General

Sperm doesn’t shift into high gear in mammals just to show off, new research shows. It originally needed that extra speed to break the egg barrier. Later on, evolution enabled sperm to use its souped-up swimming to navigate tricky reproductive pathways even before reaching the egg. That is the finding […]

Women who receive COVID-19 mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna while in their third trimester of pregnancy generate a strong immune response and pass protective antibodies through umbilical cord blood to their babies, according to a study conducted by Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian researchers, published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. […]

Using ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map the brains of people with Down syndrome (DS), researchers from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and other institutions detected subtle differences in the structure and function of the hippocampus—a region of the brain tied to memory and learning. Such […]

Adding RNA sequencing to current genetic methods could help diagnose and treat thousands of patients with mystery diseases. Imagine having a terrible medical condition and not knowing what it was. More than 400,000 Albertans have a rare disease. Many of them face challenges getting the right diagnosis, let alone finding […]

A research project from the lab of University of Oregon evolutionary biologist Bill Cresko is setting out to explore the effects of a remarkable evolutionary innovation: male pregnancy in seahorses, pipefish and seadragons. “This is an amazingly diverse family of fish, and some species are the only vertebrates in which […]

The National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, is seeking in vitro, stem-cell-derived 3-D human retina organoids. The goal of the challenge is to generate concrete prototypes of 3-D systems that model the cellular organization and function of the human retina. NEI is seeking innovative solutions […]

In October of 2020, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of an adaptable, easy way to edit genomes, known as CRISPR, which has transformed the world of genetic engineering. CRISPR has been used to fight lung cancer and correct the mutation […]

University of California, Irvine biologists have developed a new genetically engineered mouse model that, unlike its predecessors, is based on the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease. The advance holds promise for making new strides against the neurodegenerative disease as cases continue to soar. Their study appears in the journal, Nature […]

A combination of inexpensive oral medications may be able to treat fatigue-inducing anemias caused by chronic diseases and inflammation, a new discovery from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggests. This type of anemia is the second-most common kind, and it can be an added burden for organ-transplant recipients and […]

Imagine if you could re-engineer your immune system to target and attack cancer growing in your body. A new clinical trial led by a clinician-researcher at the University of Alberta is doing just that. Michael Chu, an assistant professor of oncology in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, is leading a […]

Immunotherapies that fight cancer have been a life-saving advancement for many patients, but the approach only works on a few types of malignancies, leaving few treatment options for most cancer patients with solid tumors. Now, in two related papers published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers at UCSF have demonstrated how to […]

The research is presented at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and published in the journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine. Study author Dr Zahra Raisi-Estabragh from Queen Mary’s William Harvey Research Institute said: “Previous studies have shown links between greater red meat […]