General

Can staph microbes lead to cancer? Microbes are known to affect digestion, mood and overall health, and now Princeton researchers have shown that a shift in the microbiome is linked to cancer — at least in a threatened subspecies of foxes found only on one island off the California coast. Their […]

In a pair of related studies, a team of Yale researchers has found a way to reverse type-2 diabetes and liver fibrosis in mice, and has shown that the underlying processes are conserved in humans. The studies appear in the edition of Cell Reports and Nature Communications. In the earlier […]

For over a century, Alzheimer’s disease has confounded all attempts to treat it. But in recent years, perplexing experiments using flickering light have shown promise. Now, researchers have tapped into how the flicker may work. They discovered in the lab that the exposure to light pulsing at 40 hertz – […]

New simulations by Rice University scientists tell a tale of two taus and how they relate to neurological disease. Their work suggests tau proteins take either of two paths to form aggregates suspected of promoting, and perhaps causing, Alzheimer’s and Pick’s (aka frontotemporal dementia) diseases. Precisely why remains a mystery, but figuring it out offers the […]

Epigenetic clocks are a topic of considerable interest in the research community. They are perhaps the most promising of the present techniques for assessing biological age, the closest to becoming a useful biomarker of aging. Epigenetic clocks are weighted algorithmic combinations of the DNA methylation status of various sites on the genome, reflecting changes that […]

A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has created a device that measures how “sticky” cancer cells are, which could improve prognostic evaluation of patient tumors. The device is built with a microfluidic chamber that sorts cells by their physical ability to adhere to their […]

Some cancer cells refuse to die, even in the face of powerful cellular immunotherapies like CAR T cell therapy, and new research from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania is shedding light on why. In a new study, researchers describe how a death receptor pathway in the cancer cell […]

From fragile ice fish deep in the Antarctic Ocean to flying fish gliding above the Caribbean Sea, fish have evolved a fascinating variety of skeletal traits. These traits not only help them adapt to their environments, but they also provide genetic insights into rare human skeletal disorders. Fish are not […]

Scientists have identified specific regions of chromosome 21 which cause problems in memory and decision-making in mice with Down’s syndrome. They say it is the first time the areas have been determined – and suggest the findings may provide new insight into the condition in humans. Most people have 46 […]

Babies born with low birth weights are more likely to have poor cardiorespiratory fitness later in life than their normal-weight peers. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal JAHA. The findings underscore the importance of prevention strategies to reduce low […]

Women who have prophylactic mastectomies to stay ahead of a BRCA2 mutation may have made a wise choice, according to findings of a study just published in Science Advances. I’m amazed at the bravery of these women who go the Angelina Jolie route. Inheriting a BRCA2 mutation brings a 50 to 80 percent lifetime risk of developing […]

The deadly nature of cancer stems from its ability to spread and grow inside the host. Tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) are host macrophages recruited by the tumor, which promote tumor progression. A team of researchers from Tokyo University of Science and other institutes have discovered that the protein FROUNT may […]