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Imagine a drug that could temporarily reenergize plasticity in the brain to treat autism or schizophrenia, or even help an adult’s ageing brain pick up a new language or learn to play a musical instrument. Such are the potential, down-the-road medical implications of a discovery made by a postdoctoral researcher […]

Giving early-stage pancreatic cancer patients a CD40 immune-stimulating drug helped jumpstart a T cell attack to the notoriously stubborn tumor microenvironment before surgery and other treatments, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Changing the microenvironment from so-called T cell […]

A small, light-activated molecule recently tested in mice represents a new approach to eliminating clumps of amyloid protein found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. If perfected in humans, the technique could be used as an alternative approach to immunotherapy and used to treat other diseases caused by similar […]

Groundbreaking research from Tel Aviv University may lead to a significant breakthrough in the battle against deadly brain cancer. TAU researchers have identified a failure in the brain’s immune system that leads to the amplification of cell division and the spread of glioblastoma cancer cells. The failure results partially from the secretion […]

High expression levels of the gene TRIM63 can serve as an accurate and sensitive biomarker of a subtype of kidney cancer known as microphthalmia-associated transcription factor family aberration-associated renal cell carcinomas — or MiTF renal cell carcinoma. That’s according to a new, multi-institution study led by researchers at the University of Michigan Center for Translational […]

Alcohol-related liver disease is on the rise in the United States. Most strikingly, this epidemic is disproportionally affecting young, otherwise healthy, people, leading to rapid increases in alcohol-related liver disease deaths. “Changes in mortality rates for the alcohol-related liver disease vary significantly from state to state, so we think socioeconomic […]

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, is associated with several health risks. According to a new registry study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, NAFLD is linked to a 17-fold increased risk of liver cancer. The findings, published in Hepatology, underscore the need for improved follow-up of NAFLD patients […]

Researchers here applied three months of a methionine restricted diet to old mice, and found that it greatly reduced age-related cognitive decline, as measured in maze tests. The methionine restricted animals perform more like young animals than like their unrestricted peers. Methionine is an essential amino acid essential to all […]

A new source of energy expending brown fat cells has been uncovered by Harvard Medical School researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center, which they said points towards potential new therapeutic options for obesity. According to the new report, published in Nature Metabolism, the key lies in the expression of a receptor […]

The University of Toronto’s Aleksandra Stanimirovic is currently leading a study that, she says, underscores the reason she chose to become a health researcher as opposed to a physician. The project focuses on a screening program for diabetic retinopathy – a complication of diabetes that can lead to blindness – among women from lower socio-economic groups. She […]

Targeting the tumour environment may help improve treatments for breast cancers affecting pregnant women and young mothers. New research led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research has revealed how breast cancer cells that develop during or after pregnancy change their environment to form more aggressive tumours. In experimental models […]

Researchers have uncovered how antibodies that are specialised to different immune ‘disposal systems’ become the dominant form in the bloodstream, a process that is critical to our immune system’s ability to destroy pathogens and a key objective for the development of effective vaccines. Findings led by the Garvan Institute of […]

University of Manchester scientists have discovered a persistent alteration in the immune system of patients, six months after they have been hospitalised for Covid-19, which could be associated with poorer health outcomes. The study, published in the journal Med, examines the impact of a SARS-CoV-2 infection on the immune system of […]

It may turn out to be the case that many mechanisms of cellular regulation that slow aspects of aging function, at least in part, by slowing the pace at which senescent cells accumulate. Senescent cells induce tissue dysfunction via inflammatory signaling. Studies in which senescent cells are selectively destroyed in […]

An international team today reports the findings of an independent assessment of five commercially available assays for tumour DNA sequencing – a fast, cheap and less invasive method to diagnose and monitor cancer. The researchers revealed that all assays could reliably detect so-called circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) when it made […]

The immunotherapy agent pembrolizumab can provide clinical benefit to some patients with metastatic breast cancer whose tumors were found to have a high number of mutations, and whose cancer continued to progress with standard treatments. That’s according to newly published results from ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study. […]

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have identified and tested a drug combination that exploits a weakness in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), an aggressive, dangerous cancer. The scientists targeted a vulnerability in how the cancer cells reproduce, increasing already high levels of replication stress ­­– a hallmark of […]

Scientists at the University of Alberta are part of a new research project to develop innovative precision diagnostics that could predict which men with prostate cancer are at risk of developing an aggressive form of the disease. The researchers will use germline sequencing (sequencing of the genes a person is […]

Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues from Hadassah Medical Center have developed hybrid nanostructured particles that can be magnetically guided to the tumor, tracked by their fluorescence and pushed to release the drug on demand by ultrasound. This technology can help make cancer chemotherapy more targeted. The paper was published […]

A pilot human clinical trial conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine reveals that supplementation with GlyNAC – a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine as precursors of the natural antioxidant glutathione – could improve many age-associated defects in older humans to improve muscle strength and cognition, and promote healthy […]

Good cholesterol, which is transported in HDLs (high-density lipoproteins), plays a key part in the prevention of atherosclerosis and thus the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, according to a new paper co-authored by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in the journal Circulation, the anti-inflammatory properties of HDLs could be […]

Histones are tiny proteins that bind to DNA and hold information that can help turn on or off individual genes. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a technique that makes it possible to examine how different versions of histones bind to the genome in tens of thousands of individual cells […]

Researchers uncover how cells control the physical state of embryonic tissues. In the earliest stage of life, animals undergo some of their most spectacular physical transformations. Once merely blobs of dividing cells, they begin to rearrange themselves into their more characteristic forms, be they fish, birds or humans. Understanding how […]

Researchers from Skoltech were part of a research consortium studying a case of vertical COVID-19 transmission from mother to her unborn child that resulted in major complications in the pregnancy, premature birth and death of the child. The consortium used a Skoltech-developed proteomics method to verify the diagnosis. The paper […]

Bat species include many that are long-lived for their size. Flying species in general are long lived; one can find many similarities in metabolism between bats and birds. It may be the case that the much higher metabolic rate of flying species requires improved mechanisms of cell resilience and cell […]

Medical researchers from Case Western Reserve University, New York University (NYU), and University Hospitals have been awarded a five-year, $3 million National Cancer Institute grant to develop and apply artificial intelligence (AI) tools for predicting which lung cancer patients will respond to immunotherapy. A unique aspect of the Case Western […]

Alzheimer’s disease is known for its slow attack on neurons crucial to memory and cognition.  But why are these particular neurons in ageing brains so susceptible to the disease’s ravages, while others remain resilient? In a new study published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia, The Journal of the Alzheimer’s […]

Short pieces of DNA—jumping genes—can bounce from one place to another in our genomes. When too many DNA fragments move around, cancer, infertility, and other problems can arise. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor & HHMI Investigator Leemor Joshua-Tor and a research investigator in her lab, Jonathan Ipsaro, study how cells safeguard […]

If you’ve ever worked in a school, you know how sleepy some teens are. Why is that? Why aren’t they sleeping well when they are supposed to be sleeping? Well, there are some factors but one of them is probably social media. Scientists at the University of Glasgow have now […]

Naked mole-rats exhibit an unusually longevity, with a life span something like nine times as long as that of equivalently sized mammals. They are also highly resistant to cancer. This makes them an attractive subject for research into ways to treat aging and age-related disease. No one mechanism will be […]