Robot

A delicate operation that involved placing a gene into the brain was found to reduce the severity of motor symptoms in patients with moderately advanced Parkinson’s disease, whose symptoms were no longer controlled by their medications. In a phase I gene therapy trial led by UC San Francisco, 15 patients […]

Chemistry researchers at Oregon State University have developed a method for making anti-leukemia compounds that until now have only been available via an Asian tree that produces them. The synthesis of cephalotaxine and homoharringtonine (HHT) paves the way toward less-expensive, more readily available leukemia drugs whose production is not subject […]

Immunotherapy, using the body’s own immune system to target and destroy cancer cells, is one of the most promising frontiers in cancer research, but many patients do not respond to the therapies for reasons not fully understood. Scientists at the Yale Systems Biology Institute have taken a step closer to understanding how […]

A team of worldwide researchers including engineers from the University of Utah have received a $9.7-million grant to design and develop a new implantable device and surgical procedure for the deaf that hopefully will cut through the noise and produce much more detailed sound than traditional hearing-loss treatments. This new […]

“Space pants” are part of a clinical trial researching heat therapy as a treatment option for peripheral artery disease. The countdown and final checklist review happen every morning for Stephen Scott. He gets up in the early morning hours to make his coffee. He turns on the TV. He channels […]

“Why does it feel that the time passes faster as we get older? What is the physical basis for the impression that some days are slower than others? Why do we tend to focus on the unusual (the surprise), not on the ever present?,” asks Adrian Bejan, the J.A. Jones […]

Aging affects every living organism, but the molecular processes that contribute to aging remain a subject of debate. While many things contribute to the aging process, one common theme in animal aging is inflammation—and this may be amplified by a class of selfish genetic elements. The human genome is littered […]

Not all cancer cells are created equal. Only a small number of cells in a patient’s initial tumor may have the power to travel through the blood, cross the protective membrane known as the blood-brain barrier, and directly attack the brain. But which cells? What makes them special? How can […]

Even premature babies carry anti-viral antibodies transferred from the mother, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report in a paper on maternal antibodies in newborns, published in the journal Nature Medicine. The results should change our approach to infection sensitivity in newborns, they say. Antibodies are transferred from the mother’s blood […]

For the first time, researchers have evidence that fibromyalgia can be reliably detected in blood samples – work they hope will pave the way for a simple, fast diagnosis. In a study that appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from The Ohio State University report success in identifying biomarkers of […]

Green tea cut obesity and a number of inflammatory biomarkers linked with poor health in a new study. Mice fed a diet of 2 percent green tea extract fared far better than those that ate a diet without it, a finding that has prompted an upcoming study of green tea’s […]

RNA transcribed from genes that seem not to code for anything may play an important role in regulating cancer, a new study suggests. A number of these noncoding RNA fragments lie next to known cancer genes, the study found. Understanding how they interact with those cancer genes could open new […]