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In 2015, researchers began noticing that a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes, empagliflozin, came with the added benefit of decreasing hospitalization for heart failure and death from cardiovascular causes in those patients. “It was very unexpected, because this drug is targeted and marketed for Type 2 diabetes, not […]

Stopping the cannibalistic behavior of a well-studied enzyme could be the key to new drugs to fight age-related diseases, according to a new study published online in Nature Cell Biology. For the first time, researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania show how the self-eating cellular […]

The gut’s microbiome — a complex, dense mixture of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes — plays an integral role in human health. A new Yale study reveals just how early the microbiome is formed and begins delivering this benefit. For the first time, Yale scientists report that components of the […]

Astrocytes with the APOE4 gene variant show deficits of a key cellular function, but overexpressing the gene PICALM overcame the defect. In a new study, a team of scientists based at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research reveals evidence showing that […]

Imaging techniques could replace the need for invasive tissue biopsies in helping rapidly determine whether cancer treatments are working effectively, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. In a study published in the journal Cancer Cell, researchers at the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Cambridge Institute have shown how a new […]

Being able to talk in several languages is an important skill to have. The world is shrinking and if you want to do business or build a career in other international organizations you will have to speak at least one foreign language. But is it true that younger people pick […]

If you want to know how old the tree was, you have to count the rings on its stomp. That, of course, requires you to cut down the tree or at least core it – drill a deep hole into it. But how can you know the age of the […]

A recent study published in the journal Nature Medicine, led by researchers James Riley, PhD, a professor of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Todd Allen, PhD, a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Group Leader at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and […]

Ambitious efforts at the UVA Cancer Center to improve care delivered to patients with cancer that has spread to the brain have yielded important insights and tools that can benefit other hospitals, a new publication reports. The tools include the first set of metrics to assess care provided for these […]

The team of biomedical researchers at the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) has tackled various aspects of lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer and more since the centre was launched at Case Western Reserve University in 2012 by bioengineering pioneer Anant Madabhushi. Now, Madabhushi’s lab and partners in the Perelman […]

Every living human is controlled by an internal “clock” which drives our circadian rhythm – the natural internal process that regulates our sleep-wake cycle during a 24-hour period. This internal clock controls most of our body processes over this period, including our sleep cycle, digestion, metabolism, appetite and immunity. External […]

The number of mutations that can contribute to ageing may be significantly higher than previously believed, according to new research on fruit flies. The study by scientists at Linköping University supports a new theory about the type of mutation that can lie behind ageing. The results have been published in […]

Using specialized nanoparticles, MIT engineers have developed a way to turn off specific genes in cells of the bone marrow, which play an important role in producing blood cells. These particles could be tailored to help treat heart disease or to boost the yield of stem cells in patients who […]

Researchers from Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP), an interdisciplinary research group at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, have been awarded Intra-CREATE grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF) Singapore to help support research on retinal biometrics for glaucoma progression and neural cell […]

A collaborative study led by the Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre's Dr Nora Bengoa-Vergniory has shown that compounds known as molecular tweezers could become a promising disease modifying therapy for Parkinson’s. A team of researchers has shown that tiny compounds known as molecular “tweezers” could become a promising therapy to slow […]

Focused ultrasound waves help ETH researchers to deliver drugs to the brain with pinpoint accuracy, in other words only to where their effect is desired. This method is set to enable treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders and tumours with fewer side effects in the future. Researchers at ETH Zurich […]

The 13th annual NanoFlorida conference was hosted by the University of Miami last Friday and about 500 people tuned in virtually to learn about advances in the field from two pioneers. Imagine being able to tint the windows of your car or office from bright sunlight within seconds of tapping […]

Under a microscope, the first few hours of every multicellular organism’s life seem incongruously chaotic. After fertilization, a once tranquil single-celled egg divides, again and again, quickly becoming a visually tumultuous mosh pit of cells jockeying for position inside the rapidly growing embryo. Yet, amid this apparent pandemonium, cells begin […]

Experts in Japan have devised a simple way to glean more detailed information out of standard medical imaging scans. A research team made up of atomic physicists and nuclear medicine experts at the University of Tokyo and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) has designed a timer that can […]

A new, rare genetic form of dementia has been discovered by a team of Penn Medicine researchers. This discovery also sheds light on a new pathway that leads to protein build up in the brain — which causes this newly discovered disease, as well as related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s […]

Though cancer immunotherapy has become a promising standard-of-care treatment – and in some cases, perhaps a cure – for a wide variety of different cancers, it doesn’t work for everyone, and researchers have increasingly turned their attention to understanding why. For example, doctors have noticed that patients who initially respond […]

In many people, ageing makes it harder to burn fat, which accumulates in the abdomen as a “beer belly.” Now, a team led by Christina Camell, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics of the U of M Medical School and College of Biological Sciences, […]

A new study published in the journal Critical Care Explorations shows for the first time that part of the stress response in people and animals involves increasing the levels of a naturally circulating element in the blood. The discovery demonstrates a biological mechanism that rapidly responds to severe physiologic stress and […]

Biological cells can be all kinds of shapes and sizes, even though they don’t have skeletons or other rigid structures to maintain that shape. Different forms help different types of cells accomplish different functions. How do they do that? Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich discovered […]

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. And millions of people are going to get it, even though not everyone will hear the diagnosis. There are, however, some therapies that can slow down the progression of this neurodegenerative condition, but it has to be spotted early. Now scientists at the […]

Cancer therapies that target specific molecular defects arising from mutations in tumor cells are currently the focus of much anticancer drug development. However, due to the absence of good targets and to the genetic variation in tumors, platinum-based chemotherapies are still the mainstay in the treatment of many cancers, including […]

ETH Zurich researchers have been able to show why biological cells can take on such an astonishing variety of shapes: it has to do with how the number and strength of local forces acting on the cell membrane from within. This knowledge feeds into the development of better minimal model […]

When nerve cells aren’t busy exchanging information, they’re supposed to keep quiet. If they’re just popping off at random, like in a noisy classroom, it obscures the signals they’re supposed to be transmitting. But in the most common genetic cause of schizophrenia, it seems that nerve cells won’t shut up, Stanford […]

Tumors come in many shapes and forms—curable or deadly, solid or liquid, lodged inside the brain, bone, or other tissues. One thing they all have in common, however, is a knack for molecular deceit. It is often by posing as normal cells, or by hijacking them, that cancer cells advance […]

Bioengineers are devising a hot new technology to remotely control the positioning and timing of cell functions to build 3-dimensional, artificial, living tissues. The labs of Kelly Stevens at the UW Medicine Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine in Seattle, and Jordan Miller at Rice University in Houston, are collaborating to develop bio-printed, organ-like tissues, […]