General

Researchers at King’s College London and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience have shown that rats with spinal cord injuries can re-learn skilled hand movements after being treated with a gene therapy. People with spinal cord injury often lose the ability to perform everyday actions that require coordinated hand movements, such as […]

Cornell researchers have discovered there is a division of labor among immune cells that fight invading pathogens in the body. The study, published in the journal Cell, finds for the first time that fetal immune cells are present in adults and have specialized roles during infection. In fact, the first immune […]

Rats with spinal cord injuries regained the use of their limbs after receiving a new gene therapy which helps mend damaged nerves in the spine. The new therapy works by inducing cells to produce an enzyme called chondroitinase which breaks down the thick scar tissue surrounding the site of injury, […]

CRISPR-Cas9 is a molecular machine first discovered in bacteria that can be programmed to go to an exact place in the genome, where it cuts the DNA. These precise ‘molecular scissors’ can be used to correct faulty pieces of DNA and are currently being used in clinical trials for cancer […]

A large proportion of the American public opts to receive cancer screenings with the hope that testing will reduce their chance of cancer death. Now, a team led by University of Missouri psychological science researchers has determined that patients may want cancer screenings even if the potential harms outweigh the benefits. Researchers […]

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine discovered that they can block inflammation in mice with a naturally occurring antibody that binds oxidized phospholipids (OxPL), molecules on cell surfaces that get modified by inflammation. Even while on a high-fat diet, the antibody protected the mice from arterial […]

The University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), Fujitsu Limited, and Kowa Company Ltd. today announced that using IT-based drug discovery technologies, which entails computer-based virtual design and evaluation, they have successfully created new small molecule compounds that can inhibit cancer-causing “target proteins,” and that demonstrate […]

Multiple genes are implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Some are linked to early-onset Alzheimer’s, a condition that develops in one’s 30s, 40s and 50s, while others are associated with the more common late-onset form of the disease. Eventually, all Alzheimer’s patients develop dementia, and their brain cells die. But not all […]

The cerebral cortex—the brain’s epicenter of high-level cognitive functions, such as memory formation, attention, thought, language and consciousness—has fascinated neuroscientists for centuries. Scientists have long known that this command center is organized into six distinct regions, or layers, but how this complex organization arises during development has remained largely a mystery. […]

Male guppies exposed to predators in the wild or in captivity have heavier brains than those living in relatively predator-free conditions, according to new research published in the journal Functional Ecology. Behavioural ecologists at McGill University in Montreal sampled guppies from two rivers in northern Trinidad. In each river, guppies live […]

When the general public thinks of HIV, they do not think of a neurological disease, yet people living with HIV infection know they need to worry about their brain health. Untreated, HIV can cause severe dementia. Even with good control of the infection, a third or more of patients have […]

The first patients are expected to benefit from the new improved images in 2018. The project revolves around infrared light and finding the ideal wavelengths. Optical crystal fibres and laser technology. And shrinking a laser source that roughly fills two offices into shoebox-sized device. It draws on extensive knowledge of […]

For decades, MRI scans have delivered stunningly beautiful images of the body’s anatomy. It is now possible to use MRI imaging at cellular level to observe cell metabolism. This is particularly useful in cancer treatment. With the help of a new technology, doctors may be able to determine on the […]

Diabetes affects more than 400 million individuals worldwide. In what is becoming a paradigm shift, researchers have begun to find that the disease may result in part through pancreatic beta cells losing their functional identity and shutting down their ability to release the blood sugar-lowering hormone, insulin. Researchers from the […]

By instructing key immune system cells to accept transplanted insulin-producing islets, researchers have opened a potentially new pathway for treating type 1 diabetes. If the approach is ultimately successful in humans, it could allow type 1 diabetes to be treated without the long-term complications of immune system suppression. The technique, […]

An experimental drug that blocks abnormal neural communication after spinal cord injury could one day be the key to improving quality of life by improving bladder function, new research suggests. Researchers at The Ohio State University tested the drug – which is currently available only for research – to gauge […]

Tumour growth and spread rely on angiogenesis, a process of growing new blood vessels that supply the cancer cells with nutrients and hormones, including glucose (sugar). Treatment with antiangiogenic drugs reduces the number of blood vessels in the tumour as well as the blood glucose supply. Many such drugs have […]

You are what you eat. Or so the saying goes. Science now tells us that we are what the bacteria living in our intestinal tract eat and this could have an influence on how well we age. Building on this, McGill University scientists fed fruit flies with a combination of […]

If you’re up there in age and feel like you can coast as a couch potato, you may want to reconsider. A new study suggests, for the first time in women over age 70, that working up a sweat can reduce the influence one’s genes have on obesity. “Our sample, […]

For decades, clinicians treating multiple sclerosis (MS) have interpreted the appearance of new or expanding brain lesions on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans as a sign that a patient’s disease is getting worse. Now, University at Buffalo researchers are finding that it may be the atrophy or disappearance of these […]

What was fiction on a recent episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” is being pioneered for real at the University of Virginia Health System. The episode “Hold Back the River” featured the show’s doctors using focused sound waves to treat a brain mass known as a hypothalamic hamartoma in a young boy. […]

As cancer patients become increasingly ill toward the end of their lives, their pain often intensifies and increases in frequency. This is distressing not only to the patient, but also to the patient’s caregivers, often a spouse or partner. Effectively managing that pain with medications and other therapies is of […]

Enamel, located on the outer part of our teeth, is the hardest tissue in the body and enables our teeth to function for a large part of our lifetime despite biting forces, exposure to acidic foods and drinks and extreme temperatures. This remarkable performance results from its highly organised structure. […]

Arriving early or late can have big consequences for early-stage cells that gather to form a new kidney, USC researchers discovered. The scientists showed how progenitor cells that form the kidney’s filtering units, called nephrons, mature into entirely different types of cells based on when they reach the scene of […]

Using a novel imaging method, Harvard Medical School investigators based at Massachusetts General Hospital have shed light on the mechanisms behind a potential targeted treatment for a form of the deadly brain tumors called gliomas. In a report published in Nature Communications, the research team describes using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) imaging to […]

Risk factors for heart disease and stroke appear to hasten the risk of cognitive decline in normal older individuals with evidence of very early Alzheimer’s disease-associated changes in the brain, according to a new study by Harvard Medical School investigators based at Massachusetts General Hospital. Vascular risk factors increase the […]

Stem cell researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital have, for the first time, profiled a highly elusive kind of stem cell in the early embryo—a cell so fleeting that it makes its entrance and exit within a 12-hour span. They described this “poised pluripotent” cell in the […]

A novel approach to immunotherapy developed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has led to the complete regression of breast cancer in a patient who was unresponsive to all other treatments. This patient received the treatment in a clinical trial led by Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., chief […]

Homeowners know that one little termite can lead to big problems: while termites are efficient at gnawing away at wood, they can do even more damage if the wood is already broken or has another defect. Mechanical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have found the same effect in […]

Most people with the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma die less than 18 months after diagnosis. But a multicenter clinical trial of a personalized vaccine that targets the aggressive cancer has indicated improved survival rates for such patients. The study appears in the Journal of Translational Medicine. The phase three clinical […]