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We are trying to see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. It feels like it’s been so long since we could gather and partake in our usual social activities without the fear of spreading this dangerous disease. Maybe summer will help lift some of the burden of COVID-19 spread? Scientists […]

To analyze the genome or the genetic characteristics of a living organism, scientists typically rely on samples of millions of cells. The problem is that the DNA in each of our cells is not identical. Until recently, the amount of DNA that could be extracted from a single cell couldn’t […]

Human cell has 46 chromosomes. From your school biology class you know that they contain instructions for life – your DNA is in them. And while we know about chromosomes for 130 years there are still many details that have escaped scientists’ eyes for decades. For example, scientists at UCL […]

A research team led by scientists at Université de Montréal has developed a unique observational tool for assessing children up to 5 years of age who have had a concussion. The work is explained in a study published in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation. Pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) is particularly […]

Antibodies aren’t the only immune cells needed to fight off COVID-19 — T cells are equally important and can step up to do the job when antibodies are depleted, suggests a new Penn Medicine study of blood cancer patients with COVID-19 published in Nature Medicine. The researchers found that blood cancer patients with COVID-19 […]

A protein involved in cholesterol metabolism plays a previously unknown role in suppressing the body’s natural immune defenders in and around pancreatic tumours, research led by the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center finds. ApoE, an apolipoprotein known to play roles in cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s, is elevated in the blood of people […]

A clinical trial examining the efficacy of two devices to monitor and detect atrial fibrillation (AF), or an irregular heartbeat, in ischemic stroke patients—one an implantable device that monitors over 12 months, the other an external device that monitors over a 30-day period—found the implantable device is more than three […]

Getting enough sleep can be a real challenge for shift workers affecting their overall health. But what role does being an early bird or night owl play in getting good rest? Researchers from McGill University find a link between chronotype and the amount of sleep shift workers can get with […]

Infant malnutrition damages the composition of intestinal bacteria, the microbiome. It has life-long consequences on the physical and intellectual development of affected children. Using pigs and mice models, Professor Bernard Henrissat from DTU Bioengineering in collaboration with the Washington University School of Medicine (USA), shows that damage to the microbiome […]

As anyone who has ever procrastinated knows, remembering that you need to do something and acting on that knowledge are two different things. To understand how learning changes nerve cells and leads to different behaviors, researchers studied the much simpler nervous system of worms. “In this study, we can now […]

The human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cancer and many countries run national vaccination programmes to minimise the risk. Studies involving researchers at German Cancer Research Center, Karolinska Institutet and Tampere University now report on the longitudinal effect of common HPV vaccines. The results, which are published in The Journal of […]

We all need sleep to properly function and live. Not getting enough sleep harms our well-being, health, and immunity. Even one sleepless night can affect our bodies. Today's times do not have a positive effect on proper sleep and its sufficient amount. Work-related stress, irregular lifestyle, overwhelming responsibilities, or mental […]

A massive genome-wide association study (GWAS) of genetic and health records of 1.2 million people from four separate data banks has identified 178 gene variants linked to major depression, a disorder that will affect one of every five people during their lifetimes. The results of the study, led by the U.S. Department […]

A University of Alberta spinoff company has received FDA approval for an artificial intelligence tool that could revolutionize thyroid ultrasounds, making the procedure faster and easier for thousands of Canadians who undergo it each year. MEDO.ai, with offices in Edmonton and Singapore, received approval last month from the U.S. Food […]

Swiftness is essential when treating lung cancer, the second most common type of cancer in the U.S. and the country’s leading cause of cancer deaths. For patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer, surgical removal of a tumour-infested lung or of a smaller lung section may be the only treatment […]

Miniaturized chips containing live, human kidney cells will be on board the scheduled June 3 Space X cargo supply Mission 22 to the International Space Station.  Inside the 3D chips, the cells are kept alive in a tiny system that delivers fluids dynamically.  These tissue chips model responses that take […]

Project to classify nuclei across the tree of life discovers how to transmute them from one type into another. One hundred fifty years ago, Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table, a system for classifying atoms based on the properties of their nuclei. This week, a team of biologists studying the tree of life […]

Researchers from ETH Zurich and University of Zurich have developed a new microscopy technique that lights up the brain with high resolution imagery. This allows neuroscientists to study brain functions and ailments more closely and non-​invasively. The way the human brain works remains, to a great extent, a topic of […]

Worm cells sense changes in metabolism to activate defensive measures against pathogens. Included in the vast fallout stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists are paying closer attention to microbial infections and how life forms defend against attacks from pathogens. Research led by University of California San Diego scientists has shed […]

Switching off a heart muscle protein could provide a new way for drugs to combat heart failure in people who’ve had a heart attack, according to research led by the University of Cambridge and published in the journal Nature. There is an unmet need to find drugs that can successfully improve […]

New research has found that one in every 340 people might carry a mutation in a single gene that makes them more likely to have a greater weight from early childhood and, by 18 years of age, they could be up to 30 pounds heavier with the excess weight likely […]

Scientists have made major advances in understanding and developing treatments for many cancers by identifying genetic mutations that drive the disease. Now, a team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and the New York Genome Center (NYGC) has developed a machine learning technique for detecting other modifications to DNA that have a […]

The ability to make membrane-bound organelles is a defining characteristic of eukaryotic cells — cells that constitute the bodies of all animals, plants and fungi on Earth. Membranes create enclosures that provide specialized environments for certain structures and their functions, such as the nuclei that store genetic information, or the […]

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have shed new light on how our brains develop, revealing that the very last step in cell division is crucial for the brain to reach its proper size and function. The new findings identify a potential contributor to microcephaly, a birth defect in […]

Human bodies have roughly 30,000 genes dictating not only how we look, but also critical biological processes. Now, a Florida State University and Australia National University research team has discovered a key aspect of gene regulation and ultimately how that process is implicated in cancer. Jonathan Dennis, an associate professor […]

The primary function of the lung is to facilitate the transfer of oxygen to the bloodstream. Crucial to this lifegiving task are endothelial cells, which line blood vessels permeating the lung and through which gas exchange occurs. Malfunction of these cells is implicated in a range of different diseases, including […]

Viji Santhakumar, an associate professor of molecular, cell and systems biology at the University of California, Riverside, has received funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disaster and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health to further pursue research on moderate concussive brain injury, which results from car accidents or sports-related concussions. […]

Up to half of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma will experience tumor recurrence or new tumors—tumors that often spread and are difficult to treat. A team of scientists led by the University of Michigan School of Dentistry identified a mechanism by which head and neck cancer cells […]

Follow-up data from the landmark SPRINT study of the effect of high blood pressure on cardiovascular disease have confirmed that aggressive blood-pressure management—lowering systolic blood pressure to less than 120 mm Hg—dramatically reduces the risk of heart disease, stroke and death from these diseases, as well as death from all […]

Continuous skin-to-skin contact starting immediately after delivery even before the baby has been stabilised can reduce mortality by 25 per cent in infants with very low birth weight. This according to a study in low- and middle-income countries coordinated by the WHO on the initiative of researchers at Karolinska Institutet […]