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The immune system is the brain’s best frenemy. It protects the brain from infection and helps injured tissues heal, but it also causes autoimmune diseases and creates inflammation that drives neurodegeneration. Two new studies in mice suggest that the double-edged nature of the relationship between the immune system and the […]

A revolutionary new urine screening test that utilizes a novel Keratin 17 (K17) cancer biomarker can detect the presence of new bladder cancer in patients with hematuria, or blood in the urine, according to a study led by researchers at Yale Cancer Center, Stony Brook University, and KDx Diagnostics, Inc. The findings also […]

An odor-based test that sniffs out vapors emanating from blood samples was able to distinguish between benign and pancreatic and ovarian cancer cells with up to 95 percent accuracy, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. The findings suggest that the Penn-developed […]

Hydrogels are polymer materials made mostly from water. They can be used in a wide range of medical and other applications. However, previous incarnations of the materials suffered from repeated mechanical stress and would easily become deformed. A novel crystal that can reversibly form and deform, allows hydrogels to rapidly […]

A team of researchers led by diabetes specialists and biomedical engineers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Cornell University has demonstrated that using a miniscule device, they can implant insulin-secreting cells into diabetic mice. Once implanted, the cells secrete insulin in response to blood sugar, reversing […]

The human brain is the most interesting object in neuroscience. Recently, researchers from Harvard University and Google released a 1.4-petabyte dataset of a small sample of the human cerebral cortex (a surface layer of the brain, responsible for higher-level cognitive functions). The sample has been imaged at 4nm-resolution using electron […]

About a third of the corneal transplant surgeries in the United States involve people with diabetes who donate their corneas after death. The number of corneal transplants has grown over the last decade, but through continuous research, the medical community has learned that not all corneal tissue from diabetics may […]

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have discovered a new genetic disease that causes a severe form of neurogenic orthostatic hypotension, a rapid drop in blood pressure upon standing that can cause fainting. The rare condition, which they named familial autonomic ganglionopathy, is caused by variations in the CHRNA3 gene, […]

By studying guppies, scientists at the University of Toronto and Florida State University found that behaviours affected by methylphenidate hydrochloride (MPH) – the active ingredient in stimulants such as Ritalin and Concerta used to treat ADHD – can be passed along to several generations of descendants. “We exposed male and female Trinidadian […]

A new model by University of Manchester researchers has proposed a way to prevent hearing loss in older people by addressing socioeconomic inequalities encountered while young. Published in Trends in Hearing the team hope the model could impact the estimated 466 million people worldwide who have disabling hearing loss, mostly affecting […]

Women may have a stronger immune response to a common form of skin cancer than men, according to early research on mice and human cells. Led by University of Manchester scientists at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, the team publish their findings in Clinical Cancer Research. The study is funded by The Wellcome […]

Neurons result from a highly complex and unique series of cell divisions. For example, in fruit flies, the process starts with stem cells that divide into mother cells (progenitor cells), which then divide into precursor cells that eventually become neurons. A team from the University of Michigan, spearheaded by graduate […]