Article • Plaques
Identifying a likely heart attack
UK researchers have identified a new approach, which could make it easier to identify fatty plaques that could cause heart attacks or a stroke.
Molecular
News • Individual treatment
Molecular sub-groups in early stages of bladder cancer
Bladder cancer is a frequent disease affecting approximately 1,900 persons in Denmark annually. A high number of these patients only have superficial tumours in the bladder when the disease is diagnosed. For many years, this patient group will be examined frequently and during this time many get new tumours; some cases develop aggressively making it necessary to remove the bladder or receive…
News • 25 Tesla
Switzerland winds up superconductivity
The unusual electronic properties of some superconducting materials permit lossless and dense electrical currents at very low temperatures, even in high magnetic fields. Conductors made of these materials are thus ideal for winding coils to generate very high magnetic fields, which are essential for a number of applications like magnetic medical imaging, MR spectroscopy for the analysis of…
New technology breakthrough in fighting viral diseases
As one of medicine’s largest challenges, viral infections often escape vaccines due to their natural ability to mutate rapidly and develop drug resistance easily. Many viruses, such as Zika, Ebola and dengue fever, have grown into major global health epidemics with great human and economic toll. IBM Research and Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering, Nanotechnology (IBN) announced they have…
News • Heart Muscle Cells
Molecular strut controlls mechanics of a heartbeat
On top of the meaning and mystery that humans heap on the heart, it is first and foremost, a muscle. And one that beats about once a second for a person’s entire life, with no rest. Given its vital importance, it’s ironic researchers have only recently made direct observations of its subcellular parts in motion.
Article • Molecular profile
Revealing cancer at a minuscule level
Since the introduction of targeted therapies in oncology the task of the pathologist has expanded beyond histological diagnostics: today, the pathologist analyses tumour tissue samples to establish a molecular profile with tumour cell characteristics – which in turn become the targets of medication.
News • Proteomics
The future of precision medicine
As medical professionals search for new ways to personalize diagnosis and treatment of disease, RPB-supported researchers at the University of Iowa have already put into practice what may be the next big step in precision medicine: personalized proteomics.
News • PET study
Functional interplay between two transporters at blood-brain barrier
A team of researchers at the MedUni Vienna has, in collaboration with the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, developed two new PET tracers that allow the activity of drug transporters at the blood-brain barrier to be measured. The studywas able to demonstrate that people with a genetic polymorphism in a transporter gene have lower transporter activity at the blood-brain barrier, which can lead…
News • MOZART
Imaging cells and tissues under the skin
Scientists have many tools at their disposal for looking at preserved tissue under a microscope in incredible detail, or peering into the living body at lower resolution. What they haven't had is a way to do both: create a three-dimensional real-time image of individual cells or even molecules in a living animal.
News • Research
A pill could improve breast cancer diagnoses
The ongoing debate about breast cancer diagnostics has left many women confused — particularly over what age they should get mammograms and who needs treatment. An issue with current methods is that they often identify lumps but cannot conclusively pinpoint which ones are cancerous. To help resolve this uncertainty, researchers have developed a pill that could improve imaging techniques so that…
News • Surfing DNA
Enzyme catches a ride to fight infection
Scientists have shown for the first time that an enzyme crucial to keeping our immune system healthy “surfs” along the strands of DNA inside our cells. The researchers used extremely powerful microscopy to watch how the enzyme AID (activation-induced deoxycytidine deaminase) moves around and interacts with other molecules.
The molecular breakdance of seeing
The detection of light by pigments in the retina, called rhodopsin or visual purple, leads to our sense of vision. New experiments by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and the University of Toronto have revealed that the primary photochemical event of this process operates at the fundamental molecular speed limit.
News • State-of-the-art
First pictures of cells' DNA-copying machinery
The first-ever images of the protein complex that unwinds, splits, and copies double-stranded DNA reveal something rather different from the standard textbook view. The electron microscope images, created by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory with partners from Stony Brook University and Rockefeller University, offer new insight into how this molecular…
News • Protein DART
New shock-and-kill strategy against HIV
A unique molecule developed at Duke Medicine, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and MacroGenics, Inc., is able to bind HIV-infected cells to the immune system’s killer T cells. It could become a key part of a shock-and-kill strategy being developed in the hope of one day clearing HIV infection.
News • Course of infections
Cell marker enables prognosis
When a pathogen invades the body, specific cells in the human immune system are ready to take immediate action in order to destroy it. The molecular characteristics of these killer cells were unknown until recently. Now, for the first time, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has managed to create a molecular profile of the protective cells. By studying these immune cells from…
News • PointMan DNA
Enrichment technology for highly sensitive lung cancer mutation detection
EKF Diagnostics, the global in vitro diagnostics company, announces that two research posters supporting the application of its PointMan DNA enrichment technology, for rapid and sensitive detection of lung cancer mutations, have been delivered at key conferences.
News • Science
New molecule can prevent preterm birth
Premature births are intimately linked with inflammation of the uterine tissue, a biological response which induces contractions and preterm labor. In their search for a mean to prevent this phenomenon and complications related to deliveries occurring before 37 weeks of gestation, researchers at CHU Sainte-Justine and University of Montreal discovered an agent that shows efficacy in inhibiting…
News • Fighting AIDS
Targeting HIV in semen to shut down AIDS
There may be two new ways to fight AIDS -- using a heat shock protein or a small molecule – to attack fibrils in semen associated with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) during the initial phases of infection, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
News • mTOR
Cells in limbo hold clues for tackling cancer and ageing
For some, TOR may bring to mind a Celtic mountain or perhaps an Internet privacy group. In the world of molecular biology it’s a cellular pathway that’s found in everything from yeast to mammals. mTOR (as it’s called in mammals) plays a central role in instructing the cell to grow and divide in response to nutrients. When it’s turned down, the cell shifts into a second, tidying mode,…
Article • Hearts to Genes
Music reaches the heart
Innovative presentations, ground-breaking science and inspirational lectures underlined the diversity of sessions at the British Cardiovascular Society 2015 conference held in Manchester this June.
News • Neurology
Receptors in brain linked to schizophrenia, autism
The loss of a critical receptor in a special class of inhibitory neurons in the brain may be responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and schizophrenia, according to new research by Salk scientists.
News • Bioreactor
Cancer treatment models get real
Researchers at Rice University and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a way to mimic the conditions under which cancer tumors grow in bones.
Article • Multimodal imaging
Imaging probe yields double insight
An organic dye that can light up cancer cells for two powerful imaging techniques providing complementary diagnostic information has been developed and successfully tested in mice by A*STAR researchers.
News • AACC News
ELITechGroup announces CE-IVD marking of ELITe InGenius
ELITechGroup Molecular Diagnostics and Precision System Science, Co., Ltd (PSS), a leading global provider of laboratory instruments for nucleic acid extraction, jointly announced the upcoming CE-IVD marking of ELITe InGenius for IVD applications in Europe and the upcoming availability of the instrument as Laboratory Use Equipment in the US.
Article • Science
Alternative routes to immortality
Every time a cell divides, the ends of chromosomes – the threads of DNA residing in the nucleus – shorten a bit. Once the chromosome ends, called telomeres, become too short, cells normally stop dividing. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have now discovered how cancer cells make use of specific DNA repair enzymes to extend the telomeres. In this way, they escape the…
