General

In this open access commentary, the authors discuss efforts to uncover the mechanisms by which microglia in the aging brain are primed to undertake inflammatory responses, more so than those in the young brain. This may be due in part towards increased numbers of senescent microglia, secreting pro-inflammatory signals. This […]

In vitro fertilization fulfils the wishes of half a million parents each year, yet fertility treatment leaves plenty of room for improvement. A majority of potential embryos are ruled out for implantation, flagged by a genetic test designed to root out abnormalities early on.  This selection process limits the success […]

To improve the development of new saliva-based diagnostic tests and personalized medicine, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) has supported the development of the Human Salivary Proteome Wiki, the first public platform that catalogues and curates data on each of the thousands of proteins within our saliva. Detailed […]

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have developed important new resources that will aid the battle against cancer and advance cutting-edge genomics research. UVA’s Chongzhi Zang and his colleagues and students have developed a new computational method to map the folding patterns of our chromosomes in three […]

For the past few years, Annabelle Singer and her collaborators have been using flickering lights and sound to treat mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, and they’ve seen some dramatic results. Now they have resulted from the first human feasibility study of the flicker treatment, and they’re promising. “We looked at safety, tolerance, and adherence, […]

Parkinson’s disease is an incurable neurodegenerative condition, affecting millions of people in the world. It is one of the leading causes of age-related dementia as well as a very common cause of disability or death. Now scientists at the University of York are pushing to make a nasal spray treatment […]

If you come from a family where people routinely live well into old age, you will likely have better cognitive function (the ability to clearly think, learn and remember) than peers from families where people die younger. Researchers affiliated with the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) recently broadened that finding […]

When a single gene in a cell is turned on or off, its resulting presence or absence can affect the function and survival of the cell. In a new study appearing in Nature Neuroscience, UCSF researchers have successfully catalogued this effect in the human neuron by separately toggling each of […]

Ultrahigh-resolution, high-speed imaging of fruit fly brains has allowed University of Oregon scientists to capture mechanical motions that stem cells use to make neurons, the cells that make up the brain. The motions coordinate cell division during differentiation, when some newly born cells become neurons. Differentiation is essential for building […]

Personalized nutrition has emerged in recent years as a key potential solution to a variety of diseases that originate in the gut, and Nebraska scientists are mining microbiome data to determine how individuals’ digestive systems might respond to different nutritional approaches. Ultimately, these findings could help scientists and doctors recommend […]

One trait shared by all humans is that they don’t remember specific life episodes that occurred before the age of 3 or 4.  Many scientists have attributed this so-called “infantile amnesia” to a lack of development in the hippocampus, an area of the brain located in the temporal lobe that is […]

Researchers here report on DNA sequencing carried out in a (necessarily small) number of supercentenarians (age 110 and over) and semi-supercentenarians (age 105 to 109), and identification of genetic variants associated with DNA repair and clonal hematopoiesis that are more common in these survivors to late old age. We should […]

An exciting new way has been found in which the body senses a bacterial infection within 4 hours and uses nerve pathways to trigger an immune response in distant organs. The speed by which an infection can be identified, and how the defence mechanisms are triggered is critical to infection […]

The progressive age-related dysfunction of microglia in the aging brain is implicated in the progression of neurodegenerative disease, as well as the increased inflammation and forms of pathology found in the brain tissue of older individuals. In mice, clearance of microglia can be efficiently achieved and leads to a rapid […]

Cancerous tumors thrive on blood, extending their roots deep into the fabric of the tissue around them. They alter the genetics of surrounding cells and evolve to avoid the protective attacks of immune cells. Now, Penn State researchers have developed a way to study the relationship between solid, difficult-to-treat tumors and the […]

There is enthusiasm in the research community for in vivo cellular reprogramming as a path to treat aging. Reprogramming somatic cells to pluripotency recaptures some of the processes that take place in the developing embryo, and has been shown to restore youthful patterns of gene expression, leading to improved mitochondrial […]

Passing down a healthy genome is a critical part of creating viable offspring. But what happens when you have harmful modifications in your genome that you don’t want to pass down? Baby plants have evolved a method to wipe the slate clean and reinstall only the modifications that they need to grow […]

It comes after a successful pilot between Cardiff University’s Wales Research and Diagnostic PET Imaging Centre at the University Hospital of Wales, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales. From this week the technology will be available across all health boards – and it is hoped […]

“Organoids.” It’s a word that has a science-fiction sound to it, but, in fact, organoids are at the core of what scientist Jeff Wrana calls “revolutionizing biology.” That’s because organoids offer the promise of new treatments for a host of diseases and conditions, from inflammatory bowel disease to autism spectrum disorder. “An […]

A new study from researchers at Rice University has found that bodily inflammation after the death of a spouse can predict future depression. “Inflammation and future depressive symptoms among recently bereaved spouses” will appear in the June 2021 edition of the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. Lead author Lydia Wu, a Rice psychology […]

Harvard Medical School researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered how amyloid-beta—the neurotoxin believed to be at the root of Alzheimer’s disease—forms in axons and related structures that connect neurons in the brain, where it causes the most damage. Their findings, published in Cell Reports, could serve as a guidepost for […]

Researchers at UVA Cancer Center have unveiled important new insights into how hormones known as androgens act on our cells – and the discovery could boost efforts to develop better treatments for prostate, ovarian and breast cancers. The findings shed light on how androgens interact with their receptors inside cells […]

The research team found they could detect heart abnormalities in infants and toddlers months or years after their exposure to the virus. A new device will let doctors monitor infants and toddlers who are asymptomatic with Zika after contracting the virus in utero from their mothers, according to a recently published report in the […]

Antiretroviral therapy, the common approach in the treatment of HIV, halts replication of the virus and has saved the lives of millions of people. However, for patients, the drug cocktail becomes a lifetime necessity because they continue to harbour latent HIV in a small number of immune system cells. In […]

The “anti-aging” marketplace has long been a pit of fraud, lies, hopes, and dreams, and blatantly so. Whatever the supplement sellers and cosmetics companies that dominate that industry have to say about the capabilities of their products is essentially nonsense, and this play-acting is accepted by the public as just […]

Researchers from Russia and Germany have created a genome-wide atlas of developmental alternative splicing changes of seven organs in six mammal species and chicken. The research was published in the journal Nature Genetics. As the protein encoding RNA matures in eukaryotes, it gets spliced, with some parts cut out and […]

Through T cell engineering, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center show that it’s possible to arrest tumor growth for a variety of cancers and squash the spread of cancer to other tissues. This research will be published in tomorrow’s print edition of Cancer Research. The paper builds on […]

The development of antibodies to the COVID-19 virus has been the great long-term hope of ending the pandemic. However, immune system turncoats are also major culprits in severe cases of COVID-19, Yale scientists report in the journal Nature. These autoantibodies target and react with a person’s tissues or organs similar to […]

Researchers at Oregon State University have found a key new piece of the puzzle in the quest to use gene therapy to enable people born deaf to hear. The work centres around a large gene responsible for an inner-ear protein, otoferlin. Mutations in otoferlin are linked to severe congenital hearing […]

Eating a Western diet impairs the immune system in the gut in ways that could increase the risk of infection and inflammatory bowel disease, according to a study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Cleveland Clinic. The study, in mice and people, showed that […]