General

DNA is basically a software code for the living organisms. It is constantly read and various processes are performed according to that encoded information. It is a good system and we’ve known about it for quite some time, but there is still a lot about it that we don’t know.  […]

Scientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have determined the structure of protein “fibrils” linked to Lou Gehrig’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders—findings that provide clues to how toxic proteins clump and spread between nerve cells in the brain. Their results may also lead to developing drugs to […]

KRAS is one of the most common drivers of cancer and is involved in one-third of non-small cell lung cancers. It’s proved an elusive target thanks to its smooth structure and biochemistry. And although new inhibitors are demonstrating some success against one type of KRAS, new paths are needed. A […]

Rice University neurobiologist Rosa Uribe will be hitting the books for her latest study of the digestive system, but some of the pages in her books are a billion years old. Uribe, an assistant professor of biosciences, has won a five-year, $2 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to […]

Say you get a CT scan to confirm whether your chest pain is from a fractured rib. You learn a few days later that no bone break was detected – yay! – but joy gives way to anxiety as you read the radiologist’s note, from the same scan, of a […]

A team of Oregon State University scientists has discovered a new class of anti-cancer compounds that effectively kill liver and breast cancer cells. The findings, recently published in the journal Apoptosis, describe the discovery and characterization of compounds, designated as Select Modulators of AhR-regulated Transcription (SMAhRTs). Edmond Francis O’Donnell III […]

COVID-19 can cause significant health problems. At one point it was reported that it can even cause lasting heart damage. And it is true. However, now scientists from UCL found that mild Covid-19 infection is very unlikely to cause lasting damage to the heart. This is good to hear because […]

A comprehensive review into what we know about COVID-19 and the way it functions suggests the virus has a unique infectious profile, which explains why it can be so hard to treat and why some people experience so-called “long-COVID”, struggling with significant health issues months after infection. There is growing […]

Researchers have been able to reduce scarring by blocking part of the healing process in research that could make a significant difference for burns and other trauma patients. University of Queensland Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani said scars had been reduced by targeting the gene that instructs stem cells to form them in an […]

New Cornell-led research finds “little to no evidence” of a link between a person’s normal blood levels of vitamin D and risk of getting COVID-19, or the severity of an infection, in the most comprehensive study of its kind to date. Multiple studies had suggested an association between vitamin D […]

The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) has been awarded a major federal grant to lead a national trial of treatments targeting the Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System (RAAS) in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Comprised of the hormones renin, angiotensin and aldosterone, RAAS is essential for the regulation of […]

Chimpanzees and bonobos diverged comparatively recently in great ape evolutionary history. They split into different species about 1.7 million years ago. Some of the distinctions between chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus) lineages have been made clearer by a recent achievement in hominid genomics. A new bonobo genome assembly […]

For the first time, researchers have found a way to predict when a pregnant woman will go into labor by analyzing immune and other biological signals in a blood sample, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The study, which was published online in Science Translational Medicine, […]

Colorectal cancer diagnoses have increased among people under age 50 in recent years and researchers are seeking reasons why. A new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found a link between drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer in women […]

Pioneering neural recordings in patients with Parkinson’s disease by UC San Francisco scientists are providing the groundwork for personalized brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders. In a study published in Nature Biotechnology, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences researchers implanted novel neurostimulation devices that monitor brain activity for many months, […]

University of Alberta researchers have uncovered a link between the expression of the protein galectin-9 (gal-9) and whether a cancer patient will benefit from immunotherapy. The discovery could help inform physicians about which patients will likely respond to immunotherapy, and lead to better treatment options. Shokrollah Elahi, a member of […]

Researchers report that one kind of perceptual learning can occur in memory-impaired persons who do not actually remember what they learned. There are many types of memory, but fundamentally, humans remember in two ways. Declarative memory consists of ordinary recollections consciously summoned from the brain. It is dependent on the […]

When someone is diagnosed with cancer, the epicenter of the tumor is easily identifiable, but in 1 to 2 percent of cases, the primary site of tumor origin cannot be determined. Because many modern cancer therapies target primary tumors, the prognosis for a cancer of unknown primary origin is poor, […]

What if a cancer patient could receive life-saving cellular therapy within days of diagnosis rather than weeks? What if pharmaceutical researchers could bring new treatments to market in months rather than years? Kytopen is significantly speeding up both discovery and delivery of engineered cell therapies with its transformative Flowfect platforms. […]

An international team of scientists led by The University of Manchester have discovered 179 kidney genes responsible for high blood pressure. High blood pressure, known as “silent killer”, is one of the most common human diseases and remains the key risk factor for strokes and heart attacks. High blood pressure […]

Using routinely acquired pathology slides, the model accurately predicts the origin of cancers with unknown primary tumors. In 1 to 2 percent of cancer cases, the primary site of tumor origin cannot be determined. Because many modern cancer therapeutics target primary tumors, the prognosis for a cancer of unknown primary […]

It turns out the 'bad guys' of the brain aren't so bad after all. When there’s damage in the body, our cells call for help. UConn brain researchers just found a new way cells do this—like in the old AT&T ad campaign, they reach out and touch someone. Or some […]

A revolution is coming to Mizzou. Instead of a rabble, it’s genteel scientists inciting this upheaval, which comes in the form of large, shiny instruments that can peer deep inside bodies, individual cells and even molecules — all in remarkable detail. One machine so huge that a crane must lift […]

When you’re solving a challenging math problem, you know your brain is working hard. But what, exactly, is going on in there? Despite decades of research into math teaching and learning, there is still much to learn about how specific brain functions are tied to math skills. A new University […]

New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine reveals why sleep can put people with epilepsy at increased risk of sudden death. Both sleep and seizures work together to slow the heart rate, the researchers found. Seizures also disrupt the body’s natural regulation of sleep-related changes. Together, in […]

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is more than a buzzword ingredient touted by skincare brands. The “workhorse” capabilities of this biopolymer, which is present in most mammalian tissues, have fascinated scientists for decades. A new cover story in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, details HA’s complex […]

A study involving researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Gothenburg University has found that low levels of a protein called PDGFRb are associated with particularly good results of radiotherapy in women with early-stage breast cancer. The study, which is published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, also suggests that the efficacy […]

Older people with kidney disease have a higher risk of dementia, and the risk increases with the rate and stage of kidney function decline. That is according to a large observational study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal Neurology. The findings stress the significance of […]

Researchers have mapped the gene activity of osteocytes to improve their understanding of skeletal disease. Research led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research has for the first time mapped the unique genetic profile of the skeleton’s ‘master regulator’ cells, known as osteocytes. The study published in Nature Communications outlines the […]

Determining safe yet effective drug dosages for children is an ongoing challenge for pharmaceutical companies and medical doctors alike. A new drug is usually first tested on adults, and results from these trials are used to select doses for pediatric trials. The underlying assumption is typical that children are like […]