General – Page 213 – Innovita Research
October 8, 2019

Study: To fight effects of sleep deprivation, reach for healthy snacks

Nutrition scientist  Maryam Hamidi, PhD, conducted research recently which required her to repeatedly stay awake from 8 a.m. until 5 a.m. the next day. As part of the study, she also needed to keep supplies of both healthy and unhealthy snacks stacked in her office. Then, somewhere along the line, […]
October 8, 2019

Yale researchers develop way to help brain organoids thrive

Brain organoids created from human embryonic stem cells offer scientists a powerful way to study the developing brain in three dimensions. However, organoids need nutrients and oxygen carried in blood to thrive, just as a developing fetal brain does. Now Yale researchers have developed a method to induce growth of […]
October 7, 2019

Immune Cell Identity Crisis: What Makes a Liver Macrophage a Liver Macrophage?

Every tissue in the human body has an immune cell in it called a macrophage. Macrophages play important roles in the immune system’s initial response to bacteria, viruses and wounds. But beyond that, each tissue macrophage also has specialized functions, tuned to the needs of that particular tissue. For example, […]
October 7, 2019

Deafness-causing protein deficiency makes brain rewire itself, research suggests

The brains of people with congenital deafness may be rewiring themselves in ways that affect how those people learn, suggesting a need to develop new teaching techniques tailored toward those who have never been able to hear. Published in Nature Scientific Reports, the findings by an Oregon State University research […]
October 7, 2019

Stanford chemist develop ‘infrared vision’ for cancer immunotherapy

Stanford chemists have developed a new deep-tissue imaging technique that can see beneath the skin of living subjects to illuminate buried tumors with unparalleled clarity. In a new study published in the issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, the researchers demonstrate how their technique can be used to predict the response […]
October 7, 2019

Turbo-charging the discovery process

Many scientists spend their lives conducting tests on a single gene but, in their quest to develop a drug that will repair injured spinal cords, researchers at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis are testing thousands of genes in hundreds of thousands of nerve cells in any given week. In […]
October 7, 2019

Young adults of South Asian descent face higher risk of prediabetes, diabetes

Compared to long-term residents, immigrants to Canada have a 40 per cent higher risk of developing prediabetes, which is an early predictor of an individual’s likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes and associated illnesses, like heart disease. Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the […]
October 5, 2019

Fruit flies live longer with combination drug treatment

A triple drug combination has been used to extend the lifespan of fruit flies by 48 percent in a new study led by the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, and the UCL. The three drugs are all already in use as medical treatments: lithium as […]
October 5, 2019

Delivery system can make RNA vaccines more powerful

Vaccines made from RNA hold great potential as a way to treat cancer or prevent a variety of infectious diseases. Many biotech companies are now working on such vaccines, and a few have gone into clinical trials. One of the challenges to creating RNA vaccines is making sure that the […]
October 5, 2019

New metabolic discovery may inform heart disease, diabetes solutions

Science may be inching closer to thwarting obesity, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, as Cornell biochemists have uncovered a key step in how the human body metabolizes sugar, according to new research published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Martha S. Field, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, has further […]
October 5, 2019

Damaged hearts can be repaired using a frozen silk trick

How do you repair a damaged heart? With love? Gifts of candy and flowers? Romantic actions? Well, no. A good way to repair a damaged heart is to patch it. Scientists from the University of New South Wales now demonstrated that you can patch the heart with a 3D printer, […]
October 5, 2019

Early menopause may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease

Even if we don’t think about it this way, we are still just a bunch of animals. We are mammals, connected to the laws of nature as tightly as the next species. And so our lives are divided into biological periods, which for women include menopause. However, for some women […]
October 4, 2019

Identifying a gene for canine night blindness

Creating an effective gene therapy for inherited diseases requires three key steps. First, scientists must identify and characterize the disease. Second, they must find the gene responsible. And finally, they must find a way to correct the impairment. Four years ago, a team from the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with […]
October 4, 2019

Key to Learning and Forgetting Identified in Sleeping Brain

Distinct patterns of electrical activity in the sleeping brain may influence whether we remember or forget what we learned the previous day, according to a new study by UC San Francisco researchers. The scientists were able to influence how well rats learned a new skill by tweaking these brainwaves while […]
October 4, 2019

Stem Cell Studies Offer Hope for Childhood Neurological Condition

Two new studies by an international team of researchers report progress in using stem cells to develop new therapies for Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD), a rare genetic condition affecting boys that can be fatal before 10 years of age. Often diagnosed at birth with symptoms of weakness and breathing difficulties, the […]
October 3, 2019

VR game gives users ‘eyes-on’ experience with vision loss

In a virtual world, a knight in full armour sits in front of me, expectantly waiting for me to deal them some playing cards. As the game progresses, a large black spot grows in the middle of my vision. I try to pick up the deck of cards from the […]
October 3, 2019

Engineered T Cells May Be Harnessed to Kill Solid Tumor Cells

There is now a multitude of therapies to treat cancer, from chemotherapy and radiation to immunotherapy and small molecule inhibitors. Chemotherapy is still the most widely used cancer treatment, but chemotherapy attacks all the rapidly dividing cells that it locates within the body, whether they're ultimately harmful or beneficial. A […]
October 3, 2019

Study will offer genetic cancer tests at primary-care level

It may sound odd, but most tests for hereditary cancer risks are prescribed by doctors after the patient has been diagnosed with cancer – past the time when such information would be prospectively most useful to the patient. With that backdrop, UW Medicine researchers will explore the feasibility and benefits of administering […]
October 3, 2019

Research to focus on small molecule that can help fight breast cancer

A biochemist at the University of California, Riverside, has received a grant from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, or CDMRP, of the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a novel lead compound to treat breast cancer, the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women. John Jefferson Perry, an assistant professor […]
October 3, 2019

Risk of Heart Valve Infections Rising in Hospitals

People with heart disease or defective or artificial heart valves are at increased risk of developing a potentially deadly valve infection. Rutgers researchers reported that new risk factors for this condition have emerged and that an increasing number of patients admitted to hospitals for other diseases are at risk of […]
October 3, 2019

Improved treatments for diseases like osteoarthritis a step closer thanks to new multimillion pound funding

A team of researchers from The University of Manchester will help “reveal fundamental rules of life” and, potentially, find improved treatments for diseases such as osteoarthritis and healing wounds. The team, from the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health (FBMH) and led by Principal Investigator, Professor Karl Kadler, have been awarded £4.6 […]
October 2, 2019

The first gene-edited birds – scientists are trying to fix our chickens

There are no wild chickens. It is an animal that humans pretty much invented by breeding wild fowls. And we continue improving our chickens until they have all of our desired characteristics. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird and it is incredibly important for us […]
October 2, 2019

New CRISPR-Cas9 variant may boost precision in gene editing

Researchers have developed a new variant of the gene editing technique CRISPR-Cas9 that has the potential to increase precision during gene therapy in humans. The new variant reduced unintended changes in DNA compared to its wildtype, suggesting it could play a role in gene therapies that require high precision. The […]
October 2, 2019

Surgical Innovation Course Fosters New Approach to Bone Healing

Within minutes of breaking a bone, the body begins to repair itself. The immune system sends in cells that act as housekeepers, sweeping out small bone pieces and killing germs. The body forms a soft protective callus to bridge the fracture and blood vessels that grow into the area to […]