2021

When cancer invades the brain, normal salt levels are quickly thrown off-kilter, but detecting this change in patients has been difficult. A team of Yale researchers has developed a non-invasive way to observe these changes in close detail at the early stages of cancer growth. This method, developed in the […]

Earlier studies have shown that supplementary vitamin D seems to provide a certain degree of protection against respiratory infections. A new study involving researchers from Karolinska Institutet has now made the most comprehensive synthesis to date of this connection. The study, which is published in the journal Lancet Diabetes & […]

When variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged in late 2020, concern arose that they might elude protective immune responses generated by prior infection or vaccination, potentially making re-infection more likely or vaccination less effective. To investigate this possibility, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious […]

A new study shows that in the time after first trying cannabis or first misusing prescription drugs, the percentages of young people who develop the corresponding substance use disorder are higher among adolescents (ages 12-17) than young adults (ages 18-25). In addition, 30% of young adults develop a heroin use […]

In a landmark study, a team led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has discovered—and filmed—the molecular details of how a cell, just before it divides in two, shuffles important internal components called mitochondria to distribute them evenly to its two daughter cells. […]

Gustavo Aguirre and William Beltran, veterinary ophthalmologists and vision scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, have studied a wide range of different retinal blinding disorders. But the one caused by mutations in the NPHP5 gene, leading to a form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), is one of the most severe. […]

Scientists at UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley and UCLA have received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to jointly launch an early phase, first-in-human clinical trial of a CRISPR gene correction therapy in patients with sickle cell disease using the patient’s own blood-forming stem cells. The trial will combine CRISPR […]

As the ability of medicine to diagnose diseases expands, so does the need for science to decipher their causes. To that end, a team of neuroscientists at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute, affiliated with Université de Montréal, has launched a new project called NeuroBasis. It’s an $8M, a multi-institution collaboration […]

Researchers led by the University of Missouri create a new method for analyzing large amounts of biological data to help scientists draw faster conclusions for possible treatments. Studying genetic material on a cellular level, such as single-cell RNA-sequencing, can provide scientists with a detailed, high-resolution view of biological processes at […]

Many people with early-stage or first-episode bipolar disorder have cognitive deficits, such as issues with visual processing and spatial memory, but those deficits are often so subtle that the disorder can go undiagnosed for years. That could change thanks to researchers at the University of Alberta who have created a […]

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have produced a detailed molecular atlas of lung development, which is expected to be a fundamental reference in future studies of mammalian biology and of new treatments for diseases, such as COVID-19, that affect the lungs. The researchers, […]

But up to half of older patients undergoing surgery face a lesser-known but similarly formidable cognitive challenge: postoperative delirium, a condition triggered by a surgery that requires anaesthesia and whose trademarks are confusion, disturbed mental faculties, loss of orientation and anxiety. In the worst cases, postoperative delirium leads to extended […]