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Newborn breastfed babies’ saliva combines with breastmilk to release antibacterial compounds that help to shape the bacterial communities (microbiota) in babies’ mouths, biomedical scientists have found. A study led by Dr Emma Sweeney and Adjunct Associate Professor Christine Knox, from QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, with colleagues at the […]

Scientists have made a major discovery that shines a new, explanatory light on the link between obesity and cancer. Their research confirms why the body’s immune surveillance systems – led by cancer-fighting Natural Killer cells – stutter and fail in the presence of excess fat. Additionally, it outlines possible paths […]

New research suggests that infant girls fed soy formula are more likely to develop severe menstrual pain as young adults. The finding adds to the growing body of literature that suggests exposure to soy formula during early life may have detrimental effects on the reproductive system. The study appears online […]

Studying DNA from more than 1.5 million people, an international team of researchers — led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, San Francisco — has identified points of DNA that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and also heighten the risk for […]

Our ability to selectively forget distracting memories is shared with other mammals, suggests new research from the University of Cambridge. The discovery that rats and humans share a common active forgetting ability – and in similar brain regions – suggests that the capacity to forget plays a vital role in […]

A new gene therapy can turn certain brain glial cells into functioning neurons, which in turn could help repair the brain after a stroke or during neurological disorders like Alzheimer's or Parkinson’s diseases. In a series of studies in animals, a team of Penn State researchers led by Gong Chen […]

Children who suffer abuse are more likely to age faster, while those who endure food insecurity or neglect may develop more slowly, according to new research led by the University of Washington. Violence, psychological or emotional abuse, deprivation and neglect — adverse childhood experiences — can affect both epigenetic, or […]

Stanford biologist Shripad Tuljapurkar had assumed humans were approaching the limit to their longevity – that’s what previous research had suggested – but what he observed in 50 years of lifespan data was more optimistic than he was. Analyzing the average age of death in people who lived to be […]

Unlike old dogs, old adults can indeed learn new tricks thanks to a protein molecule called netrin. Netrin is known to help set up the healthy nervous system in an infant’s developing brain by directing brain cells to make appropriate connections with other brain cells. New research conducted by scientists […]

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have identified a protein that determines the identity and invasive properties of breast cancer cells. The finding could lead to the development of new therapeutic and diagnostic strategies to target breast cancer invasion and metastasis. The study is published in the scientific journal Cancer Research. Cancer cell […]

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, having compared the development of allergies in children with and without the recommended vaccinations, find no support for the claim that childhood vaccination can increase the risk of allergy. The study is published in EClinicalMedicine, a new open access journal published by The Lancet. “Even though Sweden has […]

Women who are 'larks', functioning better at the beginning of the day than the end of the day, have a lower of risk breast cancer, according to new research led by the University of Bristol presented at the 2018 NCRI Cancer Conference. The study of several hundred thousand women, which […]

A small device that contains human cells in a 3D matrix represents a giant leap in the ability of scientists to test how those cells respond to stresses, drugs and genetic changes. About the size of a thumb drive, the devices are known as tissue chips or organs on chips. […]

A new immunotherapy screening prototype developed by University of California, Irvine researchers can quickly create individualized cancer treatments that will allow physicians to effectively target tumors without the side effects of standard cancer drugs. UCI’s Weian Zhao and Nobel laureate David Baltimore with Caltech led the research team that developed […]

Stanford scientists and their collaborators have identified two key genes responsible for the rapid growth of deer antlers. They hope their insights will open the door to new approaches for treating bone diseases and fractures. Each spring, male deer sprout a new pair of antlers, which are essentially temporary external […]

Researchers can design the perfect molecule to edit a gene, treat cancer or guide the development of a stem cell, but none of that will matter in the end if they can’t get their molecule into the human cells they want to manipulate. The solution to that problem, described in […]

Skeletal stem cells are valuable because it’s thought they can heal many types of bone injury, but they’re difficult to find because researchers don’t know exactly what they look like or where they live. Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified a type of skeletal stem cell in the […]

Lung cancer is among the most frequently occurring forms of cancer, second only to prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. It’s also the most lethal cancer type, claiming the lives of more adults than colon, breast and prostate cancer combined. About 8 in 10 lung cancer cases […]

Ovarian cancer claims the highest mortality rate of all gynecologic cancers – as high as 70 percent – in part because the disease is rarely detected earlier than stage 3 or 4. When the disease is discovered early in its development, however, survival rates are high. An effective screening technique […]

New Vanderbilt research finds how long humans and other warm-blooded animals live—and when they reach sexual maturity—may have more to do with their brain than their body. More specifically, it is not animals with larger bodies or slower metabolic rates that live longer; it is animals with more neurons in […]

Physicians can assess the risks of major coronary events in someone with diabetes reasonably well. Among those with diabetes, there are well-established indicators of risk such as weight, fasting levels of blood glucose and family history of the disease. Doctors also can consider more general measures of health such as […]

A new study puts a fresh spin on what it means to “go with your gut.” The findings, published in Nature, suggest that gut bacteria may control movement in fruit flies and identify the neurons involved in this response. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders […]

Infant formula is designed to mimic human breast milk not only in nutrients but also by nurturing a similar set of microbes in the digestive tract. Such microbes are indispensable in keeping us healthy: They crowd out disease-causing bacteria, influence our metabolism, and synthesize many vitamins and amino acids, the […]

Delivering an effective therapeutic payload to specific target cells with few adverse effects is considered by many to be the holy grail of medical research. A new Tel Aviv University study explores a biological approach to directing nanocarriers loaded with protein “game changers” to specific cells. The groundbreaking method may prove useful […]

A new Tel Aviv University study finds that neonatal birthweights increase in direct proportion with the number of births of the mother in at least 30 percent of all cases. The study focuses on the risk of having large for gestational age (LGA) infants, babies who clock in at higher than the […]

Anne Teitelman believes the key to helping women stay healthy is to meet them where they are, to bring the personal, health-related care into their daily lives, not sequester it to a once- or twice-a-year visit to a nurse practitioner, doctor, or another care provider. So, the Penn Nursing researcher built two apps. The […]

Screens are now a fixture of modern childhood. As young people spend an increasing amount of time on electronic devices, the effects of these digital activities has become a prevalent concern among parents, caregivers, and policy-makers. Research indicating that between 50% to 90% of school-age children might not be getting […]

The cerebral cortex is responsible for a large number of complex brain functions, ranging from the perception of sensory stimuli through alertness, memory and language to consciousness. Neurobiologists at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen have decoded a new regulatory principle that controls the development of the […]

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) have committed $2,265,000 in prize money for “KidneyX: Redesign Dialysis,” a prize competition that challenges the public to develop better treatment options for patients with kidney failure. This prize competition is the first in […]

Type 2 diabetes is driven by many metabolic pathways—some driven by amino acids, the molecular building blocks for proteins. Harvard Medical School scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center found that one amino acid, alanine, may produce a short-term lowering of glucose levels by altering energy metabolism in the cell. “Our study […]