General

Researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have developed a computational model to calculate ‘skeletal age’, a personalised estimate of an individual’s risk of bone fracture and premature death. The skeletal age calculator, which will be accessible to doctors and health professionals, aims to better identify those at risk […]

Exposure to radiation can wreak indiscriminate havoc on cells, tissues, and organs. Curiously, however, some tissues are more vulnerable to radiation damage than others. Scientists have known these differences involve the protein p53, a well-studied tumour-suppressor protein that initiates a cell’s auto-destruct programs. Yet, levels of this sentinel protein are […]

NIH researchers take “deep dive” into brain’s transcriptome. A new study suggests that differences in the expression of gene transcripts – readouts copied from DNA that help maintain and build our cells – may hold the key to understanding how mental disorders with shared genetic risk factors result in different patterns […]

Did you know that heart attack and stroke are the number one cause of premature death for women in Canada? Or that Canadian women are five times more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer? Or that 53 per cent of women who have heart attack symptoms go […]

New research at the University of Alberta has revealed a way to increase the sensitivity to immunotherapy of a rare type of cells within a tumour that are responsible for treatment resistance and breast cancer progression. The study, recently published in the journal Cancer Letters, could pave the way to better treatment […]

Professor Kimitaka Nakazawa, a specialist in neurorehabilitation, first had the opportunity to study the brain activity of a Paralympic gold medalist in January 2016, when he visited a university pool in the United States as part of an NHK television program called “Chojin-tachi no Paralympic” [The superhuman Paralympians]. He was […]

Rice University’s programmable CRISPR/Cas9-based kinase offers insights into, control over regulatory histone proteins. Finding a needle in a haystack is hard enough. But try finding a specific molecule on the needle. Rice University researchers have achieved something of the sort with a new genome-editing tool that targets the supporting players […]

COVID-19 is a very dangerous disease, but risks are not equal to everyone. Older people are facing higher risks of complications from COVID-19 and should be protected more. Now scientists at the University of Birmingham have shown that frail individuals are much more likely to die from COVID-19. Frailty is […]

Scientists from Skoltech and A.I. Burnazyan Federal Medical and Biophysical Center have designed and developed a second opinion system, based on AI-assisted video analysis, which can help medical professionals to objectively assess patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) even at an early stage. This approach can help avoid misdiagnosing this disease, […]

We know that what happens in the mouth doesn’t stay in the mouth – but the oral cavity’s connection to the rest of the body goes way beyond chewing, swallowing and digestion. The healthy human oral microbiome consists of not just clean teeth and firm gums, but also energy-efficient bacteria […]

A new approach to treating one of the leading causes of blindness among patients with diabetes is being tested in clinical trials which begin this month. The trial involves 48 patient volunteers with diabetic macular oedema (DMO), a disease where blood vessels leak fluid into the retina. It is the […]

At any moment in the human body, in about 30 trillion cells, DNA is being “read” into molecules of messenger RNA, or mRNA, the intermediary step between DNA and proteins, in a process called transcription. Scientists have a good idea of how transcription gets started. Proteins called RNA polymerases are […]

Dynamic, delicate connection between protein filaments enables hearing. The sense of hearing is, quite literally, a molecular tightrope act. Turns out, it involves acrobatics as well. In a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital show that a dynamic and delicate connection between two […]

In cells, numerous important biochemical functions take place within spherical chambers made from proteins and RNA. These compartments are akin to specialized rooms inside a house, but their architecture is radically different: They don’t have walls. Instead, they take the form of liquid droplets that don’t have a membrane, forming […]

While eating less and moving more are the basics of weight control and obesity treatment, finding ways to help people adhere to a weight-loss regimen is more complicated. Understanding what features make a diet easier or more challenging to follow can help optimize and tailor dietary approaches for obesity treatment. […]

A University of Iowa study finds people who work long-term in the agricultural industry have 46% greater odds of developing dementia than those in other fields. Professor Kanika Arora in the U-I College of Public Health, says hearing impairment, depression and isolation can all be linked to dementia and to […]

Findings from a new study on Alzheimer’s disease (AD), led by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), could eventually help clinicians identify people at highest risk for developing the irreversible, progressive brain disorder and pave the way for treatments that slow or prevent its onset. The research, published in […]

Neuroscientists at McMaster University have found a link between children who are at risk for developmental coordination disorder (DCD), a common condition that can cause clumsiness, and difficulties with time perception such as interpreting changes in rhythmic beats. Accurate time perception is crucial for basic skills such as walking and […]

Artificial intelligence is going to become a great diagnostics tool in medicine. It can notice details in images that go unnoticed for a human eye. However, up until now it was almost impossible to imagine AI being used to diagnose mental conditions. Now scientists at the University of Birmingham have […]

One of the worst problems of our times is air pollution. Our transport and industries produce poisonous gases that all people, especially the ones in the city, have to breathe. Of course it is not healthy – scientists have found associations between air pollution and all kinds of diseases, including […]

University of Missouri researchers develop a noninvasive way for identifying the major functions of the gastrointestinal tract. A healthy person has a general balance of good and bad bacteria. But that balance is thrown off when someone gets sick. So, to help boost their levels of good bacteria, many people […]

Powerful Frog-Embryo Model Unveils New Role for Risk Genes, Protective Effect of Estrogen. A new study of autism risk genes by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley scientists implicates disruption in prenatal neurogenesis – a process in which specialized “progenitor” cells give rise to new brain cells – in the […]

A newly discovered genetic condition caused by faulty protein synthesis which causes delayed development and learning difficulties could be treated by a compound originally isolated from human sperm, say, scientists. The University of Manchester researchers, with collaborators from the UK, France and US, identified rare changes in a gene called […]

Our cells are filled with ‘bones,' in a sense. Thin, flexible protein strands called actin filaments help support and move around the bulk of the cells of eukaryotes, which includes all plants and animals. Always on the go, actin filaments constantly grow, shrink, bind with other things, and branch off […]

Amyloid-beta and tau are the two key abnormal protein deposits that accumulate in the brain during the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Detecting the buildup of these proteins at an early stage may allow clinicians to intervene before the condition has a chance to take hold. A team led by Harvard […]

For patients with cancers that do not respond to immunotherapy drugs, adjusting the composition of microorganisms in the intestines — known as the gut microbiome — through the use of stool, or fecal, transplants may help some of these individuals respond to the immunotherapy drugs, a new study suggests. Researchers […]

All things being equal, large, long-lived animals should have the highest risk of cancer. The calculation is simple: Tumors grow when genetic mutations cause individual cells to reproduce too quickly. A long life creates more opportunities for those cancerous mutations to arise. So, too, does a massive body: Big creatures […]

For the millions of Americans living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), access to specialized geriatric providers — such as geriatricians — could improve the quality of their care. However, these providers are often in short supply, raising questions about access to the unique care that dementia patients need. […]

Researchers can now determine the age and sex of living beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet thanks to a new DNA-based technique that uses information from small samples of skin tissue. Accurate age estimates are vital to conservation efforts for Cook Inlet belugas, which were listed as endangered following a significant population […]

In biological cells, proteins are everywhere: these building blocks of life perform countless important functions. A human cell contains thousands of different proteins at any given time, often with copies of each protein type present in their hundreds or even thousands simultaneously. In recent years, researchers have succeeded in using […]