General

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine suggest higher levels of vitamin D are associated with decreasing risk of breast cancer. Their epidemiological study is published in the journal PLOS ONE, in collaboration with Creighton University, Medical University of South Carolina and GrassrootsHealth, an Encinitas-based nonprofit organization that […]

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 […]