General

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 […]

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 […]

Collagen is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up skin, bone, tendons and other soft tissues. Its fibrous nature helps cells to move throughout the body, but until now, it wasn’t clear how the length of fibers influences how cells move in groups. Amit Pathak, a mechanical engineer in […]

A paradox of food insecurity in wealthy countries is its association with excess weight. Now, a study led by researchers at UC San Francisco finds that young adults in the United States who are food insecure not only are slightly more likely to be obese, they are significantly more likely […]

The power of mitochondrial science has the potential to unlock new solutions for heart failure, according to a working group co-chaired by researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Boston University School of Medicine and convened by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at the National […]

Gene editing will be tested in UW Medicine labs on kidney organoids – tiny, kidney-like structures grown from stem cells – as part of a federally funded effort to develop safe, effective genome editing technologies and therapies. The National Institutes of Health announced the next set of grant awards for the […]

New magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided radiation therapy technologies, designed to improve the targeting and treatment of cancerous tumors, have been added to the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center,  making it the first site in New England to be able to provide advanced, real-time, pinpoint-accurate MRI-guided […]

Women who experience complications such as preterm births and preeclampsia during their first pregnancy are nearly twice more likely than women without complications to develop high blood pressure later in life — some as quickly as three years later, according to a new study of more than 4,000 women. The study […]

Ovarian cancer is the eighth most commonly occurring cancer in women – it is not very common. And in most cases disease cannot be detected in patients after they receive a course of chemotherapy and a surgery. However, 70 % of ovarian cancer patients relapse and then the disease becomes […]

A nurse scientist at Case Western Reserve University is further expanding her research on aging-related health challenges increasingly faced by people living longer with HIV-AIDS. Allison Webel, an associate professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve, has for more than a decade focused on […]

Nearly 150,000 cancer-related deaths can be attributed annually to Epstein-Barr (EBV) virus, in part because of the lack of effective treatment options. Now, a research team has created the first comprehensive map of interactions between the genes of the virus and host cells in EBV-associated cancers, knowledge that could lead […]

Like the mythological phoenix bird, gene therapy has risen from the ashes and is spreading its wings. September 17 marked 20 years since the death of 19-year-old Jesse Gelsinger in a gene therapy trial. That tragedy halted the fledgling field, with the outlook worsening when, soon after, boys with an […]

Scientists have identified a pair of molecules critical for T cells, part of the immune system, to travel to and populate the lungs. A potential application could be strengthening vaccines against respiratory pathogens such as influenza. The findings were published online in Journal of Experimental Medicine. Much research on immunity […]

A new study, published in Aging Cell, has found that human ageing processes may hinder cancer development. Ageing is one of the biggest risk factor for cancer. However, the biological mechanisms behind this link are still unclear. Each cell in the human body is specialised to carry out certain tasks and […]

Imagine cancer treatment without chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. Just a small aspirin-like pill. Sound like magic? That’s because it kind of is, according to Khaled Barakat, a University of Alberta biophysicist searching for innovative immunotherapies that could help knock out multiple types of cancer simply by empowering the immune system. “We […]

Most women now know to how to check for breast cancer.  And a yearly pap smear to check for cervical cancer is de rigueur.  But awareness of endometrial cancer, not so much. That bothers Dr. Kemi Doll, a gynecologic oncologist with the University of Washington School of Medicine. “The truth is, this is […]

There are 20 amino acids in the standard genetic code. A Rice University professor wants to know what one can do with 21. Rice chemist Han Xiao has landed a $1.8 million National Institutes of Health grant to learn how a custom-designed 21st amino acid could be employed to make life-saving substances — and […]

A new discovery about pancreatic cancer sheds light on how the cancer fuels its growth and may help explain how promising cancer drugs work – and for whom they will fail. The finding one day could help doctors determine which treatments will be most effective for patients, so that they […]

Radiation therapy can be a very effective way to treat cancer – tumour are zapped with a very accurate and very sharp beam of radiation. However, despite the machines being incredibly precise, the treatment might be compromised by the patient’s movement. Now scientists from the University of Birmingham demonstrated that […]

World War 2 was a global-scale conflict and, therefore, soldiers had to work in mosquito-ridden areas. Malaria was just as big of a threat back then as it is today and a sick soldier is a soldier in danger. That is why they were administered quinacrine. Now scientists at the […]

You would get cancer all the time, if your body was not ready to react and suppress the starting disease. Immune system recognizes young cancer cells and kills them. Then there are tumour fighting genes, which stop cancer cells from dividing and spreading. Sadly, cancer is a sneaky disease, able […]

For a long time, the contents of cells were thought to be fairly unstructured and chaotic: a mixture of proteins, DNA and a multitude of small metabolic molecules. Although important cellular processes in plants and animals were known to take place in organelles (larger structures enclosed by a membrane, such […]

We definitely need sleep. However, some people sleep more than others.That oftentimes depends on how busy and healthy people are. Now scientists from the University of Helsinki  quarter of a million nights of sleep to see what factors influence it the most. The age or participants in this study ranged […]

A study of 280,000 U.S. veterans including 56,000 African Americans has identified in greater detail than ever before the “genetic architecture” of kidney function and chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and their colleagues. The report, published recently in the journal Nature Communications, is an important […]

While blood samples can reliably identify people with a low risk of developing severe liver disease, better methods are needed in primary care for identifying people in most need of care. These are some of the conclusions of a large registry-based study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in the […]

Some of the most important tools in the toolbox of modern cell biologists are special chunks of DNA that act like spies, reporting on the cell's function. The markers, known as reporter genes, allow researchers to get a sense for what cells are doing by watching genetic programs embedded in […]

The Queen Mary University of London team applied an artificial intelligence (AI) technique to analyse the heart MRI images of 17,000 healthy UK Biobank volunteers. They found that genetic factors accounted for 22-39 per cent of variation in the size and function of the heart’s left ventricle, the organ’s main […]

Teenagers got 43 more minutes of sleep a night after a four-week intervention that reset their body clocks and helped them go to bed earlier, a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown. The treatment had two components: brief, early morning flashes of bright, broad-spectrum white light to reset […]

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed a platform that uses nanoparticles known as metal-organic frameworks to deliver a promising anti-cancer agent to cells. Research led by Dr David Fairen-Jimenez, from the Cambridge Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, indicates metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) could present a viable platform for delivering […]

In human cell cultures, countering a defect that appears to be nearly universal among patients with Parkinson’s disease prevents death in the cells whose loss causes the disease. Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have pinpointed a molecular defect that seems almost universal among patients with Parkinson’s disease and those […]