Before the fluid of the middle ear drains and sound waves penetrate for the first time, the inner ear cells of newborn rodents practice for their big debut. Researchers have figured out the molecular chain of events that enables the cells to make “sounds” on their own, essentially “practicing” their ability to process sounds in the world around them.
Researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute have reported findings about a new synthetic form of camptothecin that appears to have greater potency, longer efficacy and fewer adverse side effects than irinotecan and topotecan.
Using a groundbreaking gene editing technique, University of California scientists have created a strain of mosquitoes capable of rapidly introducing malaria-blocking genes into a mosquito population through its progeny, ultimately eliminating the insects’ ability to transmit the disease to humans. This new model represents a notable advance in the effort to establish an antimalarial mosquito population, which with further development could help eradicate a disease that sickens millions worldwide each year.
NYU Langone study finds referring a patient to an acute care facility after major surgery, rather than the patient’s own home, may not always be necessary.
A brain protein called SNTF, which rises in the blood after some concussions, signals the type of brain damage that is thought to be the source of these cognitive impairments.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown for the first time how a previously unknown process works to promote infection in a number of dangerous viruses, including dengue, West Nile and Ebola.
University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy Professor Chang-Guo Zhan, teamed with fellow UK Professors Fang Zheng and Sharon Walsh, and Professor Mei-Chuan Ko from Wake Forest University, recently received $6 million in funding over five years to further develop a potential treatment for cocaine abuse.
Researchers from Wayne State University, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan will receive $2.5 million over five years in a cooperative agreement with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They have designed a program of professional development for teachers and an intervention for parents and will evaluate its effects on parent and teacher mindfulness and reflective functioning.
A crucial tumor-thwarting gene protects an immune attack against lung cancer by blocking the key to an off switch on T cells, the customized warriors of the immune system, a team led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Massachusetts Eye and Ear investigators have shown that sound deprivation in adult mice causes irreversible damage to the inner ear. The findings, published in PLOS ONE, suggest that chronic conductive hearing loss, such as that caused by recurrent ear infections, leads to permanent hearing impairment if it remains untreated.
University of Washington scientists have sequenced the complete genetic makeup of a species of ecologically important algae, which may aid in biofuel production.
Whitehead Institute researchers have determined the organization of a protein complex that is critical during chromosome segregation. Without the foundation it supplies, the link between chromosome and kinetochore would fail, as would chromosome segregation and cell division.
In a new study that could have implications for future drug discovery efforts for a number of neurodegenerative diseases, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that the interaction between a pair of brain proteins has a substantial and previously unrecognized effect on memory formation.
With the help of a 3.5 year-long, $851,462 grant from the National Science Foundation, a team of Wayne State University researchers is exploring how the relational landscape in America is being affected by the rise of online dating. The project, “The impact of online technologies on interpersonal communication and perceptions,” will explore how the increasing use of popular online dating technologies affects how people develop romantic connections.
In one of the first studies of its kind, Tufts researchers show that even among Americans in their mid-70’s and older, being more active, including walking at a reasonable pace or distance, is linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular events.
The two-year, $1.6 million grant, which comes with the possibility of an additional three years of funding, will support preclinical studies of a potential heroin vaccine.
If you think your life is stressful, try being a new doctor. Their first year especially is a time of stress, sleeplessness and self-doubt – and four times the usual rate of suicidal thoughts. But a new study shows that a free web-based tool to support their mental health may cut that rate in half.
In a recently published paper, Indiana University biologists have calculated the lifetime energy requirements of multiple types of cells, as well as the energy required to replicate and express the genes within these cells.
University of Washington engineers have developed a novel technology that uses a Wi-Fi router — a source of ubiquitous but untapped energy in indoor environments — to power devices without sacrificing network performance.
The drug sildenafil, sold as Viagra and other brand names, improves insulin sensitivity in people at risk for diabetes, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported today.
A joint study from the University of Iowa and the University of California-Davis found pigeons performed as well as humans in categorizing digitized slides and mammograms of benign and malignant human breast tissue. Results published in the journal PLOS One.
University of Colorado Cancer Center study shows that some uninsured and low-income breast cancer patients do without even low-cost, high-benefit drugs.
A new study from researchers at Tufts University found that coconut oil controlled the overgrowth of a fungal pathogen called Candida albicans in mice. In humans, high levels of C. albicans in the gastrointestinal tract can lead to bloodstream infections, including invasive candidiasis. The research suggests that it might be possible to use dietary approaches as an alternative to antifungal drugs in order to decrease the risk of infections caused by C. albicans.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found a link between higher levels of a specific kind of air pollution in major urban areas and an increase in cardiovascular-related hospitalizations such as for heart attacks in people 65 and older.
A classroom program that helps teachers adapt their interactions with students based on individuals’ temperaments may lead to more student engagement in kindergarten, more teacher emotional support to kindergarten and first grade students, and better classroom organization and less off-task behavior in first-grade classes, according to research by NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Researchers from the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS) and Duke Medicine have identified a potential treatment strategy for an often-fatal inherited glycogen storage disease.
Indiana University researchers have discovered a hormonal mechanism in hamsters that connects short winter days with increased aggression in females, and it differs from the mechanism that controls the same response in males.
From terrorist propaganda distributed by organizations such as ISIS, to political activism, diverse voices now use social media as their major public platform. Organizations deploy bots — virtual, automated posters — as well as enormous paid “armies” of human posters or trolls, and hacking schemes to overwhelmingly infiltrate the public platform with their message. A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor of information science has been awarded a grant to continue his research that will provide an in-depth understanding of the major propagators of viral, insidious content and the methods that make them successful.
In a “look-back” analysis of data stored on 130 patients with pancreatic cysts, scientists at Johns Hopkins have used gene-based tests and a fixed set of clinical criteria to more accurately distinguish precancerous cysts from those less likely to do harm.
In a randomized clinical trial of more than 300 participants, researchers from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have found that ranibizumab — a drug most commonly used to treat retinal swelling in people with diabetes — is an effective alternative to laser therapy for treating the most severe, potentially blinding form of diabetic retinal disease.
Advanced prostate cancer is a disease notoriously resistant to treatment. New research by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of California, San Francisco sheds light on a new mode of drug resistance to emerging therapies in metastatic prostate cancer. This discovery ultimately may help predict which patients may benefit most from treatment.
A University of Georgia researcher has found that low levels of vitamin D may limit the effectiveness of HIV treatment in adults.
In a substantial number of cases—some two billion, in fact—the tuberculosis bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) isn’t active at all. Now, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered several first-in-class compounds that target these hidden infections.
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey researcher ‘Jessie’ Yanxiang Guo, PhD, has received a $628,884 grant from the National Cancer Institute to investigate the role of a cell survival mechanism known as autophagy in lung cancers driven by the active Kras protein, which is responsible for cell division. The aim is to provide a new strategy for lung cancer treatment.
In a novel animal study design that mimicked human clinical trials, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that long-term treatment using a small molecule drug that reduces activity of the brain’s stress circuitry significantly reduces Alzheimer’s disease (AD) neuropathology and prevents onset of cognitive impairment in a mouse model of the neurodegenerative condition. The findings are described in the current online issue of the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Using large-scale computer modeling, researchers have shown the effects of confinement on macromolecules inside cells – and taken the first steps toward simulating a living cell, a capability that could allow them to ask “what-if” questions impossible to ask in real organisms.
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Ludwig Cancer Research and Isis Pharmaceuticals demonstrate a commercially feasible way to use RNA to turn the CRISPR-Cas9 system on and off as desired — permanently editing a gene, but only temporarily activating CRISPR-Cas9. The study is published November 16 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Being bullied in childhood has been associated with increased risk for anxiety, depression and even eating disorders. But according to new research, it’s not only the victims who could be at risk psychologically, but also the bullies themselves.
Johns Hopkins Children’s Center specialists report they have successfully treated and put in remission a 2-year-old, now age 5, with a highly virulent form of tuberculosis known as XDR TB, or extensively drug-resistant TB.
A clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health has found that the drug ranibizumab (Lucentis) is highly effective in treating proliferative diabetic retinopathy. The trial, conducted by the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR.net) compared Lucentis with a type of laser therapy called panretinal or scatter photocoagulation, which has remained the gold standard for proliferative diabetic retinopathy since the mid-1970s. The findings demonstrate the first major therapy advance in nearly 40 years.
A new research study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) shows that lead exposure in early childhood are associated with increased risk for sleep problems and excessive daytime sleepiness in later childhood. This is the first longitudinal, population-based study that investigated early lead exposure to sleep problems. The findings are set for publication in the December issue of SLEEP.
A new report from Unckless et al. recently published in the journal GENETICS builds on recent experimental work being carried out in the field of gene drive by using mathematical models to estimate how quickly such gene replacement can spread through a population.
A simple taste test can identify patients who will have highly successful sinus surgery, researchers from Penn Medicine and the Monell Chemical Senses Center report in this week’s International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology.
New research from the Monell Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that physicians may someday be able to use a simple taste test to predict which surgical intervention is best suited to help a subset of chronic rhinosinusitis patients.
Since the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the enzyme telomerase in 1984, identifying other biological molecules that lengthen or shorten the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes has been slow going. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins report uncovering the role of an enzyme crucial to telomere length and say the new method they used to find it should speed discovery of other proteins and processes that determine telomere length.
It's no secret that a high-fat, high-cholesterol "junk food" diet has been linked to major health problems, including high blood cholesterol and the buildup of plaques in the arteries, known as atherosclerosis.
Johns Hopkins researchers report that a new study of mouse cells has revealed reasons why attempts to grow stem cells to maturity in the laboratory often fail, and provided a possible way to overcome such “developmental arrest.”
Deep within your DNA, a tiny parasite lurks, waiting to pounce from its perch and land in the middle of an unsuspecting healthy gene. If it succeeds, it can make you sick. Like a jungle cat, this parasite sports a long tail. But until now little was known about the role that tail plays in this dangerous jumping.
A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds child care centers play a pivotal role when it comes to the physical activity levels of preschoolers. Yet few children get to experience outdoor recess time as it is scheduled. Only 3 in 10 children had at least 60 minutes of a full child-care day outdoors for recess, as is recommended by guidelines.
Linking digital activity trackers to smartphones and periodically pinging users with personalized texts that urge them to walk more can significantly increase physical activity levels and spark healthy behavior changes, according to findings of a pilot study conducted at Johns Hopkins.
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