Robot – Page 180 – Innovita Research
June 11, 2020

Cancer cells adapt to lack of key nutrient, posing potential problems for drugmakers: U of T study

Cancer can adapt its metabolism in a way that could overcome lipid-focused therapies being developed by drug companies, a University of Toronto study has found. “Several clinical trials have failed because metabolism is such an adaptive process by which cancer cells gain drug resistance,” says Michael Aregger, a co-lead author and research associate […]
June 11, 2020

Down to the Bone: Understanding How Bone-Dissolving Cells Are Generated

Bone-dissolving cells called osteoclasts are derived from a type of immune cells called macrophages. They are necessary for the maintenance and renewal of bones. But the intracellular mechanisms through which macrophages convert to osteoclasts are not fully understood. Recently, scientists at the Tokyo University of Science uncovered the role of […]
June 11, 2020

Newly Synthesized Fungal Compound Can Switch on a Self-destruct Button for Cancer

Cancers cells use a special technique to propagate; they delete their “programmed death” gene through mutation, “forget” to die when their lifetime is over and continue to grow instead. A research team from Tokyo University of Science has developed a method through which a fungal compound capable of rearming the […]
June 11, 2020

Chemotherapy and Cancer Gang up to Cause a Neurological Side Effect, Study Says

Contrary to common medical guidance, chemotherapy does not appear to be the only culprit in neuropathy, a neurological side effect of cancer treatment, a new study says. Cancer itself contributes heavily, too, and the stresses on neurons appear far worse than the sum of the two causes. “There was some distress caused […]
June 10, 2020

Pharmacy researcher receives grant to examine blood clot prevention therapies

Maya Chilbert, PharmD, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, received a Cardiology Practice and Research Network seed grant from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP). The award will support research on the safety and effectiveness of triple therapy […]
June 9, 2020

Poor fitness and obesity in adolescence linked to later chronic disease

Adolescents who have poor cardiorespiratory fitness or are obese have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease later in life, serious enough to qualify them for disability pension due to a chronically reduced work capacity. The findings also suggest that a small improvement in fitness is associated with a lower […]
June 8, 2020

Bacteria leave signature in colon cancer cells

Some bacterial pathogens cause damage in the genomes of their infected cells which could lead to the initiation of cancer. While it is difficult to link an infection with an onset of cancer that arises many years later in life, researchers have been looking for definitive proof that such links […]
June 8, 2020

New Biosensor Visualizes Stress in Living Plant Cells in Real Time

Plant biologists have long sought a deeper understanding of foundational processes involving kinases, enzymes that catalyze key biological activities in proteins. Analyzing the processes underlying kinases in plants takes on greater urgency in today’s environment increasingly altered by climate warming. Certain “SnRK2” kinases (sucrose-non-fermenting-1-related protein kinase-2s) are essential since they […]
June 8, 2020

Creating hairy human skin: Not as easy as you think

For more than 40 years, scientists and commercial companies have been recreating human skin in laboratories around the world. Yet all of these products lack important aspects of normal skin–hair, nerves, and fat. In new research, cultured human skin cells embedded with fat and nerves and capable of growing hair […]
June 8, 2020

Stem Cell Therapy Reverses Aspects of Photoaging in Skin

With few exceptions, the worldwide community of clinics offering first generation stem cell therapies is not usually a source of reliable data. They don't tend to conduct trials or even much report on the results of their work. Further, the stem cell therapies used can vary enormously in effectiveness. Cells are fickle […]
June 8, 2020

Engineering Viruses that Only Replicate in Cancer Cells

One of the many interesting approaches to targeting cancer cells for destruction is the use of viruses that are largely innocuous to humans, but replicate preferentially in cells exhibiting the characteristics of cancer, such as continual cellular replication. Researchers here demonstrate a way to engineer a virus to require the biochemistry of […]
June 8, 2020

Immunosuppressants don't seem to worsen COVID-19 outcomes

Some people get better from COVID-19 quicker than others. This is because of several factors, one of which is the condition of the immune system. People with rheumatic diseases such as arthritis take immunosuppressant medications. Are they at a bigger COVID-19 risk? Scientists from UCL decided to look into it. […]
June 8, 2020

3D Facial Scans Could Speed Diagnoses for Children with Rare Genetic Diseases

Researchers from Alberta, California and Colorado Combine 3D Imaging and Machine Learning to Create Prototype Diagnostic Tool. Most children with rare genetic diseases spend years undergoing medical tests and waiting for a diagnosis – a long, exhausting process that takes its toll on children and their families. Almost half of […]
June 5, 2020

Revealed: how cancer develops resistance to treatment

Cancer cells can turn on error-prone DNA copy pathways to adapt to cancer treatment, a breakthrough study published in the journal Science has revealed. Bacteria use the same process, termed stress-induced mutagenesis, to develop antibiotic resistance. The cells of the human body are constantly dividing, and each time we need to copy […]
June 5, 2020

Sleep, Death and … the Gut?

The first signs of insufficient sleep are universally familiar. There are tiredness and fatigue, difficulty concentrating, perhaps irritability, or even tired giggles. Far fewer people have experienced the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation, including disorientation, paranoia, and hallucinations. Total, prolonged sleep deprivation, however, can be fatal. While it has been […]
June 5, 2020

New microscopy method provides unprecedented look at amyloid protein structure

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are often accompanied by amyloid proteins in the brain that have become clumped or misfolded. At Washington University in St. Louis, a newly developed technique that measures the orientation of single molecules is enabling, for the first time, optical microscopy to reveal nanoscale […]
June 5, 2020

Fitful nightly sleep linked to chronic inflammation, hardened arteries

Disrupted nightly sleep and clogged arteries tend to sneak up on us as we age. And while both disorders may seem unrelated, a new UC Berkeley study helps explain why they are, in fact, pathologically intertwined. UC Berkeley sleep scientists have begun to reveal what it is about fragmented nightly […]
June 5, 2020

Understanding a gene’s role in inflammatory bowel disease

A protein-coding gene associated with autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively referred to as inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, will be the focus of new research in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside. The work is made possible by a National Institutes of […]
June 4, 2020

Heralding a new era in protein analytics

Systems biologist Paola Picotti receives this year’s Rössler Prize for her groundbreaking work in the field of proteomics. She has developed a method of measuring structural changes in thousands of proteins at the same time, paving the way for personalised therapy. The announcement in March 2003 that a human genome […]
June 4, 2020

Split Ends: DNA Crossovers

New studies show how DNA crossovers can drive healthy, abnormal sperm, egg cell division. In the famous words of movie character Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.” The same principle applies to human genetics. When the body forms sperm or […]
June 4, 2020

Study ties stroke-related brain blood vessel abnormality to gut bacteria

NIH funded study supports link between high levels of gram-negative bacteria and a stroke- seizure- and headache-inducing vascular malformation. In a nationwide study, NIH funded researchers found that the presence of abnormal bundles of brittle blood vessels in the brain or spinal cord, called cavernous angiomas (CA), are linked to […]
June 4, 2020

New Cancer Immunotherapy Targeting Myeloid Cells Slows Tumor Growth

Checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy, that target myeloid immune cells and slow tumor growth were discovered by a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions. Reporting in Nature Cancer, the researchers showed for the first time in human cells and a mouse model that inhibiting the […]
June 4, 2020

Tracking cancer’s immortality factor

Canadian scientists have achieved a first in the study of telomerase, an essential enzyme implicated in aging and cancer. In today’s edition of the prestigious journal Molecular Cell, scientists from Université de Montréal used advanced microscopy techniques to see single molecules of telomerase in living cells. A flaw in the replication […]
June 3, 2020

Isotopes – Improved process for medicine

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have discovered a better way to separate actinium-227, a rare isotope essential for an FDA-approved cancer treatment. To produce Ac-227, researchers recover radium-226 from obsolete medical devices and fabricate it into targets that are irradiated in the High Flux Isotope Reactor. Ac-227 is then separated from […]
June 3, 2020

New Therapeutic Possibilities on the Horizon – Targeted Protein Destruction Made Better

A team of scientists from Japan recently achieved more efficient degradation of the human serum albumin protein―an important protein in the blood―via high-intensity infrared irradiation, by attaching a zinc metal complex to the protein. Their findings indicate the potential for future application of certain metal complexes to therapeutic interventions for […]