General

Stopping melanoma from spreading to other parts of the body might be as simple as cutting off the blood supply to the cancer, according to researchers. Scientists from The University of Queensland’sDiamantina Institute have discovered stem cells which form blood vessels in tumours, and have identified how to ‘switch the cells off’. […]

As amyloid beta peptides bind to prion proteins, a cascade of events, which include the accumulation of plaques, abnormal immune responses and damage to synapses, is triggered, eventually leading to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Fortunately, researchers have been working hard on a variety of treatment avenues. In one of […]

Professor Kimitaka Nakazawa built a career studying neurological rehabilitation after spinal cord injury. He had long been interested in sports physiology and when he moved to the University of Tokyo in 2009, he had the academic freedom to add studies of dancers and baseball pitchers to his research. It wasn't […]

Using a common type of brain scan, researchers programmed a machine-learning algorithm to diagnose early-stage Alzheimer’s disease about six years before a clinical diagnosis is made – potentially giving doctors a chance to intervene with treatment. No cure exists for Alzheimer’s disease, but promising drugs have emerged in recent years […]

Yale researchers have identified a drinkable cocktail of designer molecules that interferes with a crucial first step of Alzheimer’s and even restores memories in mice, they report n the journal Cell Reports. The binding of amyloid beta peptides to prion proteins triggers a cascade of devasting events in the progression of […]

A team of neuroscientists and engineers has developed a tiny, implantable device that has potential to help people with bladder problems bypass the need for medication or electronic stimulators. The team — from Northwestern University, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign — developed a […]

When people are in the early stages of an undiagnosed disease, immediate tests that lead to treatment are the best first steps. But a blood draw — usually performed by a medical professional armed with an uncomfortably large needle — might not be quickest, least painful or most effective method, […]

Baby‘s birth is always an exciting moment, but it can also be hugely stressful. In fact, in certain cases natural birth is not even an option and parents are encouraged to choose caesarean section. It is a medical procedure that can save baby‘s and mother‘s lives in certain situation. Now […]

For the first time, engineers have demonstrated an electronic device to closely monitor beating heart cells without affecting their behavior. A collaboration between the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Women’s Medical University and RIKEN in Japan produced a functional sample of heart cells with a soft nanomesh sensor in direct contact […]

Eating well and exercising before surgery can improve surgical outcomes in the context of standardized care pathways, even among patients who have extremely serious procedures, according to a study by UW Medicine scientists published in PLOS ONE. “I tell my patients, ‘This is your job. This is something you can do […]

Psoriasis – a common, chronic skin disease that affects over 100 million people worldwide. It is incurable, even though there are pretty effective techniques for managing the symptoms. However, now scientists from the University of Birmingham have discovered a protein, which could eventually lead to more effective therapies for many […]

Reporting in the academic journal Cancer Research, a group of Japanese researchers have devised an artificial intelligence (AI) system (called VGG16) that can identify different types of cancer cells comprising a single tumour, and successfully gauge their susceptibility to radiotherapy. “This study demonstrates rapid and accurate identification of radioresistant tumour […]

Incorporating genetic diversity into a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease resulted in greater overlap with the genetic, molecular and clinical features of this pervasive human disease, according to a study funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study also suggests that […]

There is nothing fun about getting old. One of the worst things is deterioration of mental capacities, such as memory. As people get older, retention of new information typically declines, but there are ways to delay and slow down this process. Scientists from the University of Waterloo found that drawing […]

A team of Florida State University researchers has unlocked a decades-old mystery about how a critical cellular process is regulated and what that could mean for the future study of genetics. In cells, DNA and its associated material replicate at regular intervals, a process essential to all living organisms. This […]

An outstanding question in dermatology that researchers have studied for decades is: How do hair follicles emerge from a sea of seemingly uniform skin cells during embryonic development? New research findings from a Yale-led team offer answers to that question, which may lead to strategies for regenerating lost hair follicles […]

Scientists have identified a growth factor found in the kidneys that could minimise the diabetes-inducing effects of blood vessel damage. The findings come in the wake of recent data from Diabetes UK which revealed that almost 4.6 million people nationwide have either type 1 or type 2 diabetes.  Coupled with […]

Scientists in Anant Madabhushi’s computational imaging lab at Case Western Reserve University have started thinking outside the box—or in their case, looking outside the tumor. They’re hoping that this novel computerized approach represents a historic leap in diagnosing cancer using just routine CAT scans. If proven successful, it would be […]

Eye trauma or various infections often lead to impaired vision or even blindness. However, these conditions do not have such an effect in themselves – usually disability occurs due to scar tissue forming in cornea. This outer layer of the eye is transparent, but turns opaque due to scarring. Now […]

A series of studies conducted by teams led by Harvard Medical School systems biologists Allon Klein, Marc Kirschner and Sean Megason, as well as the work of teams led by Alexander Schier at Harvard University in collaboration with Aviv Regev at the Broad Institute of MIT-Harvard, have been featured as part of the “2018 Breakthrough of the […]

Of the many outstanding mysteries of neuroscience, the pathogenic origins of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remain one of the most perplexing neurological puzzles. An estimated 5.7 million Americans are presently afflicted with the disease, which gradually ravages the aging brain, resulting in progressive loss of memory followed by other cognitive abilities. […]

Professor Matt Smalley, from Cardiff University’s European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, said: “There are 150 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the UK every day. To achieve better outcomes for people facing this disease, we need to better understand how it develops so we can improve therapies. “We […]

With the help of a new human embryonic stem cell line, researchers make initial strides toward treatment for the genetic mutation. Fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and autism and poses a significant burden to affected families. The syndrome gets its name because — […]

A group of genes that has been largely ignored by scientists could play critical roles in atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), inflammation, and likely obesity and other metabolic diseases, new research suggests. The discovery was made by researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in the context of how our bodies recognize and remove […]

Jack L. Ivey learned he had cancer in 2007. Though he’d been writing since middle school, he had never penned any poetry. Then he joined the Writing a Life workshop, a program that encourages cancer patients at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) to express their feelings about cancer through writing. In […]

It was the kind of case no traditional medical textbook could explain. The subject – let’s call him Peter Green – was a white male in his late 80s, enrolled in longitudinal studies of the elderly at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Green’s brain scans “were not pretty,” recalls Joel Kramer, […]

Extremely obese people are needing a far higher dose of radiation during x-ray examinations than people of normal weight, increasing their risk of cancer, new research has shown. Extremely obese people are needing a far higher dose of radiation during x-ray examinations than people of normal weight, increasing their risk […]

An immunotherapy clinical trial based in Seattle, among other U.S. sites, was pivotal to the Dec. 19 approval by the Food and Drug Administration of the drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to treat Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and often fatal skin cancer. The FDA’s accelerated approval of the drug was based on findings […]

undreds of new genes linked to blindness and other vision disorders have been identified in a screen of mouse strains. Many of these genes are likely important in human eye vision and the results could help identify new causes of hereditary blindness in patients. The work was published in Nature Communications […]

Two drugs commonly prescribed to treat Type 2 diabetes carry a high risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, heart failure or amputation, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. “People should know if the medications they’re taking to treat their diabetes could lead to serious cardiovascular harm,” […]