General

Gene editing will be tested in UW Medicine labs on kidney organoids – tiny, kidney-like structures grown from stem cells – as part of a federally funded effort to develop safe, effective genome editing technologies and therapies. The National Institutes of Health announced the next set of grant awards for the […]

New magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided radiation therapy technologies, designed to improve the targeting and treatment of cancerous tumors, have been added to the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center,  making it the first site in New England to be able to provide advanced, real-time, pinpoint-accurate MRI-guided […]

Women who experience complications such as preterm births and preeclampsia during their first pregnancy are nearly twice more likely than women without complications to develop high blood pressure later in life — some as quickly as three years later, according to a new study of more than 4,000 women. The study […]

Ovarian cancer is the eighth most commonly occurring cancer in women – it is not very common. And in most cases disease cannot be detected in patients after they receive a course of chemotherapy and a surgery. However, 70 % of ovarian cancer patients relapse and then the disease becomes […]

A nurse scientist at Case Western Reserve University is further expanding her research on aging-related health challenges increasingly faced by people living longer with HIV-AIDS. Allison Webel, an associate professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve, has for more than a decade focused on […]

Nearly 150,000 cancer-related deaths can be attributed annually to Epstein-Barr (EBV) virus, in part because of the lack of effective treatment options. Now, a research team has created the first comprehensive map of interactions between the genes of the virus and host cells in EBV-associated cancers, knowledge that could lead […]

Like the mythological phoenix bird, gene therapy has risen from the ashes and is spreading its wings. September 17 marked 20 years since the death of 19-year-old Jesse Gelsinger in a gene therapy trial. That tragedy halted the fledgling field, with the outlook worsening when, soon after, boys with an […]

Scientists have identified a pair of molecules critical for T cells, part of the immune system, to travel to and populate the lungs. A potential application could be strengthening vaccines against respiratory pathogens such as influenza. The findings were published online in Journal of Experimental Medicine. Much research on immunity […]

A new study, published in Aging Cell, has found that human ageing processes may hinder cancer development. Ageing is one of the biggest risk factor for cancer. However, the biological mechanisms behind this link are still unclear. Each cell in the human body is specialised to carry out certain tasks and […]

Imagine cancer treatment without chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. Just a small aspirin-like pill. Sound like magic? That’s because it kind of is, according to Khaled Barakat, a University of Alberta biophysicist searching for innovative immunotherapies that could help knock out multiple types of cancer simply by empowering the immune system. “We […]

Most women now know to how to check for breast cancer.  And a yearly pap smear to check for cervical cancer is de rigueur.  But awareness of endometrial cancer, not so much. That bothers Dr. Kemi Doll, a gynecologic oncologist with the University of Washington School of Medicine. “The truth is, this is […]

There are 20 amino acids in the standard genetic code. A Rice University professor wants to know what one can do with 21. Rice chemist Han Xiao has landed a $1.8 million National Institutes of Health grant to learn how a custom-designed 21st amino acid could be employed to make life-saving substances — and […]

A new discovery about pancreatic cancer sheds light on how the cancer fuels its growth and may help explain how promising cancer drugs work – and for whom they will fail. The finding one day could help doctors determine which treatments will be most effective for patients, so that they […]

Radiation therapy can be a very effective way to treat cancer – tumour are zapped with a very accurate and very sharp beam of radiation. However, despite the machines being incredibly precise, the treatment might be compromised by the patient’s movement. Now scientists from the University of Birmingham demonstrated that […]

World War 2 was a global-scale conflict and, therefore, soldiers had to work in mosquito-ridden areas. Malaria was just as big of a threat back then as it is today and a sick soldier is a soldier in danger. That is why they were administered quinacrine. Now scientists at the […]

You would get cancer all the time, if your body was not ready to react and suppress the starting disease. Immune system recognizes young cancer cells and kills them. Then there are tumour fighting genes, which stop cancer cells from dividing and spreading. Sadly, cancer is a sneaky disease, able […]

For a long time, the contents of cells were thought to be fairly unstructured and chaotic: a mixture of proteins, DNA and a multitude of small metabolic molecules. Although important cellular processes in plants and animals were known to take place in organelles (larger structures enclosed by a membrane, such […]

We definitely need sleep. However, some people sleep more than others.That oftentimes depends on how busy and healthy people are. Now scientists from the University of Helsinki  quarter of a million nights of sleep to see what factors influence it the most. The age or participants in this study ranged […]

A study of 280,000 U.S. veterans including 56,000 African Americans has identified in greater detail than ever before the “genetic architecture” of kidney function and chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and their colleagues. The report, published recently in the journal Nature Communications, is an important […]

While blood samples can reliably identify people with a low risk of developing severe liver disease, better methods are needed in primary care for identifying people in most need of care. These are some of the conclusions of a large registry-based study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in the […]

Some of the most important tools in the toolbox of modern cell biologists are special chunks of DNA that act like spies, reporting on the cell's function. The markers, known as reporter genes, allow researchers to get a sense for what cells are doing by watching genetic programs embedded in […]

The Queen Mary University of London team applied an artificial intelligence (AI) technique to analyse the heart MRI images of 17,000 healthy UK Biobank volunteers. They found that genetic factors accounted for 22-39 per cent of variation in the size and function of the heart’s left ventricle, the organ’s main […]

Teenagers got 43 more minutes of sleep a night after a four-week intervention that reset their body clocks and helped them go to bed earlier, a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown. The treatment had two components: brief, early morning flashes of bright, broad-spectrum white light to reset […]

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed a platform that uses nanoparticles known as metal-organic frameworks to deliver a promising anti-cancer agent to cells. Research led by Dr David Fairen-Jimenez, from the Cambridge Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, indicates metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) could present a viable platform for delivering […]

In human cell cultures, countering a defect that appears to be nearly universal among patients with Parkinson’s disease prevents death in the cells whose loss causes the disease. Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have pinpointed a molecular defect that seems almost universal among patients with Parkinson’s disease and those […]

Although there is little evidence that opioids effectively reduce pain from rheumatic diseases, a new study finds nearly one in three patients with lupus uses prescription opioids, often lasting longer than a year. Lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, often leaves those affected with inflammation and pain throughout the body. “Rheumatic diseases, such […]

In the study, researchers from King’s  and UCL analysed the genetic data from over 250,000 participants of the UK Biobank aged 40-69 years to see which genes were associated with people who had reported having or not having hearing problems on a questionnaire. 44 genes were identified to be linked […]

Break any bone in the human body, and the body can repair the tissue and fix the damage. Yet tooth enamel — the strongest tissue in the human body — cannot repair itself. Still, our teeth last a lifetime. “We apply huge pressure on tooth enamel every time we chew, […]

As you might have noticed by talking to your grandma, people start losing their hearing as they age. One third of 65 year olds report have impaired hearing. Worse still, we don’t know why that happens, although 5 genes have been identified. Now scientists from UCL and King’s College London […]

Immune system becomes weaker as you age – everyone knows that.That is why older people are more susceptible to various bacterial and viral infections. But is is the same with animals? Scientists from the University of Edinburgh conducted a long-term study with a Scottish sheep breed and found out that […]