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Repeats of individual building blocks within proteins are the cause of many hereditary diseases, but how such repeats actually cause disease is still largely unknown. Researchers in Berlin investigated how repeat elongations lead to the disease synpolydactyly, and have found that the attractive forces between the mutated proteins cause them […]

Doctors have relentlessly impressed upon us the many benefits of exercise. Energy, mood, sleep and motor skills all improve with a regular fitness regimen that includes activities such as running. This has become of particular interest in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. But what happens in the brain during […]

In regenerative medicine, an ideal treatment for patients whose muscles are damaged from lack of oxygen would be to invigorate them with an injection of their own stem cells. In a new study published in the journal ACS Nano, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign demonstrated that “nanostimulators” […]

When tested in brain cells and in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, a new compound significantly reduced the number of amyloid plaques in the brain, lessened brain inflammation and diminished other molecular markers of the disease. The researchers who developed the compound reported their findings in the journal ACS […]

A simple blood test that can detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been discovered and validated in a joint effort by a McGill team and researchers in Sweden. Their results are published in the May issue of The Lancet Neurology. An accompanying commentary calls the discovery “transformative.” The blood test accurately measures one of the […]

A new round of support will help a Purdue University-affiliated startup further develop a platform designed to create drugs for people with hard-to-treat cancers. Akanocure Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has received Small Business Innovation Research Phase II funding from America's Seed Fund, powered by the National Science Foundation, to develop chemical tools and platforms to produce valuable […]

Millions of people around the world use acid suppressants called proton pump inhibitors for conditions like heartburn, gastritis and stomach ulcers. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now report how the long-term use of these drugs could increase the risk of developing dementia. Their results are published in the journal […]

Hematopoietic stem cells from a healthy donor can help patients suffering from acute leukemia. However, the side effects of therapies are often severe. A group of researchers led by the University of Zurich have now shown how human healthy and cancerous hematopoietic stem cells can be more selectively eliminated using […]

Killing cells is easy. Killing only the cells that you want to kill, while leaving all other cells untouched, is very much more challenging. The ability to do this is fundamental to much of the future of medicine, however. The aging body contains many cell populations that cause significant harm […]

The ionome is the elemental composition of a tissue, organ, or individual. This composition changes over the course of aging, and may do so in ways that allow the production of an aging clock, a measure of chronological or physiological age. This line of development adds to work on the well-known epigenetic clocks, proteomic […]

For over a decade, Stefania Nicoli, PhD, has used zebrafish to study disease. The remarkable similarities between humans and these tiny freshwater fish provide valuable information about the genetic root of human disease. The Nicoli lab investigates how microRNAs (miRNAs) play a role in the physiology of the cardiovascular system. The lab […]

University of Virginia researchers are pioneering the use of focused ultrasound to defy the brain’s protective barrier so that doctors could, at last, deliver many treatments directly into the brain to battle neurological diseases. The approach, the researchers hope, could revolutionize treatment for conditions from Alzheimer’s to epilepsy to brain […]

Men are more susceptible to COVID-19. However, those who have cancer are even more vulnerable as they face a 1.8-​fold increased risk of COVID-​19 infection compared to the whole male population. Men with cancer also develop more severe symptoms and are harder to treat. However, a new study at the […]

A common feature of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) is the progressive loss of synapses – the anatomical sites of communication between brain cells – throughout the brain and spinal cord. Typically, synapse loss becomes pervasive before the outward appearance […]

Many nerve cells in the brain region hypothalamus have unexpected origins and go through complex development programs, where millions of neurons assemble into a precisely knit network by birth. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Medical University of Vienna published in […]

According to many observations, certain virus infections may play a part in the autoimmune attack that leads to type 1 diabetes. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and their Finnish colleagues have now produced a vaccine for these viruses in the hope that it could provide protection against the disease. […]

A group of researchers from the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children have developed a new way to deliver molecules that target specific genes within cells. The platform, which uses a modified form of diphtheria toxin, has been shown to “downregulate” critical genes in cancer cells, and could be […]

Both old and young people can get COVID-19. However, healthy young people usually get better without any treatment at all, while older patients can experience some life-threatening complications. Why older people are at higher risk of more difficult COVID-19 cases? Scientists from ETH Zurich have a good hypothesis. As you […]

Researchers are learning more about how to harness the immune system to find new treatment options for deadly brain cancer that strikes young children. Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, tumors can’t be surgically removed due to their location on a critical structure of the brain called the brain stem. […]

Whole body diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW MRI) may aid in the assessment of cancer treatment response in children and youth at much lower levels of radiation than current approaches, suggests a small study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The results appear in Radiology. Researchers compared DW MRI, which […]

Most electrical activity in vertebrates and invertebrates occurs at extremely low frequencies, and the origin — and medical potential — of these frequencies have eluded scientists. Now a Tel Aviv University study provides evidence for a direct link between electrical fields in the atmosphere and those found in living organisms, including humans. […]

A group of researchers at the University at Buffalo have published a paper that clarifies certain cellular mechanisms that could lead to improved outcomes in patients with globoid cell leukodystrophy, commonly known as Krabbe disease. The paper, titled “Macrophages Expressing GALC Improve Peripheral Krabbe Disease by a Mechanism Independent of […]

The massive international effort to map the entire human genome, completed in 2003, opened a new field we now know as personalized medicine. The breakthrough, which identified the location and function of every human gene, offered the promise of medical care tailored specifically to individual patients, based on their personal […]

Precision medicine has the potential to tailor treatments to a patient’s unique genetic sequence. But achieving this precision — or developing new drugs — requires knowing which genes are involved in the disease. “Unfortunately, we don’t really have a good understanding of how these genetic differences can derive differences in […]

Disabling a gene in specific mouse cells, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have prevented mice from becoming obese, even after the animals had been fed a high-fat diet. The researchers blocked the activity of a gene in immune cells. Because these immune cells — called […]

Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a public health concern of global interest on Jan. 30, more than one million have tested positive for the illness in the United States and more than 62,000 have died. With no FDA–approved treatments available to date, the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine has emerged as […]

Approximately 10 percent of infants are born with a congenital heart defect, with one of the most common being persistent truncus arteriosus—a hole in the heart. In a healthy baby, deoxygenated blood is pumped through a one-way blood vessel to the lungs, where it becomes oxygenated and is pumped through […]

It has long been known that disrupted sleep can increase the risk of dementia and anecdotal evidence suggests COVID-19 anxiety is having a detrimental effect on sleep. A new UK-wide study led by academics at the University of Bristol will focus on how the current lockdown is affecting sleep in […]

Children with the genetic condition neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) can develop brain and nerve tumors. If a tumor develops within the optic nerve, which connects the eye and the brain, the child may lose his or her vision. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates […]

Cancer and autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, might not seem to have much in common, but some researchers now are pinning hopes on the same immune system cell – called the regulatory T cell, or Treg – to better fight both, through immunotherapies that manipulate these […]