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The diagnosis of diseases like cancer almost always needs a biopsy – a procedure where a clinician removes a piece of suspect tissue from the body to examine it, typically under a microscope. Many areas of diagnostic medicine, especially cancer management, have seen huge advances in technology, with genetic sequencing, […]

University of Manchester scientists have cast new light on how our skin repairs itself, bringing the possibility of regeneration of the organ a step closer. The study team, funded by the Medical Research Council and Helmut Horten Foundation, showed the activation of specific parts of the DNA leading to better division of human skin cells. […]

New research has uncovered a possible link between vitamin D deficiency and impaired muscle function, which could help older adults better maintain muscle strength as they age. A study led by Dr Andrew Philp from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, recently published in the Journal of Endocrinology, used experimental models to […]

The gut microbiome is a highly varied collection of microbial populations that acts in symbiosis with the body to process food and provide needed metabolites. With age, there is a detrimental shift in these populations. Those generating useful metabolites, such as butyrate, diminish in number. Those capable of infiltrating tissue, […]

A new study in laboratory rats has discovered a direct link between low oxygen in the womb and impaired memory function in the adult offspring. It also finds that anti-oxidant supplements during pregnancy may protect against this. Low oxygen in the womb – known as chronic fetal hypoxia – is […]

A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford, published today in Nature Medicine, identifies fetal head growth patterns that are associated with different developmental, behavioural, visual and growth outcomes at 2 years of age. The researchers identify, for the first time, a critical time period during pregnancy from […]

An international team, led by Stefan Raunser, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, in collaboration with Mathias Gautel at the King's College in London, has produced the first high-resolution 3D image of the sarcomere, the basic contractile unit of skeletal and heart muscle cells, by […]

Myelin is tremendously important for the correct and rapid transmission of electrical signals in the brain. This lipid-rich membrane, which wraps axons, is damaged in certain degenerative nerve disorders. Most of these are rare hereditary diseases with serious clinical courses. Generation of induced oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (iOPCs) from somatic fibroblasts […]

The new “LOOP Zurich – Medical Research Center” promotes patient-focused therapies – for example in oncology and neuro-rehabilitation. To achieve its goals, the centre brings together specialist knowledge in the fields of biomedicine, clinical research and bioinformatics from the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich as well as Zurich’s four university […]

The University of Toronto has partnered with Markham, Ont.-based Edesa Biotech on laboratory studies of a drug that physicians are already using at Canadian hospitals in a clinical trial for some of their sickest patients. Researchers at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine are about to receive their first shipment of the drug, […]

For cancer patients, the use of hematopoietic stem cell transplants can be a game-changer in terms of treatment and recovery. However, most people need to undergo a combination of chemotherapy and radiation before transplants become an option. A new article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the […]

Scientists have identified a potential drug target for treating obesity and eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, a condition for which no therapeutics are currently available. In a new study scheduled to publish in Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University pinpoints […]