General

Scientists have discovered that beluga whales and narwhals go through the menopause – taking the total number of species known to experience this to five. Aside from humans, the species now known to experience menopause are all toothed whales – belugas, narwhals, killer whales and short-finned pilot whales. Almost all […]

Losing just one night of sleep can have a negative impact on human metabolism at the tissue level, according to a study published last week. The findings may explain how long-term shift work and chronic sleep loss can impair metabolism and adversely affect human body composition. Previous studies have shown that the risk […]

More than 100 years ago, German Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich popularized the “magic bullet” concept — a method that clinicians might one day use to target invading microbes without harming other parts of the body. Although chemotherapies have been highly useful as targeted treatments for cancer, unwanted side effects still […]

Immune cells in the eye that developed in response to early exposure to bacteria are a key contributor to progressive vision loss from glaucoma, the second leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world, according to new research from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Eye and Ear and MIT. The findings, published […]

Researchers funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) have reversed congenital blindness in mice by changing supportive cells in the retina called Müller glia into rod photoreceptors. The findings advance efforts toward regenerative therapies for blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. A report of the findings […]

In a new study, researchers developed a gene expression predictor that can indicate whether melanoma in a specific patient is likely to respond to treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors, a novel type of immunotherapy. The predictor was developed by Noam Auslander, Ph.D., with other researchers in the Center for Cancer […]

A team of researchers working in the fields of engineering and medicine at the University of Central Florida (UCF) has recently developed a new artificial intelligence system capable of spotting often-missed cancerous tumours. “I believe this will have a very big impact,” said group leader and Engineering Assistant Professor Ulas […]

For the first time, researchers have seen how proteins involved in the daily biological clock interact with each other, helping them to further understand a process tied to numerous metabolic and eating disorders, problems with shift work, jet lag and mental health issues. Working with the clock proteins KaiA, KaiB […]

New technology developed by a team of McGill University scientists shows potential to streamline the analysis of proteins, offering a quick, high volume and cost-effective tool to hospitals and research labs alike. Proteins found in blood provide scientists and clinicians with key information on our health. These biological markers can […]

Acute Liver Failure occurs when a healthy liver is so seriously damaged it can no longer regrow and recover, leaving patients in urgent need of transplant. The liver helps support almost every other organ, by removing toxins, as well as making and storing the proteins and energy sources the body […]

All growth and reproduction relies on a cell’s ability to replicate its chromosomes and produce accurate copies of itself. Every step of this process takes place within that cell. Based on this observation, scientists have studied the replication and segregation of chromosomes as a phenomenon exclusively internal to the cell. They […]

A University of Adelaide-led team of scientists has suggested a potential link between iron in our cells and the rare gene mutations that cause Alzheimer’s disease, which could provide new avenues for future research. In a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team proposes a new theory […]

Investigators have discovered that arsenic in combination with an existing leukemia drug work together to target a master cancer regulator. The team, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is hopeful that the discovery could lead to new treatment strategies […]

More than two-thirds of women with ovarian cancer have high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC). Up to 90 percent of HGSCs are not detected until they are beyond the ovaries or fallopian tubes, at which point it may not be possible to fully remove the tumor. Many of these cancers are now […]

Eating a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and low in added sugar, sodium and processed meats could help promote healthy cellular aging in women, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. “The key takeaway is that following a healthy diet […]

A new technology developed by Purdue University researchers allows different concentrations of a drug or a chemical to be targeted at different areas of the same cancerous tissue in the laboratory. The discovery may help the more than 1.7 million people the National Cancer Institute predicts will be diagnosed with […]

A special strain of soil bacteria has the paradoxical ability to produce highly toxic compounds to protect itself from other organisms without harming itself. A collaboration that includes scientists from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has discovered that the bacteria performs this feat by confining the toxic […]

Queen and worker honeybees are almost genetically identical but are fed a different diet as larvae. The researchers have found that specific protein patterns on their genome play an important role in determining which one they develop into. These proteins, known as histones, act as switches that control how the […]

Researchers from the University of Oxford, in collaboration with researchers from Canada and the Universities of Bristol and London, have used advanced magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether factors such as blood pressure, fitness, smoking and alcohol intake during young adult life are associated with changes in the blood vessels […]

The last year has seen milestones in the gene therapy field, with FDA approvals to treat cancer and an inherited blinding disorder. New findings from a team led by University of Pennsylvania vision scientists, who have taken gene therapies into clinical trials in the past, are proving successful, this time treating a form […]

An unexpected link between iron and fatty acids may be juicing the metabolism of ovarian cancer cells, report UConn Health researchers in the journal OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology. The findings could suggest new avenues of research for cancer treatments. Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths […]

Humankind still dreams of breaking from the bounds of Earth’s atmosphere and venturing to the moon, Mars and beyond. But once astronauts blast past the International Space Station, they become exposed to one of the many dangers of deep space: galactic cosmic radiation. The effects of deep space radiation are […]

New research highlights the extent to which epigenetic variation is influenced by both inherited and environmental factors. Epigenetic processes affect the expression or activity of genes without changing the underlying DNA sequence and are believed to be one mechanism by which the environment can interact with the genome. Now, an […]

The study investigated the best combination of blood tests that could be used to diagnose myeloma in GP practices. The research was a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the University of Exeter and Chiddenbrook Surgery, Crediton, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and was published in […]

A high-energy molecule present in every cell, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), is the form of stored energy used to accomplish much of a cell’s activities. A new theory of aging published in the journal BioEssays addresses the link between ATP levels and aging, based on broad research showing that stored energy levels decrease […]

Researchers at Yale School of Public Health and their scientific partners have found that having a depressed spouse can increase one’s own depressive symptoms as well as cognitive decline over time in late life. The findings are published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. “Because spouses’ emotions and intellectual activities […]

According to a new prospective cohort study and meta-analysis, published 16 August 2018 in the journal The Lancet Public Health, advocates of both very high and very low carbohydrate diets are wrong about which approach is best for health. The aim of the paper was to assess “whether the substitution […]

Polyploidal cancer cells—cells that have more than two copies of each chromosome—are much larger than most other cancer cells, are resistant to chemotherapy and radiation treatments and are associated with disease relapse. A new study by Brown University researchers is the first to reveal key physical properties of these “giant” cancer cells. […]

The more scientists explore so-called “junk” DNA, the less the label seems to fit. Only an estimated two percent of the human genome encodes for functional proteins that carry out normal biological processes. The remaining approximately 98 percent—the “junk DNA”—has for many years been considered a useless artifact. Some junk […]

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that women whose mothers lived to at least age 90 were more likely to also live to 90, free of serious diseases and disabilities. The study, published in Age and Ageing, found women whose mothers lived into their ninth […]