2021

Special immune cells found in the brain, microglia, play a key role in the processes that make you feel uneasy and depressed in correlation with inflammation. The findings from a new study on mice suggest that microglial cells contribute to the negative mood experienced during several neurological diseases. David Engblom’s […]

Many forms of mild cellular stress produce benefits to health because they trigger the more efficient operation of cellular maintenance processes such as autophagy. That in turn causes better cell and tissue function, and thus improved health. This stress response and benefit is known as hormesis, and has been robustly […]

Scientists at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have developed a promising gene therapy strategy for a rare disease that causes severe vision loss in childhood. A form of Leber congenital amaurosis, the disease is caused by autosomal-dominant mutations in the CRX gene, which are challenging to treat with gene therapy.  The scientists […]

An innovative approach to treating bone tumors — starving cancer cells of the energy they need to grow — could one day provide an alternative to a commonly used chemotherapy drug without the risk of severe side effects, suggests a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. […]

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania have identified ionizable lipid nanoparticles that could be used to deliver mRNA as part of fetal therapy. The proof-of-concept study, published in Science Advances, engineered and screened a number of lipid nanoparticle […]

Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, autism, schizophrenia and many other neurological and psychiatric conditions have been linked to inflammation in the brain. There’s growing evidence that immune cells and molecules play a key role in normal brain development and function as well. But at the core of the burgeoning field of […]

Many genetic mutations have been found to be associated with a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. Yet for most of these variants, the mechanism through which they act remains unclear. Now a new study in Nature led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania has revealed how two different variations—one […]

What makes cancer cells different from ordinary cells in our bodies? Can these differences be used to strike at them and paralyze their activity? Cancer researchers have been debating this question since the mid-19th century. A new study from Tel Aviv University (TAU) shows, for the first time, how an abnormal […]

Cells don’t express all the genes they contain all the time. The portion of our genome that encodes eye colour, for example, doesn’t need to be turned on in liver cells. In plants, genes encoding the structure of a flower can be turned off in cells that will form a […]

A new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher has identified how specific communication among different brain regions, known as brain connectivity, can serve as a biomarker for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The research relied on a deep architecture using machine-learning classifiers to identify with 99% accuracy those […]

A daily alcoholic drink for women or two for men might be good for heart health, compared to drinking more or not drinking at all. But while there is some evidence that drinking in moderation might prevent heart attacks, now a randomized, double-blinded clinical study of 100 heart patients has […]

Abnormally hyperactive areas in the brain may help better predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, according to findings of a research team led by Université de Montreal researcher Sylvie Belleville, Scientific Director of the Institut Universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal research centre and professor in the Department of Psychology at […]