Can a routine hospital stay upset the balance of microbes in our bodies so much that it sets some older people up for a life-threatening health crisis called sepsis? A new University of Michigan and VA study suggests this may be the case.
Do microbes grow differently on the International Space Station than they do on Earth? Results from the growth of microbes collected by citizen scientists in Project MERCCURI indicate that most behave similarly in both places.
Unstable funding is threatening the viability of academic biomedical research, according to a new paper published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The paper was written jointly by the deans of 19 prominent medical schools around the USA. Among this group is University of Maryland School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece.
Several EPFL laboratories are working on devices allowing constant analysis over as long a period as possible. The latest development is the biosensor chip, created by researchers in the Integrated Systems Laboratory working together with the Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit Group. Sandro Carrara is unveiling it today at the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) in Lisbon.
Degeneration of the white matter of the brain may be an early marker of specific types of Alzheimer's disease (AD), including early-onset AD, according to results of a new study published in the journal Radiology.
Researchers at the University of Toronto design diagnostic chip to reduce testing time from days to one hour, allowing doctors to pick the right antibiotic the first time.
Scientists who use synchrotron light sources are welcoming an era of "on-demand" X-rays, in which they have access to the light beams they want thanks to a technique developed at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
Patience and persistence are beginning to pay off for University of Montana Professor Mark Grimes, whose research about the behavior of cell proteins in childhood cancer recently was published by the Public Library of Science Computational Biology.
LMU researchers demonstrate for the first time that bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) carry genetic instructions for proteins that mediate the transport of their DNA to specialized replication sites in the host cell.
Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) demonstrates that technology invented by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University’s Casey Eye Institute can improve the clinical management of the leading causes of blindness. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography could largely replace current dye-based angiography in the management of these…
People waiting for organ transplants may soon have higher hopes of getting the help that they need in time. Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology have developed a new technique that extends the time that donor organs last and can also resuscitate organs obtained after cardiac arrest.
Blocked blood vessels can quickly become dangerous. It is often necessary to replace a blood vessel – either by another vessel taken from the body or even by artificial vascular prostheses. Together, Vienna University of Technology and Vienna Medical University have developed artificial blood vessels made from a special elastomer material, which has excellent mechanical properties. Over time,…
Genetically engineered fibers of the protein spidroin, which is the construction material for spider webs, has proven to be a perfect substrate for cultivating heart tissue cells, MIPT researchers found. They discuss their findings in an article that has recently come out in the journal PLOS ONE.
Knee injuries are the bane of athletes everywhere, from professionals and college stars to weekend warriors. Current surgical options for repairing damaged cartilage caused by knee injuries are costly, can have complications, and often are not very effective in the long run. Even after surgery, cartilage degeneration can progress leading to painful arthritis. But a University of Iowa orthopedics…
Scientists from the Hubrecht Institute and the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) have developed a cell culture model of human colon cancer progression. This model mimics the situation in patients more closely than any other colon cancer model so far. It enables researchers to study processes involved in colon cancer development and find new cancer drugs.
A multi-year study led by researchers from the Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) and major universities and medical schools has broken substantial new ground, establishing how genes work together within 144 different human tissues and cell types in carrying out those tissues' functions.
In certain types of cancer, nerves and cancer cells enter an often lethal and intricate waltz where cancer cells and nerves move toward one another and eventually engage in such a way that the cancer cells enter the nerves.
High-tech textiles must fulfill a number of functions and meet many requirements. That is why the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC dedicated some major developing work to this most intriguing research area. The result can now be seen at Techtextil trade show in Frankfurt from 4 to 7 May. On display will be novel textile-integrated sensors, a unique multifunctional coating system for…
Nowadays the concept of personalised medicine is usually applied to oncology. However, there are other clinical disciplines in which therapies tailored to the individual patient are within reach, viz. ophthalmology. In the researchers’ limelight is intravitreal drug delivery since the outcomes of injections into the vitreous differ from patient to patient. Ophthalmologists in Vienna, Austria,…
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the UAB Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine discovered that the signalling route triggered by the ATM protein regulates DNA repair during the production of spermatocytes by meiosis, the cell division process which yields spermatozoa.
Women may have a more difficult time than men in recovering from concussion, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.
Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that neurons are risk takers: They use minor ‘DNA surgeries’ to toggle their activity levels all day, every day. Since these activity levels are important in learning, memory and brain disorders, the researchers think their finding will shed light on a range of important questions.
Each year, approximately 1.6 million women in the USA have breast biopsies to diagnose or rule out cancer. Pathological diagnosis is considered the gold standard – how accurate are these diagnoses? Report: Cynthia E. Keen
Scientists in the UK have designed a new self-assembling nanoparticle that targets tumours and could lead to quicker diagnosis of cancer. Researchers at Imperial College London report that a new self-assembling nanoparticle can adhere to cancer cells, thus making them visible in MRI scans and possibly eliminate the need for invasive tissue biopsies. Report: Mark Nicholls
Expecting 10,000 participants, prior to the 25th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (25-28 April) its Programme Director, Professor Winfried V Kern MD, was keen to point out: ‘The findings and recommendations that emerge from this vibrant platform each year have, in the past, had a tremendous impact not only on guidelines and best…