General

Researchers at the University of Alberta are looking for ways to prevent or slow cachexia, a muscle-wasting syndrome thought to cause up to a third of the 80,000 deaths related to cancer every year in Canada. By understanding the role of activin A, a growth factor that contributes to muscle […]

Scientists have figured out how to modify CRISPR’s basic architecture to extend its reach beyond the genome and into what’s known as the epigenome – proteins and small molecules that latch onto DNA and control when and where genes are switched on or off. In a paper published in the […]

Research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison finds that a new therapeutic approach for heart failure could help restore cardiac function by regenerating heart muscle. In a study recently published in the journal Circulation, the UW team describes its success in improving, in a mouse model, the function of heart muscle by […]

At its most basic level, it takes pictures. For UW–Madison biochemistry professor Elizabeth Wright, that’s the scaled-down explanation of cryogenic electron microscopy or cryo-EM. But it’s so much more than that. Through rapid freezing, controlled beams, and advanced lenses, this game-changing research tool reveals the intricate architecture of cells, viruses, and […]

Researchers at the DZNE (Germany), at Massachusetts General Hospital (USA) and at the genomic medicine company Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. tested a novel gene regulation approach to treat brain diseases such as Alzheimer's in laboratory studies. It leverages zinc finger proteins, which specifically bind to the DNA that codes for the […]

McMaster University researchers have discovered a new treatment that could bring relief to millions of people worldwide living with peanut allergy. The current understanding is that in certain individuals, the immune system mistakenly identifies a specific food protein as harmful and triggers the production of an antibody called Immunoglobulin E […]

Despite surgery and subsequent treatment with chemotherapy and radiation, the majority of patients experience recurrence of malignant brain tumours. Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, and the Medical University of Graz, Austria, have shown in cells in culture that an ion pump can deliver drugs more accurately, which gives less severe […]

A global study led by Hamilton scientists has found a link between eating processed meat and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. The same study did not find the same link with unprocessed red meat or poultry. The information comes from the diets and health outcomes of 134,297 people from […]

Potentially game-changing research led by McMaster University scientists may finally bring relief to millions of people worldwide living with Crohn’s disease. Investigator Brian Coombes said his team identified a strain of adherent-invasive E-coli (AIEC) that is strongly implicated in the condition and is often found in the intestines of people […]

New research from the Florida State University College of Medicine has found that the personality trait neuroticism is consistently associated with a higher risk of developing the brain disorder Parkinson’s disease. The research by Professor of Geriatrics Antonio Terracciano and team, published in Movement Disorders, found that adults in the study […]

The causes of the serious muscle disease ALS still remain unknown. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, among others, have examined a type of cell in the brain blood vessels that could explain the unpredictable disease origins and dynamics. The results indicate a hitherto unknown […]

Humans evolved in an environment of physical exertion, and our biochemistry requires physical exertion in order to trigger mechanisms of cell maintenance and metabolic regulation. Populations that exercise vigorously into late old age, such as the Tsimane in Bolivia, exhibit very much lower levels of cardiovascular disease. Further, living a […]

Imagine a drug that could temporarily reenergize plasticity in the brain to treat autism or schizophrenia, or even help an adult’s ageing brain pick up a new language or learn to play a musical instrument. Such are the potential, down-the-road medical implications of a discovery made by a postdoctoral researcher […]

Giving early-stage pancreatic cancer patients a CD40 immune-stimulating drug helped jumpstart a T cell attack to the notoriously stubborn tumor microenvironment before surgery and other treatments, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Changing the microenvironment from so-called T cell […]

A small, light-activated molecule recently tested in mice represents a new approach to eliminating clumps of amyloid protein found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. If perfected in humans, the technique could be used as an alternative approach to immunotherapy and used to treat other diseases caused by similar […]

Groundbreaking research from Tel Aviv University may lead to a significant breakthrough in the battle against deadly brain cancer. TAU researchers have identified a failure in the brain’s immune system that leads to the amplification of cell division and the spread of glioblastoma cancer cells. The failure results partially from the secretion […]

High expression levels of the gene TRIM63 can serve as an accurate and sensitive biomarker of a subtype of kidney cancer known as microphthalmia-associated transcription factor family aberration-associated renal cell carcinomas — or MiTF renal cell carcinoma. That’s according to a new, multi-institution study led by researchers at the University of Michigan Center for Translational […]

Alcohol-related liver disease is on the rise in the United States. Most strikingly, this epidemic is disproportionally affecting young, otherwise healthy, people, leading to rapid increases in alcohol-related liver disease deaths. “Changes in mortality rates for the alcohol-related liver disease vary significantly from state to state, so we think socioeconomic […]

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, is associated with several health risks. According to a new registry study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, NAFLD is linked to a 17-fold increased risk of liver cancer. The findings, published in Hepatology, underscore the need for improved follow-up of NAFLD patients […]

Researchers here applied three months of a methionine restricted diet to old mice, and found that it greatly reduced age-related cognitive decline, as measured in maze tests. The methionine restricted animals perform more like young animals than like their unrestricted peers. Methionine is an essential amino acid essential to all […]

A new source of energy expending brown fat cells has been uncovered by Harvard Medical School researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center, which they said points towards potential new therapeutic options for obesity. According to the new report, published in Nature Metabolism, the key lies in the expression of a receptor […]

The University of Toronto’s Aleksandra Stanimirovic is currently leading a study that, she says, underscores the reason she chose to become a health researcher as opposed to a physician. The project focuses on a screening program for diabetic retinopathy – a complication of diabetes that can lead to blindness – among women from lower socio-economic groups. She […]

Targeting the tumour environment may help improve treatments for breast cancers affecting pregnant women and young mothers. New research led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research has revealed how breast cancer cells that develop during or after pregnancy change their environment to form more aggressive tumours. In experimental models […]

Researchers have uncovered how antibodies that are specialised to different immune ‘disposal systems’ become the dominant form in the bloodstream, a process that is critical to our immune system’s ability to destroy pathogens and a key objective for the development of effective vaccines. Findings led by the Garvan Institute of […]

University of Manchester scientists have discovered a persistent alteration in the immune system of patients, six months after they have been hospitalised for Covid-19, which could be associated with poorer health outcomes. The study, published in the journal Med, examines the impact of a SARS-CoV-2 infection on the immune system of […]

It may turn out to be the case that many mechanisms of cellular regulation that slow aspects of aging function, at least in part, by slowing the pace at which senescent cells accumulate. Senescent cells induce tissue dysfunction via inflammatory signaling. Studies in which senescent cells are selectively destroyed in […]

An international team today reports the findings of an independent assessment of five commercially available assays for tumour DNA sequencing – a fast, cheap and less invasive method to diagnose and monitor cancer. The researchers revealed that all assays could reliably detect so-called circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) when it made […]

The immunotherapy agent pembrolizumab can provide clinical benefit to some patients with metastatic breast cancer whose tumors were found to have a high number of mutations, and whose cancer continued to progress with standard treatments. That’s according to newly published results from ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study. […]

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have identified and tested a drug combination that exploits a weakness in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), an aggressive, dangerous cancer. The scientists targeted a vulnerability in how the cancer cells reproduce, increasing already high levels of replication stress ­­– a hallmark of […]

Scientists at the University of Alberta are part of a new research project to develop innovative precision diagnostics that could predict which men with prostate cancer are at risk of developing an aggressive form of the disease. The researchers will use germline sequencing (sequencing of the genes a person is […]