General

As organisms develop, mechanical forces exert pressure on their cells, and scientists have long wondered how cells keep their shape—and therefore remain healthy—through the process. Now, a study led in part by a University of Michigan physicist has observed for the first time that cells use tiny fibers called apical […]

Vanderbilt University researchers have reported the counterintuitive discovery that certain chemotherapeutic agents used to treat tumors can have the opposite effect of tissue overgrowth in normal, intact mammary glands, epidermis and hair follicles. The researchers also are the first to report the discovery of an innate immune signaling pathway in […]

Many cells in the body must pass through tissue, which sometimes requires them to get out of tight corners. An international research team co-​led by ETH Zurich has now examined how cells recognise and escape from such bottlenecks. Among the results of the team’s work are new pointers for how […]

Are there common regulators of aging to be found among transcription factors? Sweeping, complex, tissue-specific and species-specific changes in gene expression take place over the course of aging. If these are reactions to comparatively straightforward processes of molecular damage at the root of aging, processes that are similar between species, […]

The immune system is inconveniently complicated. Aging is also inconveniently complicated. The overlap between the two is a particularly dark forest for the research community, with few well-tracked paths. The fine details of how exactly the immune system becomes dysfunctional with age, and the sizable variation in those details between […]

Researchers here provide an interesting demonstration of the beneficial role of transient cellular senescence in injury. Applying senolytics to selectively destroy senescent cells immediately following traumatic injury greatly worsens the consequences. Senescent cells are harmful when they build up and linger in tissues over the course of later life. The […]

Heart failure is a debilitating condition that impairs quality of life and shortens life span. Rates of heart failure continue to rise to epidemic levels, in parallel with its risk factors—obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. In essence, heart failure is a condition in which the heart has difficulty generating the pumping […]

U of A researchers, precision health company team up to develop sensor small enough to wear behind the ear but powerful enough to reduce costly hospital visits. University of Alberta researchers are teaming up with a precision-health innovator to develop a low-cost wearable sensor to help people suffering from chronic […]

Using specialized nanoparticles, researchers from Penn Engineering and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a way to turn off specific genes in cells of bone marrow, which play an important role in producing blood cells. These particles could be tailored to help treat heart disease or to boost […]

Risks for neuropsychiatric disorders including autism, schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are in part genetically determined. Now UC San Francisco researchers are finding new clues to how these disorders unfold by focusing on the role of a little-studied form of DNA in early brain development. Like a late-night […]

UW Medicine scientists are driving a bold, multi-partner experiment to stimulate the repair and regeneration of human kidney cells. A favorable outcome could jump-start a new therapy model for 850 million people worldwide who live with kidney disease. The National Institutes of Health recently announced the project’s funding: $4 million over five […]

There are more than 5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease, and 50 million with other dementias, according to figures from the Alzheimer’s Association. Research into these diseases and how to prevent them is key as more and more Americans live longer, raising their risk for developing cognitive impairment. In a new […]

A rare genetic condition which causes inflammatory bowel disease can be successfully treated by bone marrow transplant, according to the University of Manchester and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust researchers. The disease, called G6PC3 deficiency, affects around one in a million people and causes inflammation of the bowel, as well as lung infections. The […]

Tool developed at MIT simultaneously measures chemical and electrical brain signals, revealing unexpectedly complex relationship between brain signals. As the brain processes information, electrical charges zip through its circuits and neurotransmitters pass molecular messages from cell to cell. Both forms of communication are vital, but because they are usually studied […]

Boosting the efficiency of single-cell RNA-sequencing helps reveal subtle differences between healthy and dysfunctional cells. Sequencing RNA from individual cells can reveal a great deal of information about what those cells are doing in the body. MIT researchers have now greatly boosted the amount of information gleaned from each of […]

The closer people are physical to one another, the higher the chance for exchange, of things like ideas, information, and even infection. Now researchers at MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital have found that, even in the microscopic environment within a single cell, physical crowding increases the chance for interactions, in […]

Children with high-risk cancers have received effective treatments leading to complete or partial regression of their cancer thanks to a pioneering research program that tailors therapy based on the complete DNA sequence of a patient’s individual tumour. A report of 247 participants of the Zero Childhood Cancer Program published in […]

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet demonstrate that genetic risk score for ADHD can influence how autistic individuals respond to standard interventions and the specific program on social skills training KONTAKT®. This study is now published in npj Genomic Medicine. “Our ultimate goal is to be able to use genetic information to […]

Differences in the microstructure of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a region in the brain that plays an important role in processing food and other reward stimuli, predict increases in indicators of obesity in children, according to a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and nine other […]

reatment of metastatic gastrointestinal solid tumor cancer. The Phase II clinical trial, which will use cutting-edge CRISPR genetic engineering, has opened exclusively at the M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, and has already begun enrolling patients. This trial comes on the heels of groundbreaking research from a consortia […]

Pioneering analysis of 200 million-year-old teeth belonging to the earliest mammals suggests they functioned like their cold-blooded counterparts – reptiles, leading less active but much longer lives. The research, led by the University of Bristol, UK and University of Helsinki, Finland, published in Nature Communications, is the first time palaeontologists have […]

Women with inflammatory breast cancer — a rare, highly aggressive form of the disease — are living about twice as long after diagnosis than their counterparts in the mid-to-late 1970s, according to a new University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center study. The researchers found that from 1973-1977, patients diagnosed with inflammatory breast […]

Lower levels of the vitamin negatively impacted balance and coordination. When it comes to vitamin D, most adults exhibit either frank deficiency, which results in clear clinical symptoms, or insufficiency, which often goes undetected. But how that insufficiency impacts physical health and the vulnerability of older adults to frailty as […]

In response to certain types of injury and inflammation, many organs produce tough scar tissue, a process called fibrosis, which can ultimately lead to organ failure or even death. Fibrosis is such a central component of so many different diseases – from cardiovascular disease to kidney failure – that scientists […]

Oregon State University scientists have developed a method that could potentially predict the cancer-causing potential of chemicals released into the air during wildfires and fossil fuel combustion. The research, which was recently published in the journal Toxicology in Vitro, was conducted as a part of the OSU Superfund Research Program.  The findings […]

A greater density of cells in a key reward centre of the brain is associated with obesity in children and predicts future weight gain, a new Yale-led study finds. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that a greater concentration of specialized cells in […]

The white blood cell TH17 helps the immune system fight infection by promoting inflammation. But it can be too much of a good thing: Excessive inflammation from TH17 overload has been tied to autoimmune disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and arthritis. Researchers led by Hening Lin, professor of chemistry […]

A University of Oregon-initiated project using tiny roundworms has identified defects tied to infertility that result when too much DNA is exchanged in the formation of sperm and eggs. The fundamental research, detailed in a paper placed online in PLOS Genetics, probed what happens when too many DNA exchanges, called […]

University of Alberta chemists have developed new tools for studying the human immune system that lay the foundation for research that could improve understanding of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. “Our lab studies sugar-binding receptors called Siglecs that control cells in our immune system,” explained Matthew Macauley, assistant professor […]

Cancer vaccines have shown promise in treating certain tumors, such as melanoma. But such vaccines have limitations. They often target normal proteins that may be more abundant in the tumor but also are present in healthy tissue, which can lead to off-target effects that cause autoimmune disorders and also reduce […]