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Tulane University researchers found the bacterium that causes Lyme disease in the brain tissue of a woman who had long suffered neurocognitive impairment after her diagnosis and treatment for the tick-borne disease. The presence of the corkscrew-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes in the former Lyme disease patient’s brain and spinal cord were evidence […]

During an inflammatory response, things need to happen quickly: ETH Zurich researchers have recently discovered that certain immune cells that function as security guards can use a shortcut to get from the tissue to lymph nodes. In its response to pathogens and vaccines, our immune system relies on dendritic cells. […]

The individual members of a very small number of species are functionally immortal. These are all lower animals that exhibit a profound capacity for regeneration and lack sophisticated nervous systems, such as hydra or jellyfish. A hydra is essentially a hunger-motivated bundle of stem cells, at least from the perspective […]

Rice University bioengineers are fabricating and testing tunable electrospun scaffolds completely derived from decellularized skeletal muscle to promote the regeneration of injured skeletal muscle. Their paper in Science Advances shows how natural extracellular matrix can be made to mimic native skeletal muscle and direct the alignment, growth and differentiation of myotubes, one of the building […]

The liver serves many critical functions within the human body, including the production of critical proteins, and the removal of waste and toxins. But when damage occurs to the largest organ in the body, many people do not experience symptoms until serious damage has occurred. When the liver becomes scarred, […]

A groundbreaking study led by engineering and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how engineered immune cells used in new cancer therapies can overcome physical barriers to allow a patient’s own immune system to fight tumors. The research could improve cancer therapies in the future for […]

Researchers at UC San Francisco have observed a new feature of neural activity in the hippocampus – the brain’s memory hub – that may explain how this vital brain region combines a diverse range of inputs into multi-layered memories that can later be recalled. Using a special “micro-grid” recording device […]

Did you know that more than 90,000 Canadians are living with multiple sclerosis (MS)? That’s more than the number of people with HIV in the country. And yet it’s not widely talked about. Nathalie Arbour and Catherine Larochelle, researchers at the CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) and neurosciences professors at Université de Montréal, along […]

A gene called GAS2 plays a key role in normal hearing, and its absence causes severe hearing loss, according to a study led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers, whose findings are published online in Developmental Cell, discovered that the protein encoded by GAS2 is crucial […]

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health determined that stomach inflammation is regulated differently in male and female mice after finding that androgens, or male sex hormones, play a critical role in preventing inflammation in the stomach. The finding suggests that physicians could consider treating male patients with stomach inflammation […]

Our body’s relationship with bacteria is complex. While infectious bacteria can cause illness, our gut is also teeming with “good” bacteria that aid nutrition and helps keep us healthy. But even the “good” can have bad effects if these bacteria end up in tissues and organs where they’re not supposed […]

What if you could predict which cells might become cancerous? Breast tissue changes dramatically throughout a woman’s life, so finding markers for sudden changes that can lead to cancer is especially difficult. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Associate Professor Camila dos Santos and her team identified and catalogued thousands of normal human and […]