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Studies that started in zebrafish have now pointed to a role for collagen secretion in a wide variety of clinical symptoms — and in a newly identified genetic syndrome. Ela Knapik, MD, associate professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and her colleagues discovered the syndrome caused by mutation […]

UK scientists have identified a new way to kill pancreatic cancer cells by ‘pulling the plug’ on the energy generator that fuels calcium pumps on their cell surface. The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, reports how switching off the cancer’s energy supply causes the pancreatic cancer cells to […]

Epigenetic changes occur in the DNA of breast cancer cells that have developed a resistance to hormone therapy, an effective treatment for ER+ breast cancer, which accounts for 70% of all diagnoses. Reversing these changes, researchers say, has significant potential to help reduce breast cancer relapse. A team led by […]

A woman’s supply of eggs is finite, so it is crucial that the quality of their genetic material is ensured. New work from Carnegie’s Marla Tharp, Safia Malki, and Alex Bortvin elucidates a mechanism by which, even before birth, the body tries to eliminate egg cells of the poorest quality. […]

Genetic modification of babies in China one year ago was universally condemned. At the same time, CRISPR treatments are on their way into our clinics. Jacob Corn explains the difference. A huge outcry broke out a year ago when Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced at a conference that he had […]

Some plastic food and beverage containers still contain bisphenol A (BPA), which can mimic the hormone estrogen. Although experts say that small amounts of BPA detected in foods are unlikely to cause problems, some people worry that constant low-level exposures could have health effects, especially for developing fetuses, infants and […]

An organism's genome contains all of the information necessary for each of its cells and tissues to develop and function properly. Written in DNA, each individual gene encodes for something, whether it is a structural protein that helps define a tissue's shape, an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reactions of […]

A stem cell transplant — also called a bone marrow transplant — is a common treatment for blood cancers, such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Such treatment can cure blood cancers but also can lead to life-threatening complications, including heart problems and graft-versus-host disease, in which new immune cells from […]

A new Penn Medicine study puts researchers within closer reach of vaccines that can protect infants against infections by overcoming a mother’s antibodies, which are known to shut down immune defenses initiated by conventional vaccines. That hurdle largely explains why vaccinations for infectious diseases like influenza and measles not given until […]

1 in 6 Children Loses Priority Points Due to Flawed Score System, UCSF Study Shows. Children waiting for new livers who are much smaller than their peers have a heightened risk of dying. Despite this, 40 percent of these undersized waitlisted children may lose vital points required to expedite transplantation, […]

A study published in the  New England Journal of Medicine suggests that erythropoietin treatment may not provide neuroprotection for extremely premature babies. This multicenter study was led by Sandra E. Juul, professor of pediatrics  and head, Division of Neonatology, at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. The researchers randomized more […]

A new prospective cohort study published last week in the journal SLEEP suggests that sleeping for 7 or more hours every night might not be all that it’s cracked up to be after all – at least when it comes to cognitive ability, gray matter volume, and white matter microstructure. […]

How do a couple of universally expressed proteins in stem cells and developing embryos influence an individual cell’s ultimate fate — whether it ultimately becomes, for example, a retinal cell, a heart muscle cell, or a stomach lining cell? That’s the question that Rajesh C. Rao, M.D., and his colleagues at […]

THERE’S NO SHORTAGE of ways to kill a cancer cell. Cut it out, poison it, blast it with radiation, shower it with killer immune cells—they all get the job done. But there is a shortage of good ways to kill cancer cells. One that knocks out all the bad cells in one swipe, […]

Lab-grown brain organoids developed from a patient’s own glioblastoma, the most aggressive and common form of brain cancer, may hold the answers on how to best treat it. A new study in Cell from researchers at Penn Medicine showed how glioblastoma organoids could serve as effective models to rapidly test personalized treatment […]

Bone loss that can lead to osteoporosis and fractures is a major problem for cancer patients who receive chemotherapy and radiation. Since the hormone estrogen plays an important role in maintaining bone health, bone loss is especially pronounced among postmenopausal women with breast cancer who are treated using therapies aimed […]

Working on C. elegans – a nematode worm commonly used in aging research due to its weeks-long lifespan and genetic similarities with humans – an international team of researchers from the U.S. and China have identified synergistic cellular pathways for longevity which can extend the host’s lifespan by as many […]

For the first time, researchers at Michigan Medicine have demonstrated that a cellular process is known to be involved in cancer and other diseases also play an important role in the growth of at least one type of normal mammalian cell. Macropinocytosis is an ancient process by which cells take […]

A multidisciplinary Michigan Medicine team is shedding new light on the role of regulatory T cells in pancreatic cancer — and, in mouse models, have uncovered a new potential target to improve immunotherapy approaches to the deadly disease. Regulatory T cells are a subpopulation of immune cells that help keep […]

DNA testing has become one of the most valuable tools that humans can rely on to discover possible traits and limitations. Simply put, DNA is the code in our cells, the most complex and richest piece of information we have about our existence. Genetic testing helped us identify changes in […]

Cancer patients may one day be able to get their entire course of radiation therapy in less than a second rather than coming in for treatment over the course of several weeks, and researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania have taken the first steps toward making […]

During the years 1976 through 1980, 15% of U.S. adults were obese. Today, about 40% of adults are obese. Another 33% are overweight. Coinciding with this increase in weight are ever-rising rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and health complications caused by obesity, such as hypertension. Even Alzheimer’s disease may […]

Could bile acids—the fat-dissolving juices churned out by the liver and gallbladder—also play a role in immunity and inflammation? The answer appears to be yes, according to two separate Harvard Medical School studies published in Nature. The findings of the two studies, both conducted in mice, show that bile acids promote […]

Discussions about sexual health can be awkward, but for Daniela Wittmann, Ph.D., MSW, they go with the territory. As a social certified sex therapist, she sees patients with sexual health issues at the Michigan Medicine Center for Sexual Health and in the Department of Urology. She also discusses these types of issues with Parkinson’s disease patients during […]

Acute myeloid leukaemia is the most common type of leukaemia in adults. It is characterized by the pathological expansion of immature cells (myeloblasts) that invade the bone marrow and expand into the blood, affecting the production of the rest of the healthy cells. Although patients usually respond well to chemotherapy-based […]

You want your children to be successful. You want them to be smart and get good grades in school. But did you know that a big portion of academic success can actually be predicted at birth? Scientists from the University of York found that genetic factors are unbelievably important in […]

Heart disease remains the largest killer in Australia and around the world. A new study has shown that a protein therapy– recombinant human platelet-derived growth factor-AB (rhPDGF-AB) – could improve outcomes following heart attack. After a heart attack, scar tissue forms and this negatively affects heart function. Now, researchers from […]

Scientists have discovered that people who regularly sleep for more than 11 hours or less than 4 hours are 2-3 times more likely to have the incurable disease, pulmonary fibrosis, compared to those that sleep for 7 hours in a day. They attribute this association to the body clock. The […]

Brain imaging of pathological tau-protein “tangles” reliably predict the location of future brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s patients a year or more in advance, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. In contrast, the location of amyloid “plaques,” which have been the […]

A new study led by researchers at King’s College London has found that adolescents with particular patterns of brain development report an increased frequency in drunkenness. The research was published in JAMA Psychiatry. Using brain imaging data collected from 726 healthy adolescents, the researchers analysed changes in the volume of […]