General

Researchers at McMaster University and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have reported  the discovery and diagnosis of an aggressive malignant bone cancer — an osteosarcoma — for the first time ever in a dinosaur. No malignant cancers—tumours that can spread throughout the body and have severe health implications—have ever been […]

Why do some people stay sharp into their 90s, even if they have the amyloid plaques in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease? And why do others reach their 90s without ever developing any plaques? These questions are explored in a new study published in the July 22, […]

A test that detects changing levels of tumour fragments in the blood may be an easy, non-invasive and quick way to predict who will benefit from immunotherapy, University of Toronto researchers say. Immunotherapy can shrink tumours and prolong survival for patients for whom other treatments have failed. But it only helps […]

A new type of immunotherapy for the skin cancer malignant melanoma shows promising results. Three severely ill patients are now long-term survivors. The study, published in OncoImmunology, is the result of a collaboration between researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital. “Immunotherapy is based on activation of the body's […]

Aging is just not fun. At the later stages of your life you are more likely to encounter some serious health problems, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Once you hear this diagnosis, you know you’re in for a bad ending, because it is incurable. However, now scientists at the University of […]

Head and neck cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) account for the majority of these cases. In a new study, based on preclinical research and published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers […]

Cancer immunotherapy — a treatment that better enables a patient’s own immune system to attack tumors — has shown great potential against some cancers. Yet immunotherapy doesn’t work against all tumor types, and many patients who initially respond later develop resistance and relapse. Researchers at University of California San Diego […]

From lowering your risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease to improving your concentration and overall daily performance, sleep has been proven to play a critical role in our health. In a new study, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that sleep may also help people […]

Using stem cells to restore lost functions due to spinal cord injury (SCI) has long been an ambition of scientists and doctors. Nearly 18,000 people in the United States suffer SCIs each year, with another 294,000 persons living with an SCI, usually involving some degree of permanent paralysis or diminished […]

This open access paper expands on earlier work on cellular senescence in long-lived naked mole-rats. Individuals of this species can live as much as nine times longer than equivalently sized rodents, and are near immune to cancer. In other mammals, senescent cells accumulate with age and disrupt tissue function via […]

As of the past few years, the long-standing debate over whether moderate alcohol intake has a protective effect on health had appeared to resolve to the conclusion that the observed epidemiology is explained by socioeconomic factors, not by the metabolic effects of molecules such as polyphenols present in wine or […]

Infertility is a worldwide clinical problem for human health that affects 8 to 12 percent of couples. A new study from Washington University in St. Louis has implications for understanding some age-related aspects of male reproductive health in primates, including humans. Older male rhesus monkeys sire fewer offspring, even though […]

An analysis of a large study population here shows that glucosamine supplementation results in about a 15% reduction in mortality, a sizable effect size in the context of what is known of the effects of lifestyle choices and supplementation on aging. Glucosamine is used as an anti-inflammatory intervention, but there […]

A significant number of patients reported a deterioration in their hearing when questioned eight weeks after discharge from hospital admission for COVID-19, according to the University of Manchester audiologists, in a study supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). One hundred and twenty-one of the adults admitted to […]

More than three hundred years after Antonie van Leeuwenhoek used one of the earliest microscopes to describe human sperm as having a “tail, which, when swimming, lashes with a snakelike movement, like eels in water”, scientists have revealed this is an optical illusion. Using state-of-the-art 3D microscopy and mathematics, Dr Hermes […]

African-Americans have up to three times the risk of dying from strokes as people of European descent, yet there has been little investigation of if and how genetic variants contribute to their elevated risk. Until now. A large international team of scientists has completed the largest analysis of stroke-risk genes […]

Disruption of condensates in the neurodevelopmental disorder provides insights into how cells compartmentalize chromosomes, as well as new potential therapies. New discoveries about the disruption of condensates in the neurodevelopmental disorder Rett syndrome provide insights into how cells compartmentalize chromosomes, as well as new potential paths for therapies. Scientists have, […]

An international team led by UNSW medical researchers has tested a chemical compound in the lab and a range of animal models to progress much-needed treatment options for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR), the main eye complication of diabetes. While the preclinical studies provide hope to […]

Researchers from JCU’s Queensland Research Centre for Peripheral Vascular Disease, involving collaborators from across Queensland, are conducting clinical trials to investigate whether a new drug can be used for treating blocked leg artery-related walking impairment. “People with blocked leg arteries have a substantially reduced ability to walk, which leads to […]

The multicellular, 3-D structure of human pancreatic islets — the areas of the pancreas containing hormone-producing or endocrine cells — has presented challenges to researchers as they study and manipulate these cells’ function, but Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have now developed a pseudoislet system that allows for much easier […]

A protein linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurological disease that causes muscle weakness, may be a key to treating fibrotic disease of the kidneys and other organs, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported recently. FUS is the acronym of a protein in the nucleus of cells that regulates […]

Many modern cancer drugs target a specific genetic mutation that is driving particular cancer’s runaway growth and division — such as the HER-2 protein in some breast cancers or EGFR in certain lung cancers. But this strategy hasn’t worked well against glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, which is […]

The findings from a recent study by a University at Buffalo researcher and others could prove to be a game-changer for men with Type 2 diabetes. The single-site study, conducted over 11 years in Bremerhaven, Germany, found that testosterone therapy reversed Type 2 diabetes in one-third of the study participants. […]

Scientists at the IRCM reveal the function of some 200 proteins previously unprobed by biologists, pointing the way to new therapeutic targets for cancers and neurological disorders. A team from the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) has written a new chapter in gene regulation by unearthing the function of about […]

Best vitelliform macular degeneration, or Best disease, is an inherited eye condition that typically leads to blindness over the course of a few decades. The disease can be caused by more than two hundred mutations in the BEST1 gene. The researchers were able to correct the disease in stem cells from patients […]

More than 30 million Americans are infected with a brain parasite spread by cats and contaminated meat, but most will never show symptoms. A new discovery from the University of Virginia School of Medicine explains why, and that finding could have important implications for brain infections, neurodegenerative diseases, and autoimmune […]

Within a mere eight years, CRISPR-Cas9 has become the go-to genome editor for both basic research and gene therapy. But CRISPR-Cas9 also has spawned other potentially powerful DNA manipulation tools that could help fix genetic mutations responsible for hereditary diseases. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have now obtained […]

T cells are the immune soldiers at the frontline of the battle with infiltrating pathogens that seek to cause disease. A new study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering describes a novel, label-free imaging technique that can differentiate active T cells from those off duty. The method produced by the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded research […]

Case Western Reserve University scientists are developing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help surgeons and oncologists identify the subtle but critical differences between a recurring tumor and damaged non-cancerous tissue on post-operative MRI scans of certain cancer patients. The work is being led by Pallavi Tiwari, PhD, and Satish Viswanath, […]

A new multi-institution, dose-determining clinical trial of a compound against metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer showed promising results, researchers reported in Clinical Cancer Research. The phase 1b/2a study of the pan-BET bromodomain inhibitor ZEN-3694 in combination with enzalutamide was led by researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, the University of California, San Francisco, […]