General

Most Americans continue to sit for prolonged periods despite public health messages that such inactivity increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers, according to a major new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The research team analyzed surveys of […]

Slice it into a hundred pieces if you want, and the millimeters-long flatworm called a planarian won’t particularly care. Each piece can grow back into a new worm. But how they do that, and what scientists could learn about how to regenerate our own bodies, has remained mysterious because one of the […]

An international study led from Karolinska Institutet provides new insights into the regulatory T cells’ role in protecting against autoimmune disease. By mapping the targets of the immune system in patients with the rare disease IPEX, they were able to show that regulatory T cells control immunotolerance in the gut. […]

Pregnant women with type 1 diabetes are at increased risk of delivering their baby prematurely. The risk increases as blood sugar levels rise, however women who maintain the recommended levels also risk giving birth prematurely. These are the findings from researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden, […]

Scientists at the University of Bristol have invented a new technology that could lead to the development of a new generation of smart surgical glues and dressings for chronic wounds. The new method, pioneered by Dr Adam Perriman and colleagues, involves re-engineering the membranes of stem cells to effectively “weld” […]

Despite evolution driving a wide variety of differences, many plants function the same way. Now a new study has revealed the different genetic strategies various flowering plant species use to achieve the same status quo. In flowering plants, stem cells are critical for survival. Influenced by environmental factors, stem cells […]

Researchers have discovered a key clue into the development of the pancreas and brain by studying rare patients born without a pancreas. Published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the study revealed that all three patients without a pancreas and with abnormal brain development had an identical change in the CNOT1 gene. […]

An advance in the groundbreaking cancer treatment known as CAR T-cell therapy appears to eliminate its severe side effects, making the treatment safer and potentially available in outpatient settings, a new USC study shows. “This is a major improvement,” said Si-Yi Chen of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, professor in […]

What if doctors had a remote control that they could use to steer a patient’s own cells to a wound to speed up the healing process? Although such a device is still far from reality, researchers reporting in the ACS journal Nano Letters have taken an important first step: They used near-infrared […]

Around four million people in the UK carry genetic variants that protect them from obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, suggests new research from the University of Cambridge. The team say the discovery could lead to the development of new drugs that help people lose weight. Scientists have known […]

Treating breast tumors with two cancer drugs simultaneously may prevent endocrine resistance by attacking the disease along two separate gene pathways, scientists at the University of Illinois found in a new study. The two drugs used in the study, selinexor and 4-OHT, caused the cancer cells to die and tumors […]

Administering ibuprofen immediately after birth may reduce brain damage in tiny growth-restricted babies, University of Queensland researchers have found. The UQ Centre for Clinical Research’s Dr Julie Wixey said the drug could help reduce the incidence of serious long-term neurological problems in these babies. “It’s often difficult to diagnose babies at risk of being […]

Muscle damage is a common side effect of radiation therapy for cancer treatment, and is made worse because the very stem cells responsible for repairing injured muscles typically bear the brunt of radiation damage. Now UC San Francisco researchers have discovered a new type of stem cell in mouse muscles […]

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. and a growing problem around the world, but not because it’s a particularly difficult cancer to detect and halt. The problem, doctors and researchers believe, is that not enough people are being screened for early signs of […]

Explorers have dreamt for centuries of a Fountain of Youth, with healing waters that rejuvenate the old and extend life indefinitely. Researchers at the University of Rochester, however, have uncovered more evidence that the key to longevity resides instead in a gene. In a new paper published in the journal Cell, the […]

Radioactive antibodies that target cancer cells are used for medical diagnostics with PET imaging or for targeted radioimmunotherapy. Researchers from the University of Zurich have created a new method for radiolabelling antibodies using UV light. In less than 15 minutes, the proteins are ready-to-use for cancer imaging or therapy. Radioactive […]

A scheme that helped parents plan well-balanced family dinners for three months kept their children healthier for years after, a study has found. Low-income families who were given simple recipe kits to cook five healthy meals a week decreased their children’s body mass index (BMI) compared with peers who continued […]

Nearly 20 percent of children and adolescents and 14 percent of toddlers in the United States are obese. One contributing factor, among many possibilities, may be what a baby eats during their critical first six months of life and how it affects their continued growth. Ideally, breast milk is their […]

Treating the overproduction of one hormone may be a way to help a subset of the millions of Americans who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, according to a new study. People with obstructive sleep apnea stop breathing for short periods while they are sleeping, which leads to a poor night’s […]

SC researchers and collaborators report a breakthrough to prevent damage to the jaw, a side effect suffered by some people undergoing treatment for cancer or osteoporosis. The newly published research is an important step toward a cure for osteonecrosis of the jaw, a rare side effect caused by drugs commonly used to […]

A small clinical trial has shown that gene therapy can safely correct the immune systems of infants newly diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening inherited disorder in which infection-fighting immune cells do not develop or function normally. Eight infants with the disorder, called X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (X-SCID), received an experimental […]

About one in eight women in the U.S. will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. The vast majority of these cancers rely on the hormone estrogen to grow. Estrogen-receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer tumors are frequently treated with the drug tamoxifen, which blocks the hormone’s effect on the tumor. However, […]

A breast cancer cell is like a house with three locks on the front door. Keys, or receptors, allow drugs to unlock the door and kill the cell. However, in triple-negative breast cancer, these keys are absent, thereby resulting in few options for drug therapy, until now. A protein called […]

MU scientists advance a way to track changes in a person’s cardiovascular system Every heart beat sends blood flowing throughout the human body. While an electrocardiogram uses a contact approach to measure the electrical activity of the heart, a ballistocardiogram is a non-contact way of measuring the mechanical effect of […]

Synthetic biologists have added high-precision analog-to-digital signal processing to the genetic circuitry of living cells. The research, described online in the journal Science, dramatically expands the chemical, physical and environmental cues engineers can use to prompt programmed responses from engineered organisms. Using a biochemical process called cooperative assembly, Caleb Bashor of Rice University, Ahmad “Mo” […]

More than a quarter of children with autism spectrum disorder are also diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorders. For the first time, Yale researchers have identified a possible biological cause: a key mechanism that regulates emotion functions differently in the brains of the children who exhibit disruptive behavior. The study appears […]

Bacteria in the human body are sharing genes with one another at a higher rate than is typically seen in nature, and some of those genes appear to be traveling – independent of their microbial hosts – from one part of the body to another, researchers report in the journal […]

A prescription drug to treat high blood pressure has shown promise against conditions such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and forms of dementia in studies carried out in mice and zebrafish at the University of Cambridge. A common feature of these diseases – collectively known as neurodegenerative diseases – is the build-up […]

Children of mothers who had gestational diabetes during pregnancy could be at increased risk of type 1 diabetes themselves, according to a new study led by a team at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) that was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). Early detection of […]

Two proteins that bind to stress hormones work together to maintain a healthy heart in mice, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and their collaborators. These proteins, stress hormone receptors known as the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), act in concert to help support heart […]