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Next
Event
Friday, August 22, 2008, 07:00 PM: Simulations of Society with Loren Cobb
Loren Cobb will present his peculiar 15-year journey into sociological model-making for various military entities, including US Southern Command, the Swedish Ministry of Defence, the British Ministry of Defence, the United Nations, and a miscellany of Latin American countries (Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, ...).
More...
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Medicine
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An international consortium of scientists published the largest existing survey comparing genetic and chemical traits of human embryonic stem cell lines from around the world.
"You could call this an encyclopedia of embryonic stem cells. "
The study compared 59 lines of stem cells from 17 laboratories around the world and assessed the similarities and differences in the expression of many common molecular markers.
Researchers also identified certain cell surface antigens and developmentally regulated genes that characterize all human embryonic stem cell lines isolated to date, despite the cell lines' variety of genetic backgrounds and growth conditions. The similarities identified in the study will help set benchmarks for future stem cell work.
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 George Church is dyslexic, narcoleptic, and a vegan. He is married with one daughter, weighs about 210 pounds, and has worn a pioneer-style bushy beard for decades. He has elevated levels of creatine kinase in his blood, the consequence of a heart attack. He enjoys waterskiing, photography, rock climbing, and singing in his church choir. His mother's maiden name is Strong. He was born on August 28, 1954.
If this all seems like too much information, well, blame Church himself.
As Church sees it, the only real utility to his personal information is as data that reflects his phenotype — his physical traits and characteristics. If your genome is the blueprint of your genetic potential written across 6 billion base pairs of DNA, your phenome is the resulting edifice, how you actually turn out after the environment has had its say, influencing which genes get expressed and which traits repressed. Imagine that we could collect complete sets of data — genotype and phenotype — for a whole population. You would very quickly begin to see meaningful and powerful correlations between particular genetic sequences and particular physical characteristics, from height and hair color to disease risk and personality.
Church has done more than imagine such an undertaking; he has launched it: The Personal Genome Project.
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China's military is harvesting organs from unwilling live prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners, for transplants on a large scale - including to foreign recipients- according to a study.
The report's authors - Canada's former secretary of state for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas - implicated dozens of hospitals and jails throughout China in July, after a two-month investigation.
Chinese officials denied those allegations.
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Pacific Biosciences has been developing a DNA sequencing machine that within a few years might be able to unravel an individual’s entire genome in minutes, for less than $1,000. The company plans to make its first public presentation about the technology on Saturday.
Pacific Biosciences, or PacBio, is just one entrant in a heated race for the “$1,000 genome” — a gold rush of activity whose various contestants threaten to shake up the current $1-billion-a-year market for machines that sequence, or read, genomes.
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A Swedish HIV vaccine study has produced surprisingly good results. Over 90 per cent of the subjects in the phase 1 trials developed an immune response to HIV.
A vaccine developed by SMI scientists has now undergone the first clinical study on healthy individuals in Sweden in order to examine its safety and different methods of administration. The vaccine is what is known as a genetic vaccine, which uses parts of the virus DNA to stimulate the rapid endogenous production of the proteins for which the injected DNA codes.
The trial subjects were vaccinated on three occasions with this vaccine using a needle-free method of injection. In order to enhance the effect, the researchers also gave the subjects a fourth dose of a vaccine in which parts of the HIV virus DNA had been integrated into another virus (vaccinia = the cowpox virus).
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Newest Nobel Laureate for Medicine, Sir Martin Evans, and colleague Alan Clarke discuss the medical revolution of Gene targeting. Also Prof's Jerry Coyne and Mike Majerus attempt to reinstate the otherwise humble Peppered Moth to its status as textbook example of natural selection in action.
Audio, 28 minutes
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Google Health, codename "Weaver", is Google’s planned health information storage program.
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DNA chips have revolutionised biological research. With the help of a microarray, researchers can query the whole genome at once, rather than just a few genes at a time. Experiments that used to be impossible are now being performed in days or hours. "By being able to see the big picture, all the genes, all the genetic variation, we can readily pick out answers—we can make discoveries that we could never make before," explains Eric Lander, one of the leaders of the human-genome project.
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Researchers are now better able to predict which patients will respond to treatment for depression through the presence of genetic markers. McMahon examined the effects of polymorphisms (common differences in DNA sequences) of 68 genes on treatment effectiveness and incidence of side effects. Analysis of the data showed that polymorphisms in a gene that regulates serotonin was positively associated with treatment outcome. McMahon concluded that individuals who carried two copies of the polymorphism associated with response were 18% more likely to respond to treatment than those who did not.
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A special technique that uses laser light to sample a person's breath can detect molecules that may be markers for a number of diseases.
This approach, called cavity-enhanced direct optical frequency comb spectroscopy, may one day help doctors screen patients for diseases such as asthma, cancer, kidney failure and diabetes, according to the team of scientists at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
"This technique can give a broad picture of many different molecules in the breath all at once," lead researcher Jun Ye said in a prepared statement.
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A device that mimics the naturally disinfecting quality of fresh air could be used to purge hospital wards of superbugs. The Air Disinfector pumps a continual stream of reactive hydrogen radicals into the atmosphere, killing microbes within minutes. Outdoors, microbes are killed by hydroxyl radicals, highly reactive agents constantly produced through natural reactions between airborne ozone and organic scented chemicals from plants such as pine trees. The makers say they have recreated this effect using a customised device the size of a flower vase.
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 The Body: Flying ambulances? Intelligent clothing? Custom-built organs from scratch? Robotic surgery? Learn about today's medical breakthroughs that will extend our lives in 50 years.
What would you see and experience if the clocks rolled forward 50 years? In a unique blend of drama and science, this three-part series shows you the world of tomorrow. Will we have flying cars? Will advances in medicine help us stay young forever? What about "printing" custom-made vital organs? What will our cities look like? What will tomorrow's wars be about? Will we have robots helping around the house? Will solar power be the new oil?
Supported by the world's leading scientists and research institutes, we embark on a quest to answer some of society's most fundamental questions and reveal the dramas of tomorrow's world along the way. State-of-the-art computer graphics in combination with a dynamic story line will create a world usually only seen in feature films, but with the accuracy and relevance of a documentary. This series is all about opening the window of our future based on science fact, not science fiction.
Hosted by Michio Kaku
Video, 43:00
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With the latest advances in treatment, doctors have discovered that they can successfully neutralise the HIV virus. The so-called ‘combination therapy’ prevents the HIV virus from mutating and spreading, allowing patients to rebuild their immune system to the same levels as the rest of the population. To date, it represents the most significant treatment for patients suffering from HIV.
Professor Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen, together with other members of the research group EuroSIDA, have conducted a study, which demonstrates that the immune system of all HIV-infected patients can be restored and normalised. The only stipulation is that patients begin and continue to follow their course of treatment.
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One argument for stem cell research is that it might generate fresh replacement cells for those destroyed by such horrific diseases as ALS, the paralyzing nervous system disorder popularly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
The latest research suggests those predictions might be unrealistic: Replacing cells that die off in a disease still leaves open the question of why the cells died in the first place.
Stem cells may be more valuable as a "disease model" -- used to study disease -- rather than a simple source of replacement parts.
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Scientists provided the first large-scale identification of the proteins involved in coronary heart disease. The information will help to better understand the progression of the disease, improve diagnosis, and detect early pathological signs more efficiently.
Coronary heart disease, which is characterized by abnormal thickening and narrowing of the blood vessels, is the first leading cause of death in the United States.
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Celera today announced the publication of its findings that variants in two genes (IL12B and IL23R) involved in regulating the behavior of cells of the immune system independently contribute to psoriasis risk. Individuals who carry two copies of the risk alleles for both these genes, which occur in approximately 25 percent of Caucasians, were found to have a three-fold increased risk for psoriasis relative to individuals with certain other genotypes of these genes. These research findings provide genetic evidence to support the ongoing development of therapeutics that target the interleukin-12 and interleukin-23 (IL-12 and IL-23) pathways.
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Chronic psychological stress is associated with accelerated shortening of the caps, called telomeres, on the ends of chromosomes in white blood cells -- and thus hasten their demise. Telomeres promote chromosome stability, Dr. Elissa S. Epel at the University of California, San Francisco, and her colleagues explain. Telomeres shorten with each replication of the cell, and cells cease dividing when telomeres shorten sufficiently.
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Researchers have discovered that the genetic malfunction that causes a form of mental retardation called Noonan Syndrome (NS) produces an imbalance in the genesis of two types of cells in the developing embryonic brain. NS is a relatively common genetic disorder, occurring in one of every 2,500 live births. It is characterized by congenital heart defects, short stature, learning disabilities, and mental retardation. Approximately 50% of NS cases are caused by a genetic mutation in a biochemical switch called SHP-2. SHP-2 is involved in molecular pathways regulating development of brain cells. The NS mutations cause SHP-2 to be constantly activated.
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About 4,000 people die every year waiting for kidney transplants, and Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists believe they've found a way to cut that number - using math.
The program was run in early May by the Alliance for Paired Donation, a kidney exchange program for 50 transplant centers in 15 states. It identified four potential two-way exchanges, three three-way exchanges and one four-way exchange among about 100 donor-patient pairs and seven altruistic donors. Whether any of those transplants take place depends on final compatibility testing.
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Size does matter: Men with short telomeres -- strips of DNA at the end of chromosomes -- may have a higher risk of developing coronary heart disease. And those same men may benefit the most from treatment with cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins, a new British study found.
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ValiRx have developed a new, in-line, cell purification device that allows stem cells to be selectively and efficiently removed from a blood sample in a more patient-friendly manner. The Polymer-Antibody Cell Separation (PACS) system works in an analogous manner to the affinity columns used to purify monoclonal antibodies.
The separation and purification of stem cells from the blood is a necessity for both efficient stem cell research and the development of reproducible stem cell therapies.
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A key enzyme that cuts short our cellular lifespan in an effort to thwart cancer has now been linked to body mass. Until now, scientists believed that our relatively long lifespans controlled the expression of telomerase--an enzyme that can lengthen the lives of cells, but can also increase the rate of cancer. "Mice express telomerase in all their cells, which helps them heal dramatically fast. Skin lesions heal much faster in mice, and after surgery a mouse's recovery time is far shorter than a human's. It would be nice to have that healing power, but the flip side of it is runaway cell reproduction--cancer."
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A protein that causes coral to glow is helping researchers to light up brain cells that are critical for the proper functioning of the central nervous system. This fluorescent marker protein may shed light on brain cell defects believed to play a role in various neurological diseases. The researchers describe how this marker works in mice. The marker gives scientists the first-ever opportunity to distinguish between energy-producing structures, called mitochondria, in neurons, from mitochondria in other brain cells, called glia. Defects in mitochondria may be part of the process that leads to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
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Scientists have discovered how we put the brakes on a racing heartbeat.
An enzyme acts on the heart's pacemaker to slow the rapid beating of the heart's "fight-or-flight" reaction to adrenaline.
A single cell in the upper right chamber is responsible for setting the pace of the beating heart, triggering its neighbor cells to beat.
Current treatment of arrhythmia requires destruction of tissue surrounding a chaotic pacemaker, followed by insertion of a mechanical pacemaker that can regulate the heartbeat.
"Understanding the molecular regulation of the heart's pacemaker opens the possibility of less drastic treatment options, including drug interventions."
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Geron reported that GRNOPC1, the company’s human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based oligodendroglial progenitor therapeutic, produces multiple nerve growth factors, proteins that stimulate the survival and regeneration of neurons damaged during spinal cord injury.
The studies describe a newly discovered neurotrophic effect that, in addition to the previously documented in vivo remyelinating activity of these cells, serves as a second mechanism of action that demonstrates the product’s beneficial effects when injected into animal models of acute spinal cord injury.
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Two research teams have developed models for classifying the clinical outcomes of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using mass spectrometry techniques.
One team developed an algorithm to predict the outcomes of NSCLC patients treated with the drugs gefitinib and erlotinib, two tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The algorithm places patients into categories indicating "good" or "poor" survival before treatment with one of the drugs and is based on the pattern of a group of proteins in the patient's blood serum.
In the second study, researchers analyzed protein patterns in NSCLC tumor tissue and normal lung tissue. The researchers identified a pattern that was associated with increased survival among NSCLC patients and may distinguish patients with poor prognosis from those with good prognosis.
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Two papers report for the first time that astrocytes (the most abundant non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system), which carry a mutated gene known to cause some cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig’s disease), induce motor neuron death. This indicates that astrocytes may contribute to ALS by releasing a toxic factor that damages neurons. These findings suggest that developing an effective therapy for ALS would require overcoming the destructive effects of astrocytes and replacing the damaged motor neurons, possibly by transplanting motor neurons derived from embryonic stem cells.
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A new risk model developed by European researchers is able to accurately predict vascular events, including stroke, MI, and vascular death, in patients with existing clinical vascular disease. Serum creatinine, age, previous vascular disease, smoking, and diabetes are important predictors for second events, and this new model performed better than the Framingham and SCORE risk algorithms for estimating the absolute risk for recurrent events.
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Nine years ago, Rusty Gage shattered a neuroscience dogma when he showed human brains give birth to new neurons. Today, a company is eager to take those findings to the clinic. The compound, now called BCI540, seemed to promote neurons with reasonable potency and was not toxic to cells.
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Brain cells derived from human embryonic stem cells improved the condition of rats with Parkinson’s-like symptoms dramatically, but the treatment caused a significant problem – the appearance of brain tumors – that scientists are now working to solve.
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Researchers have developed a technique by which a computer can determine the condition of the left heart chamber or ventricle. The computer draws the contours of the heart on the X-ray images and from the wall motion it determines the heart's condition. Previously the contours had to be drawn by hand. The new technique saves time and is reliable.
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New results challenge the view that a good night's sleep can leave behind a dense bloom of brain cells in the morning. Prior studies had found that sleep-deprived rodents grow fewer new neurons than well-rested animals, suggesting that sleep somehow promotes the birth of brain cells, called neurogenesis. But that might not be the case: researchers report instead that lack of sleep likely cuts into neurogenesis by triggering a harmful stress response.
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Researchers report a new and efficient strategy, using eggs alone, for creating mouse embryonic stem cells that can be transplanted without the risk of rejection because the cells are compatible with the recipient's immune system. Though done in mice, the work establishes the principle of using unfertilized eggs as a source of customized embryonic stem cells that are genetically matched to the egg donor at the genes that control recognition of cells by the immune system, making them potentially useful for transplantation therapies.
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New research in lymphatic cancer shows that bacteria can cause cancer to be more aggressive. Patients with skin lymphoma may benefit from antibiotic treatments used for bacteria-infections.
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Researchers have discovered precisely how the antibiotic linezolid inhibits bacterial growth.
Scientists have known that the drug linezolid -- the first new antibiotic to enter the marketplace in 30 years -- works by binding to ribosomes, the protein production factory of the cell. But exactly where the binding occurred and how the drug worked was not known. Until now.
"Linezolid inhibits protein synthesis."
The researchers also showed that the drug may be toxic to mitochondria -- the power generators of the cell -- which contain ribosomes that resemble the ribosomes of bacteria.
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In the first experiment of its kind, investigators have shown that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) wrapped in poly(ethylene glycol), or PEG, can successfully target tumors in living animals. The CCNE-TR team began by coating commercially available SWCNTs with PEG, a biocompatible polymer used frequently in drug delivery applications to increase circulation lifetimes and water solubility.
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Robert Harmon, veterinarian and CEO of Vet-Stem, explained how his company is currently providing stem cell therapies for animals. Client veterinarians send a fat-tissue sample from their animal patients to Vet-Stem, where the stem cells are extracted from the tissue. Vet-Stem then merely creates a syringe-loaded dose of cells and sends them back to the attending vet. Injected into injured or degenerated tissue, the stem cell treatment evokes healing in unprecedented ways.
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Fatigue is one of the most common and distressing symptoms cancer patients experience during chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Researchers are studying fatigue in cancer patients undergoing stem cell transplants using a method successfully used to monitor behaviors such as smoking cessation and alcohol use.
The method is called "ecological momentary assessment" (often referred to as real-time assessment), which provides an instant measurement of patients' fatigue.
Patients used a device that is worn like a wristwatch to record the data.
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One of my favorite new stories in the biology of aging is the body of work demonstrating an unexpected (to my mind, anyway) relationship between telomere length and various “organism-scale�? phenomena, e.g., psychological stress and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Two recent reviews extend the discussion. Kajstura et al. focus directly on cellular senescence, which can be induced both by telomeric shortening and genotoxic damage, in cardiac progenitor cells. Does senescence play a role in cardiovascular aging and the age-related onset of CVD?
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Healthcare in the United States has been generating pressure under the surface for the past 15 years. As costs began to increase, consumers never noticed. Employers absorbed the brunt of the increases. Soon the increases were occurring at a rate the employer, especially small businesses, could not budget for when the economy softened.
Employers quietly began shifting costs to employees.
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In the rancorous public debate over federal research funding, stem cells are generally assigned to one of two categories: embryonic or adult. But that's a false dichotomy and an oversimplification. A new study adds to mounting evidence that stem cells in the developing fetus are distinct from both embryonic and adult stem cells.
Fetal stem cells comprise a separate class. Fetal blood-forming stem cells in an umbilical cord blood behave differently than adult blood-forming stem cells after transplantation into patients.
The team has identified the first known gene, Sox17, required for the maintenance of blood-forming stem cells in fetal mice, but not in adult mice.
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Most people know Bernadine Healy, U.S. News health editor, as the former head of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross. They might not recall that she was diagnosed with a brain tumor eight years ago. In a new book, Healy uses her unique perspective and personal struggle with the disease to explore the state of cancer research, care, and treatment today—and tomorrow.
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Surgeons performed a groundbreaking robotic pancreatectomy in a 39-year-old man to relieve him of debilitating pain. They also performed an autologous islet cell transplant to prevent him from developing surgical diabetes.
He is the first patient in the world to undergo the robotic procedure.
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Researchers have developed a way to use three types of microscopic imaging techniques simultaneously to analyze living tissue and learn more about the molecular mechanisms of multiple sclerosis, information that could help lead to earlier detection and new treatments.
The combined imaging method is enabling the researchers to study how multiple sclerosis causes an overproduction of "astroglial filaments," which form bundles between critical nerve fibers and interfere with proper spinal cord functioning.
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Roger Kornberg won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his efforts to unravel the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription, in which enzymes give 'voice' to DNA by copying it into the RNA molecules that serve as templates for protein in organisms from yeast to humans. Now, Kornberg and his colleagues report new structures that reveal another critical piece of the puzzle: how the so-called polymerase II enzyme discriminates among potential RNA building blocks to ensure the characteristic accuracy of the process. The researchers found that a portion of the enzyme known as the trigger loop acts like a 'trap door,' swinging beneath a matching nucleoside triphosphate (NTP) building block, to close off the active center and form an extensive network of interactions with the NTP and other parts of the enzyme.
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Analytical Spectral Devices (ASD) will debut the pharmaceutical industry’s first portable drug anti-counterfeiting device. The number of injuries and deaths world-wide related to counterfeit drugs is growing. There is consensus among regulatory bodies that the problem is a dangerous threat to the safety of consumers.
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As a reporter for The New York Times for 37 years, I have witnessed many important medical events, from new treatments to new diseases. In reflecting on that panorama, it is clear that technology has accounted for the greatest changes in medicine. Technology has improved laboratory testing, allowed for the development of CT scans, magnetic resonance imaging exams and positron emission tomography, or PET, imaging to improve diagnostic accuracy, and produced new drugs and devices. Basic science, too, has deepened our understanding of disease, and much of that work depends on technology.
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A CAS project on natural drugs against some murderous diseases, which was completed seven years ago, has made major new progress, according to an ex-post evaluation panel.
With four million yuan from the CAS headquarters, the project started in 1997 by setting up 24 components to address such issues as tumors, cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer's and viral diseases. Some of the new drugs from natural products have received the official approval for clinical studies or commercial production.
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Allergies, like the common cold and asthma, have basically defied the best efforts of modern medicine to cure them. New research has focused on mechanisms that regulate the function of mast cells – the "villains" in triggering allergic reactions. When exposed to allergens, mast cells react violently and release an enormous array of pro-inflammatory substances, of which histamine is a well known example. These substances lead to acute symptoms ranging from stuffy nose, rash, and airway constriction to the lethal shock known from food or venom allergies. Later on, they attract inflammatory cells that will maintain the response, which often persists as a chronic disease. Researchers identified a receptor protein on mast cells, termed CD300a.
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Medical experts believe there is little chance the United States will be able to manufacture and stockpile enough vaccine or antiviral medication to stop a bird flu pandemic should the virus mutate into a form that can be spread easily from human to human.
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Drugs used to treat cancer may damage normal, healthy brain cells more than the cancer cells they are meant to target. A study shows that clinical doses of chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat many common cancers cause long-term damage to the brains of mice by killing neural stem cells and oligodendrocytes, which produce the myelin insulation needed for normal neuronal function, and by impairing neural stem cell division. These results might explain the adverse neurological side effects - including reduction in cognitive abilities - observed in some cancer patients treated with chemotherapy.
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From today scientists will be able to access a vast collection of biomedical research and to submit their own published results for inclusion in a new online resource. Based on a model currently used by the US National Institute of Health, UK PubMed Central [UKPMC] will provide free access to a permanent online archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences. See: www.ukpmc.ac.uk.
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Researches report success using uniparental embryonic stem cells to replace blood stem cells in mice.
Uniparental embryonic stem cells are an appealing alternative source of patient-derived embryonic stem cells, as they have several advantages over embryonic stem cell lines generated by somatic cell nuclear transfer (also known as therapeutic cloning).
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Scientists have developed a promising tool that uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track immune cells as they infiltrate a transplanted heart in the early stages of organ rejection. This pre-clinical advance ultimately could provide a noninvasive way to detect transplant rejection in patients.
"Successful translation of this work to the clinic ultimately will reduce the number of biopsy procedures and should greatly improve the quality of life for cardiac transplant patients, especially children. Perhaps most importantly this advance could prevent transplant rejection."
Transplant patients face a lifetime of immunosuppressive therapy and the risk of losing the new organ due to rejection. Physicians typically monitor patients for organ rejection following a heart transplant by performing frequent heart biopsies for the first year.
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Geron announced the presentation of new data that document the company’s progress in the development of first-in-class therapeutic products from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for the treatment of degenerative diseases. The data pertained to four products in development: (1) GRNOPC1, Oligodendroglial Progenitor Cells for acute spinal cord injury, (2) GRNIC1, Islet Clusters for diabetes, (3) GRNCM1, Cardiomyocytes for myocardial infarction and (4) osteoprogenitor cells for bone fractures and osteoporosis. Other presentations at the meeting described advances in hESC culture and derivation techniques and further characterization of hESC-derived hepatocytes for liver failure and drug metabolism testing.
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A study that researchers claim suggests links between using mobile phones and brain tumours is flawed, radiation experts have said. The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), which advises the government on safety levels, said the study "lacks statistical precision" to draw such conclusions.
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An RNA-binding protein that is overproduced in ovarian cancer may present a new target for diagnosis or treatment of ovarian and other cancers.
Knocking down PTB expression with small, interfering RNA "substantially impairs ovarian tumor cell growth, colony formation and invasiveness."
Ovarian cancer is commonly referred to as "the silent killer," as it usually is not discovered until its advanced stages. One woman in 58 will develop ovarian cancer during her lifetime.
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Compared with traditional and other various wound configurations, the "top hat" wound configuration appears to provide the most mechanical stability for performing femtosecond laser-assisted full-thickness penetrating keratoplasty, a study by researchers in Canada suggests.
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A new therapy to re-activate silenced genes in patients who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases or stroke is being developed.
During and after a stroke, certain cellular events take place that lead to the death of brain cells. Compounds that inhibit a group of enzymes called histone deacetylases can modulate gene expression, and in some cases produce cellular proteins that are actually neuroprotective -- they are able to block cell death.
"For the first time, we show which one of the 11 histone deacetylase enzymes might be the best target to achieve cellular neuroprotection. This work gives us a good direction to follow in testing histone deacetylase inhibitors in animal models for diseases such as Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, and even stroke."
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New nerve cells generated in the brain of adult rats that had suffered an epileptic seizure show a reduced excitability. "Nerve cells that are generated from stem cells in an adult epileptic brain develop into normal nerve cells. Interestingly, they also join up with other nerve cells in a way that indicates they are trying to counteract the diseased function."
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Researchers showed for the first time that parts of the developing brain are vulnerable to damage from glutamate, a nervous system messenger compound. Glutamate is already well-known for its links to injury in the mature brain. But scientists also found damage in the developing brain that could not be linked to glutamate, suggesting that different treatments are needed to prevent brain injury in premature infants.
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Last summer, a few months before my 40th birthday, I did what many men do, and many more consider doing. Chest wax? Nyet! I went on a pilgrimage. My journey didn't take me up some dangerous mountain or to an even riskier beach bar filled with coeds. Instead, I drove from my New Mexico home to the world's biggest health club: Boulder, Colorado. I had an appointment with Neal Henderson, sports-science manager at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.
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A plant found in Madagascar and a commonly used anti-hypertensive drug may be useful treatments for malaria. Another research team found that propranolol, a commonly prescribed high-blood-pressure drug, decreased the activity of erythrocyte G proteins in red blood cells and inhibited blood-stage malarial parasite growth.
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Scientists have found a set of "master switches" that keep adult blood-forming stem cells in their primitive state. Unlocking the switches' code may one day enable scientists to grow new blood cells for transplant into patients with cancer and other bone marrow disorders.
The scientists located the control switches not at the gene level but farther down the protein production line in more recently discovered forms of ribonucleic acid, or RNA. MicroRNA molecules, once thought to be cellular junk, are now known to switch off activity of the larger RNA strands that allow assembly of the proteins that let cells grow and function.
"Stem cells are poised to make proteins essential for maturing into blood cells, but microRNAs keep them locked in their place."
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Disagreements over whether drugs to combat depression are worth taking. Antidepressants have long been the source of controversy. Amphetamines were widely used as an antidote to neurotic depression into the 1960s, until such “pep pills” came to be seen as doing more harm than good. Similar worries are now engulfing today's antidepressants, like Prozac and Paxil, which are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. Two new studies have stirred things up: one warning that antidepressants do not help most people very much, and the other gushing that they are a marvellously cheap way to save lives.
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After a decade of research, Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have succeeded in reprogramming adult stem cells from the testes of male mice into functional blood vessels and contractile cardiac tissue. The research offers a promising new source of stem cells for use in organ regeneration studies.
"It appears that these specialized GPR125-positive spermatogonial cells could be an easily obtained and manipulated source of stem cells with a similar capability to form new tissues that we see in embryonic stem cells."
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta fact-checks Michael Moore's Sicko
Video, 6 min 10 sec
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Australian scientists will be allowed to create human embryo clones for medical research after the country's lawmakers voted to end a four-year ban on the practice. New legislation legalizes the creation of human embryos through so-called somatic cell nuclear transfer to aid treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.
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The government pulled back the curtain Thursday on one of the most closely guarded secrets in medicine: how many patients who seek hospital treatment die rather than survive. Information is now available on the Internet on hospital death rates from heart attacks and heart failure, two of the most common conditions that send people to the nearest emergency room.
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Use of mobile phone may significantly raise the risk of brain tumor in those who use this modern telecommunication tool for more than ten years, a new epidemiological study suggests.
The Finnish study found that those who had regularly used mobile phones for more than ten years were 40 percent more likely to develop brain tumors known as gliomas on the side where they hold their phones.
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Researchers have opened up new treatment possibilities for Huntington’s disease by proving a scientific theory incorrect.
It was previously thought that dopamine neurons, called D2 neurons, were responsible for the devastating symptoms seen in Huntington's disease but the Florey researchers have proven that loss of D1 neurons causes many of the fatal diseases disabling symptoms.
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Democratic and Republican candidates have accepted more than $3.7 million in campaign contributions this year from healthcare industry sources, with more than 45% of it going to just two candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to a new report issued Friday.
Political donations are just part of the story. Healthcare money also swamps Congress. In federal lobbying, healthcare spending exceeds $2.2 billion the past decade, during which healthcare surpassed all other industry sectors in lobbying expenditures.
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The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four are infected with at least one of the diseases, federal health officials reported Tuesday.
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Even after a severe concussion, a brain can look normal and healthy on a traditional brain scan. But now a study co-authored by a Brigham Young University psychology professor, using a new kind of MRI technique, reveals brain changes that are subtle but significant.
The study, which appears in Tuesday's issue of the journal "Neurology," helps prove that concussions result in biological changes — and that long-lasting symptoms such as aggression and sleep problems are not just "psychological."
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