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Repetition can be useful if you’re trying to memorize a poem, master a guitar riff, or just cultivate good habits. When this kind of behavior becomes compulsive, however, it can get in the way of normal life—an impediment sometimes observed in psychiatric illnesses like Tourette’s syndrome and autism spectrum disorders. […]

While it’s reported that chronic disruptions of circadian rhythms, or internal body clocks, can lead to an increased risk of cancer, the underlying mechanisms by which the disturbances promote tumor growth had been largely unknown. In a study published in the journal PLOS Biology, researchers at Penn Medicine show circadian disruptions trigger […]

Cleft lip and palate (CL/P) is the second most common birth defect in the world, affecting 1 in 700 live born babies. While the exact cause of CL/P is not well understood, investigators think it could be the result of a combination of genetics and environment. Cleft lip and palate […]

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are among the most important tools in modern biomedical research, leading to new and promising possibilities in precision medicine. To create them requires transforming a cell of one type, such as skin, into something of a blank slate, so it has the potential to become […]

Mac, an 8-year-old boxer, lay sedated on a table in the gleaming new radiation treatment room at the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital at Iowa State University. Mac had undergone one treatment in the new facility before, for the mast cell tumor near his tail. Radiation therapists, along with an anesthesiologist, carefully positioned […]

A new study from the University of Georgia pinpoints lifestyle factors that could lead to hardened arteries. One of the largest of its kind, the study performed an untargeted metabolomics profile of over 1,200 participants of the Bogalusa Heart Study to identify metabolites linked to the hardening of arteries. Hardening arteries, […]

Coming on the heels of two failed major studies on promising antibodies designed to fight Alzheimer’s, a new report by researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), published in the March 2019 edition of the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring, introduce a new technique. “This has paved the […]

There are few topics that have gained enough attention to be considered the next big thing. Exosome is one of those topics. They were initially considered waste products and were ignored as such. Nowadays it’s well-established that they play key role in cell communication and they have linked to several […]

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified blood-based biomarkers that may determine which patients will benefit from continued hormonal therapy for advanced prostate cancer. The results are published in the journal JAMA Oncology. The researchers envision that this discovery may eventually result in a test that contributes to a more […]

Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) is better than a tape measure for assessing a woman’s risk for developing lymphedema after breast cancer surgery, according to interim results of a study led by Sheila Ridner, PhD, RN, Martha Ingram Professor and director of the PhD in Nursing Science Program at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. The […]

Researchers identify genetic variants that lead to a severe developmental syndrome. The findings could mean better screening and diagnosis for patients with inherited syndromes. New discoveries from an international team of scientists help explain how protein synthesis gone wrong in developing brains can result in birth defects — including microcephaly, […]

Advancing technology is allowing scientists increasingly to search for tiny signs of cancer and other health issues in samples of patients’ blood and urine. These “liquid biopsies” are less invasive than a traditional biopsy, and can provide information about what’s happening throughout the body instead of just at a single […]

Two proteins central to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease act as prions — misshapen proteins that spread through tissue like an infection by forcing normal proteins to adopt the same misfolded shape — according to new UC San Francisco research. Using novel laboratory tests, the researchers were able to detect […]

The very first dog received the very first vaccine intended to protect her from cancer. And soon after the 9-year-old Gordon setter named Trilly received her shot, so, too, did Norton, a 9-year-old rat terrier mix. “We’re testing a totally novel way of creating an anti-cancer immune response,” says David Vail, […]

Bioengineers have cleared a major hurdle on the path to 3D printing replacement organs with a breakthrough technique for bioprinting tissues. The new innovation allows scientists to create exquisitely entangled vascular networks that mimic the body’s natural passageways for blood, air, lymph and other vital fluids. The research is featured on the […]

Sperm start their sprint to the ovum when they detect changes in the environment through a series of calcium channels arranged like racing stripes on their tails. A team of Yale researchers has identified a key molecule that coordinates the opening and closing of these channels, a process that activates […]

About a third of us are walking around with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB) in our bodies, but most don’t actually end up with TB. For children living with HIV – about 2 million at last estimate – it’s a different story. They’re much more likely to develop TB, […]

The human brain is “plastic”: it can adapt and rewire itself, often more easily when learning new things related to familiar skills. For example, it is probably easier for a professional tennis player to learn to play badminton than soccer. Seeking to discover basic limits on the brain's plasticity, a […]

Long before scientists test new medicines in animals or people, they study the effects of the substances on cells growing in Petri dishes. However, a 2D layer of cells is a poor substitute for the much more complex 3D structure of tissues in organs. Now, researchers reporting in the ACS […]

Researchers have linked some environmental pollutants with diseases, a decreased life span and signs of premature aging, such as wrinkles and age spots. But can accelerated aging be detected at the cellular level in healthy people exposed to pollutants? Now, researchers in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology report that […]

Discomfort: a word that no one wants to associate with a medical procedure. But sadly, it’s sometimes unavoidable. A new University of Michigan study — recently published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, examined the short-term degree of discomfort associated with two different prostate cancer detection methods: prostate MRIs […]

More Americans are being diagnosed with eye complications of shingles, but older adults can call the shots on whether they are protected from the painful rash that can cost them their eyesight. Among a group of 21 million adults, occurrences of herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO), when shingles gets in the […]

New findings suggest an unexpected path to killing cancer cells could make the hottest cancer treatment — immunotherapy — more effective. Researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center looked at a little-understood type of cell death called ferroptosis. They found ferroptosis occurs in tumor cells and plays a role in […]

More than 50 million Americans are affected by an autoimmune disease, with women at an increased risk for developing one. “Autoimmune conditions can be debilitating for patients,” says Dinesh Khanna, M.D., M.Sc., a professor of rheumatology and the director of the Michigan Medicine Scleroderma Program. “As a National Institutes of Health Autoimmunity Center of Excellence site, […]

Known as the atopic or allergic march, it’s a familiar progression to pediatricians and parents alike: atopic dermatitis and food allergies emerge in infancy or early childhood, followed by rhinitis and asthma as the child gets older. But what if it were possible to stop this march in its tracks? […]

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found, in mice, that treatment with an antibiotic reduces the size of lesions caused by endometriosis. The researchers are planning a large, multicenter clinical trial to test the drug metronidazole in women who have the painful condition. The study […]

By age 40, almost everyone’s arteries have begun to harden as deposits of fat and cholesterol build up on the inside of the blood vessels. Clumps big enough to obstruct blood flow can starve tissues of needed oxygen and nutrients. But even small deposits can be lethal, if they release […]

Mobility is very important to us as humans. We want to move around, reach different parts of the city and generally enjoy our independency. However, as people age they become limited in this regard, because they stop driving and have to live from the retirement pension. Now scientists found that […]

The performance of different prosthetic implant combinations used in patients undergoing hip and knee replacements in England and Wales over the last 14 years have, for the first time, been directly compared in two new studies. The University of Bristol findings, published in the BMJ Open, reveal substantial variability in […]

The largest study of its kind, which has used genetic information from Bristol's Children of the 90s, has led to new insights into the complex relationships surrounding how mothers’ and babies’ genes influence birth weight. The research, published in Nature Genetics, identifies 190 links between our genetic code and birth weight, […]