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A Western-style diet triggers changes in the brain that may predispose patients to Alzheimer’s disease decades before they show any sign of cognitive decline, according to new research by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. In two studies, published in BMJ Open and in Neurology, the investigators showed that diet and insulin […]

Graphene enables structural analysis of naturally occurring amyloids. A new experimental method permits the X-ray analysis of amyloids, a class of large, filamentous biomolecules which are an important hallmark of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. An international team of researchers headed by DESY scientists has used a powerful X-ray […]

Cancer drops sparse chemical hints of its presence early on, but unfortunately, many of them are in a class of biochemicals that could not be detected thoroughly, until now. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have engineered a chemical trap that exhaustively catches what are called glycoproteins, including minuscule traces that have previously […]

A major hurdle to using neural stem cells derived from genetically different donors to replace damaged or destroyed tissues, such as in a spinal cord injury, has been the persistent rejection of the introduced material (cells), necessitating the use of complex drugs and techniques to suppress the host’s immune response. […]

A team from the University of Oxford and Cardiff University have used mathematical models to re-enact the complex process of brain development that occurs as initialising cells, otherwise known as progenitor cells, start to grow and begin to differentiate into more specialist cells at various points in time. By applying […]

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone cancer to affect dogs. It is a painful and aggressive disease. Affecting more than 10,000 dogs annually, predominantly larger breeds, it kills more than 85 percent within two years. Nicola Mason, a researcher and veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, is working […]

How strong are your hands? What‘s your handshake – firm and strong or maybe sloppy and relaxed? These are just some curious questions, but your grip strength is actually very important in terms of diagnostics. Scientists from the University of Glasgow say that a week grip could be a sign […]

Research by University of Alberta scientists into PD-1, a cell surface receptor that naturally plays a major role in de-escalating the body’s immune system, may explain why it can go haywire and cause autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes. “PD-1 has caused a lot of excitement in recent years as […]

By studying a rare liver disease called Alagille syndrome, scientists from UC San Francisco and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have discovered the mechanism behind an unusual form of tissue regeneration that may someday reduce the need for expensive and difficult-to-obtain organ transplants. The team’s findings, published in Nature, show that […]

UC San Francisco researchers have discovered a promising new line of attack against lethal, treatment-resistant prostate cancer. Analysis of hundreds of human prostate tumors revealed that the most aggressive cancers depend on a built-in cellular stress response to put a brake on their own hot-wired physiology. Experiments in mice and […]

Biochemist Dr Jody Mason has been awarded a prestigious Pioneer Award from Cancer Research UK to work on a new way of screening molecules which could become new cancer medicines. CRUK Pioneer Awards are given to scientists with innovative, higher risk ideas that could revolutionise our understanding of cancer. Dr Mason’s work […]

Automated breast-density evaluation was just as accurate in predicting women’s risk of breast cancer, found and not found by mammography, as subjective evaluation done by radiologists, in a study led by researchers at UC San Francisco and Mayo Clinic. Both assessment methods were equally accurate in predicting both the risk […]