General

Academic research has long been characterized by silos and protective instincts. A new crop of fresh-thinking physician scientists are turning that model on its head, and the results are saving little hearts. More than 1 in every 110 babies is born with some form of congenital heart disease. CHDs are the […]

New research from a group of Vanderbilt biomedical engineers reveals that while cancer cells move quickly in metastasis, they’re rather lazy in which paths they choose. According to the researchers, migrating cancer cells decide which path in the body to travel based on how much energy it takes, opting to […]

The research published in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology examined whether there were any effects of taking paracetamol in mid-pregnancy and the behaviour of the offspring between the ages of 6 month and 11 years, with memory and IQ tested up until the age of 17.  Paracetamol is commonly used to relieve […]

A group of scientists and clinicians from the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and the USA have worked together and made an important discovery that explains an often fatal organ defect that affects unborn babies and children. Finding mutations of a key gene that controls how the urinary bladder grows before […]

It appears that when our nervous system is developing, only the most viable neurons survive, while immature neurons are weeded out and die. This is shown in a ground-breaking discovery by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The results indicate that the long-standing neurotrophic theory, which states that chance determines […]

While doctors agree that children can be diagnosed with autism as early as age two, the average age of diagnosis is about 4 years old. And for minority children, research indicates that age is much older. Yet the earlier children are diagnosed, the quicker they can take advantage of interventions […]

Scientists have determined a new way to protect the hair follicle from chemotherapy in an effort to prevent hair loss as a result of cancer treatments. Researchers based at The University of Manchester have discovered a new strategy for how to protect hair follicles from chemotherapy, which could lead to new treatments […]

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have identified 10 cancer drugs currently in clinical trials that do not work how clinicians thought they would. In identifying what went wrong, experts can now work to improve drug discovery and personalized medicine. The discovery started out with an entirely different goal. […]

Metastasizing breast cancers typically seek out the bones, lung and brain. Brain metastases are especially dangerous; many people survive for less than a year after diagnosis. How is the cancer able to get past the blood-brain barrier? And can it be blocked? Those questions led Harvard PhD candidate Golnaz Morad and her […]

The KRAS gene is one of the commonly mutated genes in cancer. More than 40 percent of colorectal cancers have a mutated KRAS gene, or oncogene, that is at least partially responsible for cancer development. Mutated KRAS genes are commonly found in other cancers as well, including pancreatic, lung, myeloma and endometrial, and not all KRAS mutations in […]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia but the changes in brain cell function underlying memory loss remains poorly understood. Researchers at the University of Bristol have identified that calcium channel blockers may be effective in treating memory loss. The team's findings, published in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, […]

A new method for making stem cell colonies that mimic parts of early human development could help investigate important questions in maternal and child health, such as: What chemicals pose risks to developing embryos, and what causes certain birth defects and multiple miscarriages? The technique, developed at the University of […]

When Mason Thomas needed a heart transplant at age six, he asked to see his damaged heart so he could understand what was wrong with it, but the old organ was discarded after the surgery. Today, two years later, Mason got his wish, thanks to an innovative project by a […]

CAR T-cell therapy, a rapidly emerging form of immunotherapy using patients’ own cells to treat certain types of cancers, may be a viable treatment option for another life-threatening condition: heart disease. In a first-of-its-kind study, published in Nature, researchers at Penn Medicine used genetically modified T cells to target and remove activated […]

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals have successfully treated a months-old infant with a rare childhood leukemia using a targeted therapy approved for adults with inoperable liver cancer and advanced kidney cancer. The decision to use the drug, sorafenib, was made after pathologists identified a unique mutation in the form of two […]

Efforts to extend the human lifespan, or in more exotic cases – even to achieve immortality, have recently been rejuvenated by a small clinical trial which demonstrated that the body’s “epigenetic clock” which measures a person’s biological age might be amenable to successful pharmaceutical manipulation. In the trial, published on […]

A research team from the University of Georgia’s Regenerative Bioscience Center has found that a compound molecule used for drug delivery of insulin could be used to treat glioblastoma, an aggressive, usually fatal form of brain cancer. Glioblastoma, also known as GBM, is a fast-growing, web-like tumor that arises from supportive […]

Nearly two decades ago, a gene therapy restored vision to Lancelot, a Briard dog who was born with a blinding disease. This ushered in a period of hope and progress for the field of gene therapy aimed at curing blindness, which culminated in the 2017 approval of a gene therapy […]

New research reveals the mechanism that allows breastfeeding babies to absorb large amounts of calcium and build healthy bones—a discovery that could lead to treatment for osteoporosis and other bone diseases later in life. “We build our bone mineral density until we’re early adults and then stop, so we think […]

Fine motor skills – used for eating, writing and buttoning clothing – may be a strong predictor for identifying whether children with autism are at risk for long-term language disabilities, according to a Rutgers-led study. The study, in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, highlights the association between fine motor skills […]

A new study of fruit flies (Drosophila) uncovers an ancient and fundamental mechanism that provides details into a long-standing mystery of reproductive biology. The results, which are relevant to higher animals including humans, add to a growing body of evidence in other organisms about the role of calcium in the […]

Cancer is relentless and resilient. When a drug blocks a cancer cell’s main survival pathway, the cell avoids the obstacle by taking different pathways or detours to save itself. This tactic is called “developing resistance,” and it’s one of the key challenges researchers face when seeking effective therapeutics to combat […]

Tel Aviv University and Sheba Medical Center researchers say they have discovered why more than half of patients with metastatic melanoma do not respond to immunotherapy cancer treatments. Wielding proteomics, an innovative “protein mapping” approach, a team of researchers led by Prof. Tami Geiger, Prof. Gal Markel, and Dr. Michal Harel of TAU's Sackler School of […]

Although the number of women being diagnosed and dying of ovarian cancer is declining, recurrence, drug resistance and mortality remain high for women with high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, the most common form of epithelial ovarian cancer. A new study in the journal eLife by University of California San Diego School of Medicine […]

Bioengineers and biologists at the University of California San Diego have developed a method to significantly extend the life of gene circuits used to instruct microbes to do things such as produce and deliver drugs, break down chemicals and serve as environmental sensors. Most of the circuits that synthetic biologists […]

The physical activity guidelines issued today by the four Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, offer advice to all age groups and – for the first time – pregnant women, new mums and disabled adults. Drawing on the most up-to-date scientific evidence for the benefits of physical activity, […]

Chronic conductive hearing loss, a condition that can result from middle-ear infections, may interfere with  speech recognition deficits, according to the results of a new study led by Harvard Medical School scientists at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and published in the journal Ear and Hearing. This  finding suggests that not properly […]

Newborns whose mothers spent more than one week on bedrest had poorer health outcomes, according to a new study out of the University of Alberta that further challenges beliefs about pregnancy and activity levels. A team led by cardiovascular health researcher Margie Davenport conducted a review of every available randomized controlled trial of prenatal […]

Much research has pointed to how an unhealthy diet correlates to obesity, but has not explored how diet can bring about neurological changes in the brain. A recent Yale study has discovered that high-fat diets contribute to irregularities in the hypothalamus region of the brain, which regulates body weight homeostasis […]

Glycans, or complex sugars, cover the surfaces of our cells and play a key role in biological processes ranging from interacting with other cells to recognizing and fighting pathogens. With cancer, for example, they mediate the mechanisms controlling cell division, growth and mobility that affect tumor development. Glycans are ubiquitous, but […]