General

Researchers at the University of Arizona have taken an essential step forward in the quest to find the cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. In the cells of flies, mice and humans with ALS, scientists at the UA have pinpointed a process that […]

Adding aspirin to some existing cancer drugs could increase their effectiveness against a group of tumours resistant to treatment, new research has shown. University of Queensland scientists are hoping clinical trials could soon be underway for people with lung, pancreatic and colorectal cancers that have not responded to other therapies. UQ […]

Cancer therapies including radiation and chemotherapy seek to treat the disease by killing tumor cells. Now a team including researchers at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have shown that the dead and dying cancer cells generated by chemotherapy and targeted cancer therapy paradoxically trigger inflammation that […]

Boulder researchers are embarking on a new project to study the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's by using a new technique to measure neurons firing deep inside animal brains. Eventually, the scientists hope, the research could lead to earlier diagnosis and better treatment options. Led by Ralph Jimenez of […]

Cancer cells’ ability to tolerate crowded conditions may be one key to understanding tumor growth and formation, according to a mathematical model that has been applied to cancer cell growth for the first time. The model can replicate patterns of melanoma cell growth seen in laboratory experiments by controlling the […]

Glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer, typically fails to respond to treatment or rapidly becomes drug resistant. In a paper published online in the journal Cancer Cell , University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers identified a strategy that pinpoints a genetically distinct subpopulation of patients […]

Everyone wants to live longer and scientists are trying to fulfil this demand. There is a general belief that longevity of humans can be greatly enhanced using some novel medicine or even ancient herbs. But now a research team lead by scientists from UCL showed that limiting the activity of […]

Dementia is one of the leading causes of death. Not only that, but it is one of the main causes of the reduced quality of life at the later stages of life. People would do anything to push dementia away, but what can we do? Scientists from UCL say that […]

Head and neck tumors that contain cells undergoing a transition from neatly organized blocks into irregular structures pushing out into the surrounding environment are more likely to invade and spread to other parts of the body, according to a new study led by Harvard Medical School researchers from Massachusetts Eye […]

Researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have refined and, for the first time, run in vivo tests of a method that may allow nanotube-based probes to locate specific tumors in the body. Their ability to pinpoint tumors with submillimeter accuracy could eventually improve early detection […]

Human body is like a complex robotic system. Every part is related to another and damaging one will most likely affect others. This is what we know. However, it still doesn‘t make a complete sense that movement disorders work the way they do. Now a team of scientists, led by […]

Lab testing and experiments require subjects. At the beginning of the research those typically are cells. However, cell cultures do not last very long in the lab and it becomes a technical difficulty, sometimes slowing down the progress of the research. Now scientists from the University of Edinburgh have made […]

In mammals, including humans, the cells that contract the heart muscle and enable it to beat do not regenerate after injury. After a heart attack, there is a dramatic loss of these heart muscle cells and those that survive cannot effectively replicate. With fewer of these contractile cells, known as […]

Right now, most existing therapies are concerned with reducing symptoms in people with heart damage, but none have been successful at actually replacing tissue that was lost due to a heart attack or a similar condition. This might soon change as researchers from Duke University in the US have recently […]

Yale researchers have discovered novel chemical compounds that extend the lifespan of a species of yeast by using a new technology that could also hunt for tools to combat aging in other species as well, they reported Nov. 28 in the journal Cell Reports. “Research on human aging has been […]

New King’s College London research, published in eLife, shows that adults born prematurely – who also suffered small brain injuries around the time of birth – have lower levels of dopamine in the brain. This chemical change has been linked to lack of motivation and enjoyment in normal life, and changes to […]

In a major step forward in the battle against macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss among the elderly, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered a critical trigger for the damaging inflammation that ultimately robs millions of their sight. The finding may allow doctors to halt the […]

The goal of any cancer treatment is to kill tumor cells. Yet, one little understood paradox of certain cancers is that the body's natural process for removing dead and dying cells can actually fuel tumor growth. A new University of Michigan study identifies the pathway by which this poorly understood […]

New research from Florida State University is beginning to piece together the stubborn puzzle posed by a family of rare and debilitating premature aging disorders. Most of these diseases, called progeroid syndromes, share physiological symptoms characterized by the appearance of accelerated aging, such as skin disorders, loss of hair, skeletal […]

A drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct has been cleared for use in a clinical trial of patients with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare malignant brain tumor, and glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive late-stage cancer of the brain. This phase Ib trial will determine if the experimental drug PAC-1 can be used safely […]

University of Illinois researchers are sending tiny drug-laden nanoparticles on a mission to seek and destroy cancer stem cells, the elusive and rare cells that can cause cancer to come back even when years have passed since the initial tumor was treated. In a study led by Dipanjan Pan, an Illinois […]

To undergo high-resolution imaging, cells often must be sliced and diced, dehydrated, painted with toxic stains, or embedded in resin. For cells, the result is certain death. But if researchers can only view the inner workings of dead cells, they’re only seeing part of the story. They cannot monitor living […]

A PhD candidate from Canada’s Queen’s University Caitlin Miron had recently accepted the Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation as a token of recognition for a ground-breaking discovery in cancer research. Sifting through numerous chemical compounds, Miron had identified a novel substance which binds to a four-strand DNA structure called a […]

The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer‘s disease – most likely you already know that. However, other causes are not somehow less significant just because of smaller number of cases. Dementia with Lewy Bodies is the third most common form of dementia, but it still affects millions of people. […]

Glaucoma, which affects over 60 million people worldwide, can seem easy to treat: medicated eye drops can be used to ease the buildup of fluid in the eye that underlies the condition. If glaucoma is caught early, eye drops can prevent irreversible blindness. But prescription eye drops aren’t the perfect […]

Researchers at the Whitehead Institute have illuminated an important role for different subtypes of muscle cells in orchestrating the process of tissue regeneration. In a paper appearing in Nature, they reveal that a subtype of muscle fibers in flatworms is required for triggering the activity of genes that initiate the regeneration program. […]

Researchers at King's College London have discovered new mechanisms of cell death, which may be involved in debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. This novel research, published in Current Biology, could lead to new therapeutic approaches for treating or delaying the progression of neurodegenerative conditions that are […]

How can we facilitate better knowledge transfer and collaboration between multi-disciplinary healthcare teams to improve the continuity of care for patients in an environment where new treatment approaches are fundamentally shifting how patients live with their cancer? Why the Rewrite Cancer Innovation Challenge? Significant strides have been made to improve […]

A team of bioengineers and bioinformaticians at the University of California San Diego have discovered how the environment surrounding a tumor can trigger metastatic behavior in cancer cells. Specifically, when tumor cells are confined in a dense environment, the researchers found that they turn on a specific set of genes […]

New research shows that chronic stress suppresses the immune system’s response to cancer, reducing the effectiveness of immunotherapy treatments. University of Queensland scientists say they are investigating dual therapies for patients to reduce stress signalling and improve their response to treatments. UQ Diamantina Institute researcher Dr Stephen Mattarollo said lymphoma progressed more rapidly in […]