News • Eyes
New eye structures discovered
"It's not everyday that one newly discovers parts of the human body," says Roy S. Chuck, MD, PhD, Chairman Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Research
News • Synthetic biology
Timing is everything in cells
Everyone who has played in a band or orchestra knows that playing in time creates music, while playing out of time creates cacophony. In an orchestra, each player may be out of tune when warming up, but eventually, all players must reach the same pitch, rhythm, and timing to produce a viable piece of music.
News • Lung Metastasis
Subpopulation of white blood cells stands guard
One goal of immunotherapy is to rally a patient’s often over-burdened immune cells to effectively attack a tumor. Among foot soldiers on the immune front line is a subpopulation of white blood cells called “patrolling monocytes,” whose job is to cruise the bloodstream, cart off cellular debris, and block invasion of a less benign population of inflammatory cells.
News • Sex-linked disorders
X-Citing X Chromosome
A team of scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School shows that the genetic material in female (but not male) cells makes tiny amounts of a special genetic material called RNA to make one of the two X chromosomes silent. They call this RNA XistAR.
News • Social interactions
‘Love hormone’ helps produce ‘bliss molecules’
The hormone oxytocin, which has been associated with interpersonal bonding, may enhance the pleasure of social interactions by stimulating production of marijuana-like neurotransmitters in the brain, according to a University of California, Irvine study.
A thin ribbon of flexible electronics can monitor health
A new world of flexible, bendable, even stretchable electronics is emerging from research labs to address a wide range of potentially game-changing uses.
News • Future
Regrow a tooth? fish – yes; humans – maybe some day
When a Lake Malawi cichlid loses a tooth, a new one drops neatly into place as a replacement. Why can't humans similarly regrow teeth lost to injury or disease?
News • Hematology
Flowing toward red blood cell breakthroughs
A team of researchers from Brown University, ETH Zurich, the Universita da Svizzera Italiana (USI) and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) is using America’s most powerful supercomputer to help understand and fight diseases affecting some of the body’s smallest building blocks.
Researchers discover new way to measure if a person is pre-diabetic
The University of Hawai'i Cancer Center discovery could warn patients years in advance allowing for a lifestyle change.
Bipolar patients' brain cells predict response to lithium
The brain cells of patients with bipolar disorder, characterized by severe swings between depression and elation, are more sensitive to stimuli than other people's brain cells, researchers of the Salk Institute have discovered.
High-grade DCIS detection rates increase in older women
The mammography detection rate of an early-stage but potentially invasive type of breast cancer rises with age, according to a large new study from Germany published online in the journal Radiology.
Snake venom helps hydrogels stop the bleeding
A nanofiber hydrogel infused with snake venom may be the best material to stop bleeding quickly, according to Rice University scientists.
News • Monitoring
'Smart bandage' detects bed sores
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, are developing a new type of bandage. Thanks to advances in flexible electronics, the researchers have created a new "smart bandage" that uses electrical currents to detect early tissue damage from pressure ulcers, or bedsores, before they can be seen by human eyes - and while recovery is still possible.
News • Technology
New way of doing ‘lab on a chip’ medical diagnostics?
Northwestern University scientists have developed the first liquid nanoscale laser. And it’s tunable in real time, meaning you can quickly and simply produce different colors, a unique and useful feature. The laser technology could lead to practical applications, such as a new form of a “lab on a chip” for medical diagnostics.
News • Genes
Blame your health problems on your grandfather
If you have diabetes, or cancer or even heart problems, maybe you should blame it on your dad’s behaviour or environment. Or even your grandfather’s. That’s because, in recent years, scientists have shown that, before his offspring are even conceived, a father’s life experiences involving food, drugs, exposure to toxic products and even stress can affect the development and health not…
News • Cancer
New molecular markers for high-risk neuroblastoma
Researchers from the University of Cologne and NEO New Oncology AG today jointly published in Nature* the findings of an extensive genomic analysis of neuroblastoma, a malignant pediatric tumor of the sympathetic nervous system. In the most aggressive forms of this tumor, the researchers identified previously unknown genomic alterations leading to up-regulation of the telomerase reverse…
News • EADV Congress
Dermatology is the cradle of manifold medical innovations
A number of innovative research results were presented at the 24th Congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology that took place in Copenhagen from 7 to 11 October 2015. Some of these results are expected to impact medicine far beyond dermatology, demonstrating the innovative character of the specialty.
News • Popeye was rigth
Beet juice boosts muscle power in heart patients
Scientists have evidence that Popeye was right: Spinach makes you stronger. But it’s the high nitrate content in the leafy greens — not the iron — that creates the effect.
News • Science
How the brain decides blame and punishment
Juries in criminal cases typically decide if someone is guilty, then a judge determines a suitable level of punishment. New research confirms that these two separate assessments of guilt and punishment – though related - are calculated in different parts of the brain. In fact, researchers found that they can disrupt and change one decision without affecting the other.
News • Computational neuroscience
The lost highway in the brain
A study three years ago sparked a medical mystery when it revealed a part of the brain not found in any present-day anatomy textbooks. Recently, Indiana University computational neuroscientist Franco Pestilli and an international research team published an article in the journal Cerebral Cortex that suggests this missing part of the brain may play an important role in how we understand the world…
News • Breakthrough
Cell discovery offers new strategy to attack cancer
University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a new strategy for attacking cancer cells that could fundamentally alter the way doctors treat and prevent the deadly disease. By more selectively targeting cancer cells, this method offers a strategy to reduce the length of and physical toll associated with current treatments.
News • Award
3 scientists win Nobel Prize in Medicine for parasite-fighting therapies
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine with one half jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites and the other half to Youyou Tu for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.
News • Neurology
Improved brain implants
By implanting electrodes in the brain tissue one can stimulate or capture signals from different areas of the brain. These types of brain implants, or neuro-prostheses as they are sometimes called, are used to treat Parkinson's disease and other neurological diseases.
News • Microgravity
Keeping cells in good shape
People often talk about how important it is to stay in shape, something humans usually can accomplish with exercise and a healthy diet, and other habits. But chances are, few of us ever think about the shape of our individual cells.
News • Genetics
Big Data tool to reveal immune system role in diseases
Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Princeton University have designed a new online tool that predicts the role of key proteins and genes in diseases of the human immune system. Called “ImmuNet,” details of the publically available resource were published online in the journal Immunity.
