General

In the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, deprived areas suffered more excess deaths than affluent areas, with a disproportionate impact on their younger age groups according to the early draft of a new study. In addition to the deaths from COVID-19, longstanding socioeconomic and geographical health inequalities for a […]

Bacteria’s role in gut health has received a lot of attention in recent years. But new research led by scientists at the University of Utah Health shows that fungi—another microorganism that lives within us—may be equally important in health and disease. Fungi thrive in the healthy gut, but they can also […]

University of Utah Health scientists have received a five-year, $7.5-million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to test whether a web-based intervention that resembles a video game can alleviate depression in older adults in the comfort and safety of their own homes. The University of Connecticut will also participate […]

More doesn’t necessarily mean better — including in cancer treatment. University of Wisconsin–Madison and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists report today in the journal Science Translational Medicine that combining targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy with immunotherapy significantly boosts eradication of metastatic cancer in mice, even when the radiation is given […]

Today's open access commentary is a good companion piece to a recent paper covering the use of mesenchymal stem cell therapies to suppress age-related chronic inflammation. These first generation stem cell therapies have proven to be unreliable when it comes to the original goal of regeneration of organ function, but […]

More doesn’t necessarily mean better — including in cancer treatment. University of Wisconsin–Madison and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists report today in the journal Science Translational Medicine that combining targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy with immunotherapy significantly boosts eradication of metastatic cancer in mice, even when the radiation is given […]

Proteostasis describes the steady state of a cell, maintaining an appropriate balance of various forms of protein machinery in order to enable continued normal function. With advancing age, proteostasis becomes disrupted in numerous complicated ways. This is a downstream outcome of underlying molecular damage, the reactions to that damage, and […]

A groundbreaking new treatment that uses 3D printed implants and that could bring relief to tens of thousands of knee osteoarthritis sufferers has received approval to be trialled in UK patients, following a virtual “in-silico” trial that demonstrated its safety. The personalised early knee osteoarthritis treatment, developed by engineers at […]

When she isn’t pursuing her favorite heart-pumping activities of running, swimming, or cycling, Sharlene M. Day, MD, a Presidential Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and director of Translational Research for the Penn Cardiovascular Institute, is focused on the heart in another way; trying to unlock and treat the mysteries of genetic […]

Although the risk of a child being admitted to hospital due to COVID-19 is small, a new UK study has found that around 1 in 20 of children hospitalised with COVID-19 develop brain or nerve complications linked to the viral infection. The research, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health and […]

Ferroptosis is a mode of programmed cell death that manages to be both fairly well explored in the broader research community and far less visible than other programmed cell death processes. It was first named and described about a decade ago, though of course researchers have long explored aspects of […]

The study, led by the University of Bristol and published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, shows the importance of raising awareness of vaccine efficacy, especially if it compares very favourably to another well-established vaccine. The research focused on adults who were unsure about being vaccinated against COVID-19. Those who were […]

An international team led by physics researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington has published a paper in the high-impact journal Bioactive Materials that describes a breakthrough method of photodynamic therapy (PDT), an emerging cancer treatment. Nil Kanatha Pandey, a doctoral student in physics Professor Wei Chen’s lab, is the first […]

The urgency to remember a dangerous experience requires the brain to make a series of potentially dangerous moves: Neurons and other brain cells snap open their DNA in numerous locations — more than previously realized, according to a new study — to provide quick access to genetic instructions for the mechanisms […]

A University of Manchester led a team of scientists has discovered that the most common form of adult blindness is probably caused by a failure of at least one of five proteins to regulate the immune system. The breakthrough could one day herald the development of transformative treatments for developing […]

Biologists are trying to figure out what makes a cell unique in form and function. But they are not certain which components are key to making similar cells behave differently. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Associate Professor Jesse Gillis and his lab are tackling this problem with a new statistical method: they […]

When a doctor gives a patient antibiotics for a bacterial infection, they usually require them to finish the entire treatment, even when symptoms go away. This is to ensure the drugs kill off any remaining bacteria. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Visiting Scientist Raffaella Sordella investigated a similar problem that occurs in […]

Altum Sequencing, a start-up in the biotechnology sector that is part of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid’s (UC3M) Incubation and Acceleration of Companies and Industrial PhD programmes, has patented a system that allows for the early identification of tumour-specific genetic markers and the quantification of cancer cells following responses […]

Antibodies induced by currently available mRNA vaccines can still neutralize the Delta and Kappa variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but do so at a reduced potency, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Delta variant, first identified in India and previously known as B.1.617.2, is […]

You’re as old as your immune system. Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have built an inflammatory-ageing clock that’s more accurate than the number of candles on your birthday cake in predicting how strong your immune system is, how soon […]

Intervertebral discs provide load support and motion between vertebrae in the spine, but when they start to break down and compress due to ageing, disease or injury, a person experiences significant pain and reduced mobility. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found a way to […]

Infant boys with a higher composition of a particular gut microbiota show enhanced neurodevelopment, according to a new study. The University of Alberta-led research followed more than 400 infants from the CHILD Cohort Study (CHILD) at its Edmonton site. Boys with a gut bacterial composition that was high in the bacteria Bacteroidetes […]

The mRNA vaccines for COVID-19, made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, are among the most powerful vaccines the world has ever seen. According to clinical trial data, they are more than 94% effective at preventing symptomatic disease, with real-world data bearing out that success. The other vaccine currently available in the […]

For 30 years, University of Tokyo Associate Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki has traveled an hour west of Tokyo to visit the Sagami River and collect algal samples to understand how living things evolved different sexes. Through new analysis of samples collected in 2007 and 2013 from dam lakes along the river, […]

New research will help doctors identify, treat and prevent potentially dangerous irregular heartbeats in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a common heart condition in which the heart thickens and strains to pump blood. These chaotic heart rhythms are known as atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation can be asymptomatic, but it can lead […]

A review of more than 9,000 U.S. patients with severe COVID-19 infection showed less than 1% contracted the illness again, with an average reinfection time of 3.5 months after an initial positive test. Those are the findings from a study conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and MU […]

A decade after scientists discovered that lab rats will rescue a fellow rat in distress, but not a rat they consider an outsider, new UC Berkeley research pinpoints the brain regions that drive rats to prioritize their nearest and dearest in times of crisis. It also suggests humans may share […]

Hidden autoimmunity may explain how the coronavirus wreaks such widespread and unpredictable harm. One of the enduring mysteries of COVID-19 is why it makes some people deathly sick but gives others only mild symptoms or none at all. We know that age matters, as do race; gender; and pre-existing medical […]

Children with a devastating genetic disorder characterized by severe motor disability and developmental delay have experienced sometimes dramatic improvements in a gene therapy trial launched at UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospitals. The trial includes seven children aged 4 to 9 born with a deficiency of AADC, an enzyme involved […]

Fruit flies have evolved an elaborate courtship ritual. Upon recognizing a suitable mate in his vicinity, a male fruit fly transforms into a dogged suitor, sometimes chasing the female for more than 26 yards, or 9 miles in human terms, singing to her all the while by vibrating his wings. […]