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To better understand the role of bacteria in health and disease, National Institutes of Health researchers fed fruit flies antibiotics and monitored the lifetime activity of hundreds of genes that scientists have traditionally thought control aging. To their surprise, the antibiotics not only extended the lives of the flies but […]

In children with rhabdomyosarcoma or RMS, rare cancer that affects the muscles and other soft tissues, the presence of mutations in several genes, including TP53, MYOD1, and CDKN2A, appears to be associated with a more aggressive form of the disease and a poorer chance of survival. This finding is from the largest-ever […]

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified ingredients for snack food prototypes that have been formulated to deliberately change the gut microbiome in ways that can be linked to health. Translating results from animal models, the scientists have shown in two pilot human studies of […]

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists identified how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, gets inside cells to cause infection. All current COVID-19 vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics were designed to disrupt this route into cells, which requires a receptor called ACE2. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in […]

The canine disease granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis (GME), the most common neuroinflammatory disease that affects dogs, shares key features of its pathology and immunology with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a new study. A detailed investigation of GME by a team led by Molly Church and Jorge Iván Alvarez of Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, incorporating MRI […]

Thanks to researchers in different fields who put in nearly two decades of past work on mRNA vaccine technology, people around the world are being immunized today from COVID-19 — and hopefully leading us out of this pandemic. Now, because of the increased focus on this versatile technology and that foundation […]

A Canadian research team has uncovered a new mechanism involved in Bourneville tuberous sclerosis (BTS), a genetic disease of childhood. The team hypothesizes that a mutation in the TSC1 gene causes neurodevelopmental disorders that develop in conjunction with the disease. Seen in one in 6,000 children, tuberous sclerosis causes benign […]

Researchers at UC San Francisco have found that extreme caloric restriction diets alter the microbiome in ways that could help with weight loss but might also result in an increased population of Clostridioides difficile, a pathogenic bacterium that can lead to severe diarrhoea and colitis. Such diets, which allow people only […]

Bone cancer is hard to treat and prone to metastasis. Research teams at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have a new strategy to attack it. Chemist Han Xiao at Rice and biologist Xiang Zhang at Baylor and their labs have developed an antibody conjugate called BonTarg that delivers drugs to bone tumors and inhibits […]

Each day the average human heart beats 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood. It’s a process that is critical to life, and yet it often goes awry for unknown reasons.   “Despite knowing a lot about muscle contraction and the heart, in particular, there are still a number of questions scientists have […]

A new art/science collaboration uses molecular structures as its creative medium. In Jenna Sutela’s work, which ranges from computational poetry to experimental music to installations and performance, the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) Visiting Artist enlists microbes and neural networks as co-creators. “I want to explore this notion […]

PhD student Sarah Nyquist applies computational methods to understudied areas of reproductive health, such as the cellular composition of breast milk. Sarah Nyquist got her first introduction to biology during high school, when she took an online MIT course taught by genomics pioneer Eric Lander. Initially unsure what to expect, […]

A University of Texas at Arlington researcher is examining how historic segregation in the United States may contribute to cardiovascular disease among individuals from minority or low-income groups. “If this research does find neighborhood factors, like racial segregation and income, impact cardiovascular disease in minority and low-income people, then we […]

Blood-brain barrier typically protects the brain, but is also quite a bit of a challenge for scientists trying to create therapies for neurological conditions. Drugs that should act on the brain struggle to pass this barrier. Now scientists at The University of Queensland have found that an ultrasound therapy could […]

New research has found that previous infection, whether it was symptomatic or asymptomatic, does not necessarily protect you long-term from COVID-19, particularly against new Variants of Concern. The preprint study was led by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and Birmingham with support […]

An investigational Alzheimer’s drug reduced molecular markers of disease and curbed neurodegeneration in the brain, without demonstrating evidence of cognitive benefit, in a phase 2/3 clinical trial led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis through its Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network-Trials Unit (DIAN-TU). These results led the trial […]

By the time people with Alzheimer’s disease start exhibiting difficulty remembering and thinking, the disease has been developing in their brains for two decades or more, and their brain tissue already has sustained damage. As the disease progresses, the damage accumulates, and their symptoms worsen. Researchers at Washington University School […]

Thanks to researchers in different fields who put in nearly two decades of past work on mRNA vaccine technology, people around the world are being immunized today from COVID-19 — and hopefully leading us out of this pandemic. Now, because of the increased focus on this versatile technology and that foundation […]

Her first intervention was at the dawn of open-heart surgery. This month she got a newly available pulmonary valve, placed with a tiny incision. In 1958, Susie Knudsen became a 12-year-old trailblazer as one of the first children anywhere to undergo open-heart surgery.  After she suffered a heart attack in […]

Middle schoolers who spend time on smartphones, laptops and tablets in the hour before bed are likely to sleep poorly and be more tired the next day, leading them to use media devices at bedtime even more. Those are among the findings of a study published by the National Sleep Foundation by […]

Rice University bioengineers collaborated on a six-year study that systematically analyzed how the surface architecture of breast implants influences the development of adverse effects, including an unusual type of lymphoma. Every year, about 400,000 people receive silicone breast implants in the United States. According to FDA data, most of those […]

How do you kill tumor cells that can’t be targeted? Get their more susceptible neighbors to help. The Rice University lab of synthetic chemist K.C. Nicolaou, in collaboration with AbbVie Inc., has created unique antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) that link a synthetic uncialamycin analogue to antibodies that target cancer cells. Once they enter the […]

Communities surrounding the Salton Sea, the inland body of water straddling California’s Riverside and Imperial counties, show high rates of asthma due, possibly, to high aerosol dust levels resulting from the sea shrinking over time. Scientists suspect, however, the Salton Sea plays an additional role in pulmonary health. A University […]

Adolescents who stopped studying maths exhibited greater disadvantage – compared with peers who continued studying maths – in terms of brain and cognitive development, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 133 students between the ages of 14-18 took part in an […]

A team of University of Oxford researchers, funded by the British Heart Foundation, have identified an entirely new risk factor for congenital heart disease (CHD). Using an animal model system, researchers have shown that if the mother is severely iron deficient and anaemic during early pregnancy, this greatly increases the […]

A new study led by the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford will research whether a daily tablet could help protect the millions of people worldwide with type 2 diabetes from developing cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the leading global killer, causing approximately 18 million deaths […]

Women who will develop potentially life-threatening disorders during pregnancy can be identified early when hormone levels in the placenta are tested, a new study has shown. Nearly all of the organ systems of the mother’s body need to alter their function during pregnancy so that the baby can grow. If […]

Scientists have identified key molecular events in the developing human embryo between days 7 and 14 – one of the most mysterious, yet critical, stages of our development. The second week of gestation represents a critical stage of embryo development, or embryogenesis. Failure of development during this time is one of the […]

Researchers have shown why people with mental health disorders, including anorexia and panic disorders, experience physical signals differently. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, found that the part of the brain which interprets physical signals from the body behaves differently in people with a range of mental health disorders, […]

Scientists working to understand the cellular processes linking high cholesterol to breast cancer recurrence and metastasis report that a byproduct of cholesterol metabolism causes some cells to send out cancer-promoting signals to other cells. These signals are packaged in membrane-bound compartments called extracellular vesicles. Reported in the journal Endocrinology, the […]