General

On the hunt for genes involved in regenerating critical nerve fibers called axons, biologists at the University of California San Diego came away with a surprise: The discovery of a new genetic pathway that carries hope for victims of traumatic injuries—from stroke to spinal cord damage. UC San Diego Biological […]

The study, led by Dr Gunnel Halldén and funded by the charity Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, suggests that the new technique could potentially become a promising new treatment for patients with the aggressive disease, and could be combined with existing chemotherapy to improve chances of survival. First author Dr Stella Man […]

The planarian flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea is an extraordinary animal. Even when cut into tiny pieces, each piece can regenerate back into a complete and perfectly proportioned miniature planarian. Key to this ability are fascinating adult stem cells, a single one of which can restore a complete worm. But how Schmidtea mediterranea achieves these feats […]

A team of researchers led by scientists in Vienna, Dresden and Heidelberg has decoded the entire genetic information of the Mexican salamander axolotl. The axolotl genome, which is the largest genome ever to be sequenced, will be a powerful tool to study the molecular basis for regrowing limbs and other […]

The oncogene RAS is the most frequently mutated gene of its type in human cancer. Active mutants are found in 60 to 90 percent of cases of pancreatic cancer, and a significant portion of colorectal and lung cancers. Among all RAS-driven cancers, the most frequently mutated gene is KRAS. Two […]

Working with mouse tissue, the research team discovered that fluid pressure felt by embryonic lungs helps control the rate of development of the organ. This pressure coordinates the contraction of the smooth muscles girding the airways, which in turn spurs the sprouting of new branches throughout the fledgling lung. The […]

As Isoplexis, the company co-founded by Yale’s Rong Fan and Sean Mackay ’14, prepares to take its production to the next level in 2018, two science news publications have honored the company for technology that tailors optimum treatments for cancer patients. The Scientist magazine named the company’s IsoCode chip and IsoLight platform, an all-in-one system that reads the individual […]

The most common form of breast cancer is oestrogen-receptor-positive, so called hormone-sensitive breast cancer. This means that the tumour needs the female hormone oestrogen to grow. Women who develop this kind of breast cancer have a remaining long-term risk of dying of the disease. It is also known that the […]

Turning off enzymes that are important for the survival of growing cells is a promising strategy to fight cancer. But to be able to shut down only one specific enzyme out of thousands in the body, drugs have to be tailored to exactly fit their target. This is particularly difficult […]

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to starve a tumor and stop its growth with a newly discovered small compound that blocks uptake of the vital nutrient glutamine. Their findings, reported in Nature Medicine, lay the groundwork for development of […]

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have long been regarded as the granddaddy of all blood cells. After we are born, these multipotent cells give rise to all our cell lineages: lymphoid, myeloid and erythroid cells. Hematologists have long focused on capturing HSCs’ emergence in the embryo, hoping to recreate the process […]

University of Alberta researchers created a new synthetic virus that could lead to the development of a more effective vaccine against smallpox. The discovery demonstrates how techniques based on the use of synthetic DNA can be used to advance public health measures. Virologist David Evans and his research associate Ryan Noyce produced […]

Fifteen years ago, University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher Meg Wise began interviewing cancer patients nearing the end of life about how they were living with their diagnosis. She was surprised to find that many asked for a transcript of the interview, saying that they had not talked about these issues with […]

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have received two grant awards, in partnership with investigators from other institutions, from the National Institutes of Health to conduct major studies on Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of memory loss and other forms of dementia in older persons. In […]

Older people with higher levels of chronic inflammation are likely to have weaker muscles and lower muscle mass, according to a new study carried out at the University of Southampton. Scientists from the University’s Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU) examined the relationship between levels of inflammation in […]

Dentists and dental hygienists in particular should be conducting oral cancer screenings on all patients, according to University of Alberta dentistry experts. “Oral cancer screening should be taking place on patients as part of regular dental visits,” said Seema Ganatra, an oral pathologist at the U of A. “Unfortunately, it’s not […]

Frequently encountered in the elderly, Alzheimer’s is considered a neurodegenerative disease, which means that it is accompanied by a significant, progressive loss of neurons and their nerve endings, or synapses. A joint French and Canadian study published in Scientific Reports now challenges this view. Conducted among more than 170 subjects […]

Adults with an aging parent diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease are at elevated risk of developing the disease themselves. But doctors still don’t know enough yet to predict which of these adult children will go on to develop Alzheimer’s. Nor can they predict at what age the characteristic symptoms of memory […]

One of the many difficult things about pancreatic cancer is that tumors are resistant to most treatments because of their unique density and cell composition. However, in a new Wilmot Cancer Institute study, scientists discovered that a three-drug combination can simultaneously target the cancer cells as well as the other harmful, inflammatory […]

Scientists in the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Gage Crump have revealed how key genes guide the development of the jaw in zebrafish. These findings may offer clues for understanding craniofacial anomalies in human patients, who sometimes carry a mutation in equivalent genes. In the study published in Developmental Cell, first author Lindsey Barske […]

For the first time, researchers have described atom-by-atom changes in a family of proteins linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a group of brain disorders known as frontotemporal dementia and degenerative diseases of muscle and bone. Their findings appeared in the journal Molecular Cell. The long-term goal of the research is […]

Named after the Greek goddess who spun the thread of life, Klotho proteins play an important role in the regulation of longevity and metabolism. In a recent Yale-led study, researchers revealed the three-dimensional structure of one of these proteins, beta-Klotho, illuminating its intricate mechanism and therapeutic potential. The study findings, published […]

Prostate tumors tend to be what scientists call “indolent”—so slow-growing and self-contained that many affected men die with prostate cancer, not of it. But for the percentage of men whose prostate tumors metastasize, the disease is invariably fatal. In a set of papers published in the journals Nature Genetics and Nature Communications, researchers at […]

Individual tumors respond in different ways to cancer drugs. Until now, it remained a mystery why tumors have different reactions to the same treatment. Now a new study at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering sheds light on a tumor’s growth and how it may respond to therapy. Identifying a […]

University of Queensland researchers have found that freckles and moles appearing on the iris indicate a high risk of melanoma, particularly in people under 40 years of age. Dermatology Research Centre’s Associate Professor Rick Sturm said the presence of pigmented lesions was an effective predictor of the risk of melanoma that complemented […]

A high-salt diet reduces resting blood flow to the brain and causes dementia in mice, according to a new study by scientists from Weill Cornell Medicine. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, is the first to unveil a gut-brain connection linking high dietary salt intake to neurovascular and cognitive impairment. The […]

An unusual autoimmune disease that causes skin and lung damage can be treated effectively by stem cell transplant, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found. The approach could represent the first new treatment to improve survival in patients with severe scleroderma in more than four decades. The experimental procedure […]

Touch is the first of the five senses to develop, yet scientists know far less about the baby’s brain response to touch than to, say, the sight of mom’s face, or the sound of her voice. Now, through the use of safe, new brain imaging techniques, University of Washington researchers […]

An improved intracellular delivery system that can carry revolutionary gene-editing tools to stem cells, potentially curing diseases with genetic causes A method to increase prospects of successful births for couples undergoing in vitro fertilization, which currently fails 67 percent of the time The possibility that an effective drug treatment can […]

MIT biologists have designed a new peptide that can disrupt a key protein that many types of cancers, including some forms of lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer, need to survive. The new peptide targets a protein called Mcl-1, which helps cancer cells avoid the cellular suicide that is usually induced […]