General

Designing and building organisms from scratch could be the Holy Grail of synthetic biology. It therefore comes as no surprise that genome synthesis works get a lot of attention and are celebrated as high profile works form the community. In 2016 J. Craig Venter Institute scientists reported the synthesis of […]

In a pair of recently published papers, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, along with local and international collaborators, shed light on how specific circuits in the brain can simultaneously make decisions and learn from their outcomes. Consider eating brunch at your favorite restaurant: How do you know whether the eggs […]

Deep learning — a form of artificial intelligence — was able to detect malignant lung nodules on low-dose chest computed tomography (LDCT) scans with a performance meeting or exceeding that of expert radiologists, reports a new study from Google and Northwestern Medicine. This deep-learning system provides an automated image evaluation […]

In a study published in the journal Environmental Research, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found higher blood pressure and pesticide exposures in children associated with a heightened pesticide spraying period around the Mother’s Day flower harvest. This study involved boys and girls living near flower […]

Treating diseases on cellular level is extremely difficult because of the microscopic scale. It is especially true for cancer, which is why contemporary therapies are affecting a lot of the surrounding tissue. However, chemical and biomedical engineers from the UNSW Sydney proved that it is possible to design effective miniscule […]

Researchers at Cardiff and Swansea Universities are running a new trial to investigate whether a medicine currently used for the skin condition psoriasis could also be used to help people with type 1 diabetes produce some of their own insulin. Over 300,000 people in the UK have Type 1 diabetes […]

Cancer patients getting proton therapy instead of traditional photon radiation are at a significantly lower risk of experiencing side-effects from their radiation therapy, while cure rates are almost identical between the two groups. Researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania conducted the largest review of its […]

A mobile phone app designed to promote physical activity, combined with an activity tracker and brief personal counseling, was effective in encouraging women to exercise for three months and to continue their activity for six more months after their app use ended, according to a study by researchers at UC […]

Strabismus, also known as being cross-eyed or having a wandering eye, is one of the most common reasons that children undergo eye surgery. But little has changed in its treatment since the 1800s, according to Jolene Rudell, acting assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. […]

A close look at the rapidly developing zebrafish embryo is helping neuroscientists better understand the potential underpinnings of brain disorders, including autism and schizophrenia. Researchers at The Ohio State University were interested in understanding changes in neurological development that arise from a genetic defect associated with neurological disease – specifically, […]

Stem cells are surrounded and protected by the stem-cell niche – the microenvironment – of the tissue in which they are found. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have mapped the stem-cell niche in the bone marrow of mice and studied how it is influenced by developing leukemia. Their results, which are […]

Up until now it was believed that various organs and structures float in cytoplasm inside a cell. Scientists thought that messages through the cells are transferred via waves. However, this understanding is quickly changing as scientists from the University of Edinburgh discovered a cell-wide web – a communication network constructed […]

Black men are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and nearly 2.5 times more likely to die of the disease compared to non-Hispanic white men. The question is why. Are black men more likely to carry genes that drive deadlier forms of the disease? What societal disparities might […]

Researchers ID circulating proteins involved in progression of diabetic kidney disease. In a breakthrough study published in Nature Medicine, Harvard Medical School researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified a group of 17 circulating inflammatory proteins that are consistently associated with the development and progression of diabetic kidney disease. These 17 […]

SR9009 is a compound that can lead to a wide range of health benefits in animals, including reduced risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Until now, researchers – and companies that sell the compound for human use in the form of a nutraceutical – have attributed the effects to […]

A study from Penn and CHOP found that when preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder hear their name, their neural patterns match those of their typically developing peers. The finding held regardless of whether the child’s mom or a stranger called the name. Infants as young as 6 months old can […]

Current treatments can slow progression of heart failure, but do not address the underlying issues, including specific problems that cause systolic heart failure.  In this condition, the heart doesn’t contract vigorously enough in  pushing blood into the body’s circulation. The heart muscle contractions that  pump blood are generated by interactions […]

We now know living organisms’ gametes aren’t the exclusive vehicles of DNA. “It was said that DNA is the only thing that offspring inherit from their parents via gametes, but we now know that RNA and histone proteins in sperm nuclei are also indirectly inherited,” says Professor Yuki Okada, who […]

Proton therapy results in fewer side effects than traditional X-ray radiation therapy for many cancer patients, according to a new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Even with reduced side effects, proton therapy resulted in […]

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has announced two awards for the study of influenza immunity in children. The awards, which may total more than $64 million over seven years, will support studies led by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center […]

New findings from a study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, show that U.S. incidence rates for aggressive subtypes of uterine cancer rose rapidly among women ages 30 to 79 from 2000 to 2015. The findings also reveal racial disparities, including […]

In 1972, Easter Island, called Rapa Nui, famous for its moai statues, offered a new wonder: the discovery of the drug rapamycin. Over the past three decades, rapamycin, which was isolated from soil bacteria, has been applied as an immuno-suppressor in a multitude of ways, including to coat coronary stents […]

Preterm birth (PTB) — defined as birth before the 37th week of gestation — is the leading complication of pregnancy. If doctors had a simple, accurate and inexpensive way to identify women at risk for the condition, they could develop better prevention strategies. Now researchers have created a 3D-printed microchip electrophoresis device that […]

A University of California, Riverside, research team has come up with a new approach to targeting cancer cells that circumvents a challenge faced by currently available cancer drugs. A cancer target is often a rogue protein that signals cancer cells to proliferate uncontrollably and invade organs. Modern cancer drugs have […]

Working with bacteria, a multidisciplinary team at the University of California San Diego has provided new insight into a longstanding question in science: What are the underlying mechanisms that control the size of cells? Nearly five years ago a team led by Suckjoon Jun, a biophysicist at UC San Diego, […]

Neonatal exposure to nicotine alters the reward circuity in the brains of newborn mice, increasing their preference for the drug in later adulthood, report researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine in a study published “in press” in Biological Psychiatry. A UC San Diego School of Medicine […]

Recent studies suggest that long-term sufferers of Cachexia may be in for some much needed good news. Experienced by as many as half of all cancer patients – and responsible for the deaths of around 22% – Cachexia may have met its match with new technologies on the horizon already […]

A simple slice of the finger sends a complex series of interactions between types of cells into motion. Two types of cells in particular, called macrophages and fibroblasts, work together to clean up and repair the fibers destroyed by the cut. As they do so, they influence each other, they […]

Cancer survivors Monique Russier and Tyler Rabey owe their lives to a molecule called UM-171. In 2014, on a hiking trip in the mountains of Savoie, in France, Russier came down with a high fever and started coughing. A blood test and X-ray of her lungs later revealed that the […]

Tissue engineering could transform medicine. Instead of waiting for our bodies to regrow or repair damage after an injury or disease, scientists could grow complex, fully functional tissues in a laboratory for transplantation into patients. Proteins are key to this future. In our bodies, protein signals tell cells where to […]