A layer of iron and other elements deep underground is the evidence scientists have long been seeking to support the hypothesis that the moon was formed by a planetary object hitting the infant Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, a new study argues.
Researchers have built a three-dimensional map of the anthrax toxin that may explain how it efficiently transfers its lethal components into the cytoplasm of infected cells. The study, “Structure of anthrax lethal toxin prepore complex suggests a pathway for efficient cell entry,” which will be published online September 26 ahead of print in The Journal of General Physiology, suggests that the bacterial protein acts as a “conveyer belt” that allows toxic enzymes to continuously stream across cell membranes.
Mice placed on a low-calorie diet are less likely to develop abdominal aortic aneurysms, according to a new study in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. The paper, “Calorie restriction protects against experimental abdominal aortic aneurysms in mice,” which will be published online September 26 ahead of issue, suggests new ways to prevent the often fatal condition from occurring in humans.
Researchers have identified a way to prevent chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs). Vaccinating mice against a key protein that bacteria use to latch onto the bladder and cause UTIs reduces severe disease, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Wayne State University recently received notice of a nearly $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation that aims to address the many health challenges faced in urban communities due to the increasing complexity of urban life, declining urban services, and growing health and economic disparities. The team science project will focus on childhood obesity disparities, one example of the negative consequences of such challenges.
Researchers have recently shown that magnetic bacteria are a promising vehicle for more efficiently delivering tumor-fighting drugs.
Everyone knows that tobacco products are bad for your health. However, according to research at Texas A&M, it turns out the nicotine itself—when given independently from tobacco—could help protect the brain as it ages, and even ward off Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.
A Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine-led team of international researchers has for the first time identified a fungus as a key factor in the development of Crohn’s disease.
New research out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine suggests the 3-D structure DNA forms as it crams into cells may provide an additional layer of gene control.
The industrial catalysts of the future won’t just speed up reactions, they’ll control how chemical processes work and determine how much of a particular product is made.
Inherited methylation—a form of epigenetic regulation passed down from parents to offspring—is far more dynamic than previously thought and may contribute to changes in the brain and other tissues over time. This finding by Whitehead Institute scientists challenges current understandings of gene regulation via methylation, from development through adulthood.
Research from the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) identifies a promising new target for future drugs to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The study, published today in Cell Reports, also indicates that another protein, protein kinase C (PKC) λ/ι, may serve as a biomarker of IBD severity.
A new explanation for some of the symptoms of fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability, has been proposed by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Their explanation suggests new targets for treatment.
An international team of researchers who discovered a new gene disorder that causes severe childhood epilepsy leveraged that finding to reduce seizures in two children. The collaborators’ case report reflects the potential of precision medicine--applying basic science knowledge to individualize treatment to a patient’s unique genetic profile
A $1.9 million grant to Indiana University from the National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute will advance basic research on the eye with applications to blindness caused by genetic disorders and aging.
Discovery of a novel, advanced technique to identify the rare cells where human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) hides in patients taking antiretroviral therapy (ART). This is an important step forward in the search for a HIV/AIDS cure.
Physicians from Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Wayne State University, UC Davis Medical Center and Nationwide Children's Hospital, in collaboration with 19 other pediatric emergency departments around the country, have established a “proof of principle” for measuring patterns of ribonucleic acid (RNA) expression in the bloodstream that can enable clinicians to distinguish bacterial infections from other causes of fever in infants up to two months old.
Cognitive function improves with aerobic exercise, but not for people exposed to high levels of mercury before birth, according to research funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Adults with high prenatal exposure to methylmercury, which mainly comes from maternal consumption of fish with high mercury levels, did not experience the faster cognitive processing and better short term memory benefits of exercise that were seen in those with low prenatal methylmercury exposures.
Using newly updated mouse models, USC researchers demonstrated the impactful preventive properties of 9-cis retinoic acid against lymphedema. Currently, there is no cure for lymphedema, a swelling of the extremities that most commonly occurs after treatment for cancer.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have brought physics and biology together to further understand how cells’ crowded surfaces induce complex protein behavior.
Materials scientists have developed a new strategy for crafting one-dimensional nanorods from a wide range of precursor materials. Based on a cellulose backbone, the system relies on the growth of block copolymer “arms” that help create a compartment to serve as a nanometer-scale chemical reactor.
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $679,413 to start-up company WattGlass to help commercialize the University of Arkansas’ patent-pending coating technology that makes glass anti-reflective, self-cleaning and highly transparent.
In 2014, scientists made a huge news splash when they reported the ability to grow bacteria with an expanded genetic code. Critics feared the rise of unnatural creatures; others appreciated the therapeutic potential of the development. Now researchers have found that the expanded code might have an unforeseen limitation. A study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society reports that these novel components can damage cells when they are exposed to light.
Wayne State University recently received notice of a nearly $1.2 million award from the National Science Foundation that aims to impact minority students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) related careers.
A small device implanted under the skin can improve breast cancer survival by catching cancer cells, slowing the development of metastatic tumors in other organs and allowing time to intervene with surgery or other therapies.
Wayne State University has received a $3.6 million grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health for a project that will advance knowledge of brain aging, its relation to cognitive performance and the role of common vascular and metabolic risk factors in shaping the trajectories of aging. The funded project extends the longitudinal study of healthy volunteers from the metro Detroit area.
David Warburton, MD, of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) has been awarded more than $2.3 million from the Department of Defense for the development of an innovative endoscopic device for performing noninvasive, quantitative analysis of lung epithelial cell metabolism during lung injury.
Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear have, for the first time, identified rapidly proliferating cells (known as “neural crest-derived progenitor cells”) in the corneal endothelium of specimens from normal corneas and from corneas with Fuchs’ Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD), a condition in which the cells responsible for keeping the cornea clear die prematurely — often leading to blindness. The findings, published in the American Journal of Pathology, hold promise for new therapies to be developed using the proliferating cells to return normal clearing abilities to the cornea in patients with FECD.
Working with animals, a team of scientists reports it has delivered stem cells to the brain with unprecedented precision by threading a catheter through an artery and infusing the cells under real-time MRI guidance.
A new scientific study reveals one way to stop proteins from triggering an energy failure inside nerve cells during Huntington’s disease.
Using high-tech human heart models and mouse experiments, scientists at Johns Hopkins and Germany’s University of Bonn have shown that beams of light could replace electric shocks in patients reeling from a deadly heart rhythm disorder.
Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear have, for the first time, linked symptoms of difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments with evidence of cochlear synaptopathy, a condition known as “hidden hearing loss,” in college-age human subjects with normal hearing sensitivity.
Several large international groups of researchers report data that more than doubles the number of sites in the human genome tied to blood pressure regulation. One of the studies, by Johns Hopkins University scientists in collaboration with many other groups, turned up unexpected hints that biochemical signals controlling blood pressure may spring from within cells that line blood vessels themselves.
The leading theory for the moon's formation got in trouble recently when it was revealed that the moon and Earth are isotopic twins. Now highly precise measurements of the isotopes of an element that was still condensed at the "cut off" temperature when material started to fall back to Earth suggest a dramatic solution to the problem.
Tumors also differ among patients with the same type of cancer, so how is a physician able to prescribe a tailored regimen for the patient? Researchers developed Canopy, an approach to infer the evolutionary track of tumor cells by surveying two types of mutations – somatic copy number alterations and single-nucleotide alterations – derived from multiple samples taken from a single patient.
For patients with advanced lung cancer, a non-invasive liquid biopsy may be a more effective and suitable alternative to the gold standard tissue biopsy to detect clinically relevant mutations and help guide their course of treatment.
In research published in Science, a team of scientists describe a new therapeutic strategy to target a hidden Achilles’ heel shared by all known types of Ebola virus. Two antibodies developed with this strategy blocked the invasion of human cells by all five ebolaviruses. The team included scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Integrated Biotherapeutics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and The Scripps Research Institute.
Is life better or worse after sticking your Fitbit in a drawer? University of Washington engineers surveyed hundreds of people who had abandoned self-tracking tools and found emotions ranged from guilt to indifference to relief that the tracking experience was over.
Why do we – and the fruit flies that sometimes inhabit our kitchens – seek out protein-full foods when we’re running on empty? And what does that preference mean for the odds of living a longer life, whether it’s measured in decades for a human, or days for a fly? New research suggests that a brain chemical may have a lot to do with both questions.
Hospitals that take care of the oldest, sickest and most complicated patients could suffer financially under the Medicare system’s new approach to paying for some types of care, a new study finds. But there’s still time to adjust the approach to make the playing field more level.
Researchers at Duke Health have identified a new mechanism of aspirin’s action that appears to explain the drug’s diverse benefits.
A Saint Louis University researcher has received a grant to study the effects of treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on cardiovascular and metabolic health. Jeffrey Scherrer, Ph.D., associate professor in Family and Community Medicine, received $2,348,320 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
They are the tiny motors present in many of the human body’s most complex systems. Cilia are hair-like structures that oscillate in waves, and are present in the brain, kidneys, lungs and reproductive system. They move liquids such as cerebrospinal fluid and mucus past the cell surface, and throughout the body. Flagella are whip-like structures that steer cells along.
More than 20 years ago, a billboard in China piqued the interest of a chemical biologist. It endorsed an extract from the plant known as the “thunder god vine” as an immunosuppressant. A brief review of published research revealed that the extract’s key ingredient — the small molecule triptolide — had been identified 20 years before that billboard ad, and it could stop cells from multiplying.
A factor found in umbilical cord blood could become the basis for developing new drugs to fight harmful inflammation, University of Utah School of Medicine researchers report. When given to mice, the newly discovered factor countered signs of inflammation and sepsis, such as fever, fluctuations in respiratory rate, and death. The factor circulates in the blood of newborns for about two weeks after birth and is not found in older babies or adults, according to the study published online Sept. 6, 2016, in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Johns Hopkins researchers report evidence from mouse studies that a “repurposed” drug that would be expected to improve the immune system response of tuberculosis patients may be increasing resistance to the antibiotic drugs these patients must also take.
Zika virus is able to infect the eye, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study, in mice, helps explain why some people with Zika virus develop eye disease, and suggests that contact with infected eyes may play a role in spreading the disease.
Researchers at the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have analyzed current gene-disease findings to understand why people with neurodevelopmental and mental illness often have physical disorders.
A new study of science PhDs who embarked on careers between 2004 and 2014 showed that while nearly two-thirds chose employment outside academic science, their reasons for doing so had little to do with the advice they received from faculty advisors, other scientific mentors, family, or even graduate school peers.
Whitehead Institute researchers have conducted the first genome-wide screen in Apicomplexa, a phylum of single-celled parasites that cause diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis. The screen sheds light into the vast, unstudied reaches of parasite genomes, uncovering for instance a protein common to all apicomplexans.
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