Curated News: Grant Funded News

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Regular physical activity could play a role in helping women at high-risk of breast cancer delay the need for drastic preventive measures such as prophylactic mastectomy, according to new research led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Results of the WISER Sister study help clarify the emerging connection between exercise and breast cancer risk. As a result of the new findings, the authors suggest that women who have an elevated breast cancer risk or worry about having such risk should consider doing 30 to 60 minutes of aerobic activity per day for five days per week.

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A new study in mice by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that a specialized type of immunotherapy — even when used without chemotherapy or radiation — can boost survival from pancreatic cancer, a nearly almost-lethal disease, by more than 75 percent. The findings are so promising, human clinical trials are planned within the next year.

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A team of researchers has mapped out a universal dynamic that explains the production and distribution of proteins in a cell, a process that varies in detail from protein to protein and cell to cell, but that always results in the same statistical pattern.

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Saint Louis University’s Vaccine Center is one of two sites in the nation selected by the NIH to conduct "omics" research on infectious diseases.

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Chemical changes in brain cells caused by disturbances in the body’s day-night cycle may be a key underlying cause of the learning and memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a University of California, Irvine study.

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We use sight to judge distance. Now, a new study from the University of Rochester reveals that our brains also use sound delays to fine-tune what our eyes see when estimating distances.

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Autophagy, the degradation of unwanted cellular bits and pieces by the cell itself, has been shown for the first time to also work in the cell nucleus. In this setting it plays a role in guarding against the start of cancer.

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Research led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators found evidence that variations in the ETV6 gene may play a significant role in the inherited predisposition to pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

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Pediatric researchers have developed the first set of growth charts for U.S. children with Down syndrome since 1988. These new charts provide an important tool for pediatricians to evaluate growth milestones for children and adolescents with this condition.

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $3 million grant to Wayne State University for an institutional transformation project aimed at reformulating teaching approaches in STEM courses.

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People who have had an episode of major depression are at high risk for having another episode. Now, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found that the risk of recurrence is significantly lower for people with complete, rather than partial depressive symptom resolution.

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A new study suggests a potential new way to block Notch, one of the most common cancer-causing genes, without causing severe side effects.

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Insulin, the hormone essential to all mammals for controlling blood sugar levels and a feeling of being full after eating, plays a much stronger role than previously known in regulating release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers, new studies by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center show.

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A computer model developed by Johns Hopkins health care delivery specialists predicts that strengthening a handful of efforts to keep people with HIV in lifetime care, along with more rigorous testing, would potentially avert a projected 752,000 new HIV infections and 276,000 AIDS deaths in the United States alone over the next 20 years.

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Results of a head-to-head comparison study led by Johns Hopkins researchers show that noninvasive CT scans of the heart’s vessels are far better at spotting clogged arteries that can trigger a heart attack than the commonly prescribed exercise stress that most patients with chest pain undergo.

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University of Utah scientists deciphered maternal genetic material from two babies buried together at an Alaskan campsite 11,500 years ago. They found the infants had different mothers and were the northernmost known kin to two lineages of Native Americans found farther south throughout North and South America. The study supports the theory that Native Americans descended from people who migrated from Asia to the Bering land bridge, then spent up to 10,000 years there before moving rapidly into the Americas beginning at least 15,000 years ago.

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The hormone oxytocin, which has been associated with interpersonal bonding, may enhance the pleasure of social interactions by stimulating production of marijuana-like neurotransmitters in the brain, according to a University of California, Irvine study. The research provides the first link between oxytocin – dubbed the “love hormone” – and anandamide, which has been called the “bliss molecule” for its role in activating cannabinoid receptors in brain cells to heighten motivation and happiness.

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Zhengping Yi, Ph.D., professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and director of the Proteomics Research Laboratory at Wayne State University, is leading a research team that was awarded more than $2.5 million from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. The team will work to discover the abnormality in protein phosphatase 1 that contributes to the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

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A new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center reveals molecular changes within a tumor that are preventing immunotherapy drugs from killing off the cancer.

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Resistance to chemotherapy is a major problem for those suffering from ovarian cancer—a problem that prevents a cure from a disease dubbed the “silent killer.” University of Georgia researchers are giving patients new hope with recent findings that help pinpoint the mechanisms causing chemoresistance.

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Hematology researchers have safely and effectively treated children and young adults for autoimmune blood disorders in a multicenter clinical trial. Patients had a durable, complete response in one of those conditions, called ALPS.

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How did Pavlov’s dogs learn to associate a ringing bell with the delayed reward that followed? Scientists have had a working theory, but now a research team has proven it.

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A type of bacteria plucked from the bottom of the ocean could be put to work neutralizing large amounts of industrial carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, a group of University of Florida researchers has found.

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A banana a day may not keep the doctor away, but a substance originally found in bananas and carefully edited by scientists could someday fight off a wide range of viruses. And the process used to create it may help scientists harness the “sugar code” that our cells use to communicate.

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Across the animal kingdom, males hoot and holler to attract females and ward off competing suitors. Now, a new study finds that male howler monkeys with deeper calls have smaller testicles – and vice versa, according to researchers from universities of Utah, Cambridge and Vienna and other institutions.

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The number of people in Bangladesh dying from chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension—long considered diseases of the wealthy because the poor didn’t tend to live long enough to develop them—increased dramatically among the nation’s poorest households over a 24-year period, suggests new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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University of Missouri research shows that babies’ repetitive babbles, such as "baba" or "dada," primarily are motivated by infants’ ability to hear themselves. Infants with profound hearing loss who received cochlear implants to improve their hearing soon babbled as often as their hearing peers, allowing them to catch up developmentally.

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For hundreds of millions of people around the world, chewing betel nut produces a cheap, quick high but also raises the risk of addiction and oral cancer. Now, new findings by a University of Florida Health researcher reveal how the nut’s psychoactive chemical works in the brain and suggest that an addiction treatment may already exist.

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Activities outside the classroom – especially community engagement and sports – may help low-income, urban youth academically as they transition into middle school, according to a new study by NYU Steinhardt.

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If you think it is okay to talk to your car infotainment system or smartphone while driving or even when stopped at a red light, think again. It takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, University of Utah researchers found in a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

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University of Utah biologists used cadaver arms to punch and slap padded dumbbells in experiments supporting a hotly debated theory that our hands evolved not only for manual dexterity, but also so males could fistfight over females.

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Analyses of landmark RV144 HIV vaccine study volunteers revealed that those who developed a unique set of vaccine-induced antibodies in combination with a high level of CD4 T-cell responses to the outer portion of the HIV virus, called its envelope gene, correlated with reduced HIV infection.

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In the past two decades there has been little to no adherence to the recommendations published by U.S. and European regulatory agencies on the manner in which translational research is conducted in large animal models used to study cartilage repair. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania detailed their findings in a paper published in Science Translational Medicine.

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Phase I clinical trials will start for a female sex hormone that may help save lives on the battlefield, where between 2001 and 2011 more than 80 percent of potentially preventable U.S. war injury deaths resulted from blood loss.

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Robot bees are capable of tethered flight and moving while submerged in water, but they can't sense what’s in front of them. The UB-led research team will address the limitation by outfitting the robot bee with remote sensing technology called lidar, the same laser-based sensor system that is making driverless cars possible.

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SALT LAKE CITY - Truck drivers who are frequently fatigued after work, use cell phones while driving, or have an elevated pulse pressure – a potential predictor of cardiovascular disease - may be at increased risk for getting into truck accidents, according to a study by the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH) at the University of Utah School of Medicine and published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM). The findings suggest that characteristics of the profession may put truck drivers at risk.

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A study led by the University of Utah School of Medicine has identified molecular mechanisms that control an immune cell’s ability to remember. They found that in helper T cells, the proteins Oct1 and OCA-B work together to put immune response genes on standby so that they are easily activated when the body is re-exposed to a pathogen. The research, which could inform strategies for developing better vaccines, was performed in collaboration with scientists from The Broad Institute and University of Michigan, and published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

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Children are becoming infected with the highly fatal antibiotic resistant bacteria CRE at a much higher rate than the recent past, according to a data analysis by researchers at Rush University Medical Center. The study was published in the Centers for Disease Control’s publication Emerging Infectious Diseases on Oct. 14.

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Overall exposure to brand-specific alcohol advertising is a significant predictor of underage youth alcohol brand consumption, with youth ages 13 to 20 more than five times more likely to consume brands that advertise on national television and 36 percent more likely to consume brands that advertise in national magazines compared to brands that don’t advertise in these media.

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A federally funded analysis of MRI scans of the aging hearts of nearly 3,000 adults shows significant differences in the way male and female hearts change over time.

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Researchers at Duke Medicine have discovered that rhesus monkeys can, in fact, transmit Cytomegalovirus (CMV) across the placenta to their unborn offspring. This finding, reported online October 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, establishes the first primate model that researchers can use to study mother-to-fetus CMV infections and spur development of potential vaccine approaches.

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SBP researchers and colleagues discover a mechanism that regulates the aging and abundance of secreted proteins

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When a Lake Malawi cichlid loses a tooth, a new one drops neatly into place as a replacement. Why can't humans similarly regrow teeth lost to injury or disease?

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A new genetic discovery could help scientists understand exactly how one X chromosome in each cell of a female's body gets "silenced" – and perhaps lead to better treatment for X-linked diseases.

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A new and comprehensive study has found that celiac patients are at no increased risk for dementia before or after their diagnosis of celiac disease.

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The Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University (BBI) has received a $2.5 Million grant from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration on Community Living, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) for a new five-year project on “Understanding and Increasing Supported Decision-Making’s Positive Impact on Community Living and Participation Outcomes.” The funding (grant #90DP0076-01-00) is the only award of its kind in the country.

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A research team led by Assia Shisheva, Ph.D., professor of physiology in Wayne State University’s School of Medicine, has made breakthrough advancements on a new molecular mechanism that may provide a means to “melt” pathological clumps known as Lewy clumps. These clumps are a hallmark sign of Parkinson's disease.

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Scientists at Whitehead Institute and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have for the first time identified the universe of genes in the human genome essential for the survival and proliferation of human cell lines or cultured human cells.Their findings and the materials they developed in conducting the research will not only serve as invaluable resources for the global research community but should also have application in the discovery of drug-targetable genetic vulnerabilities in a variety of human cancers.

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Researchers have discovered details of the abnormal molecular signals and biological events that drive a high-risk form of the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. The findings may lead to more effective targeted treatments.

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Writing in Scientific Reports, researchers led by a group from Roswell Park Cancer Institute have shared new insights about a subset of T cells that appear to both inhibit cancer growth and enhance the tumor-killing powers of other immune cells.