S. With one in every four deaths occurring each year, the five-year survival rate after a heart attack is worse than most cancers. A big part of the problem is the inability of the human heart to effectively repair itself after injury. A team of University of Houston researchers is trying to change that.
About 7 percent of all Danish children are born prematurely. This is of significant im-portance not only to the child's development, but it also affects the mother's body that - unexpectedly - has to produce the necessary nutrition for the newborn baby.
Maintaining proper levels of an essential helper molecule is crucial for optimal muscle function. Some athletes are already taking supplements to increase synthesis of this compound, called NAD, with the hopes of reversing the natural decay associated with aging of the mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses. However, this is the first study to directly investigate the consequences of NAD deficiency on muscle function.
Patients with sickle cell anemia (SCA) develop heart complications and nearly a quarter die a sudden death. Now, researchers have linked malfunctioning molecular pathways to specific heart anomalies in SCA that result from progressive fibrosis and result in sudden death. A study published online this week by PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) reports the findings open a path to earlier non-invasive diagnosis and development of new targeted therapies to help SCA patients live longer with better quality of life.
In today's turtles the shell has a key protective function. The animals can withdraw into it and protect themselves against predators. No other group of vertebrates has modified its physique to such an extent to develop an impenetrable protective structure.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right