News • Cell biology
Improved stem cell transplantation may be on the horizon
Researchers in Germany have demonstrated that hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplants can be improved by treatments that temporarily prevent the stem cells from dying.
Research
News • Oncology
A tiny device offers insights to how cancer spreads
As cancer grows, it evolves. Individual cells become more aggressive and break away to flow through the body and spread to distant areas. What if there were a way to find those early aggressors? How are they different from the rest of the cells? And more importantly: Is there a way to stop them before they spread?
News • Perception research
Why do we see colors the way we do?
Dr. Wolf M. Harmening from University Eye Hospital Bonn, together with American colleagues, studied color vision by probing individual sensory cells – photoreceptors – in the human eye. The results reveal that proximity effects play a key role in how we perceive colors.
News • Research subjects
Mice and men - not as equal as medicine would like to think
The mouse is the most widely used model organism to understand human genetics, biology, and diseases in the research setting. But new research findings have revealed important divergences between the species which scientists will need to understand better through further investigation.
News • Study
Zika virus could be used to treat brain cancer
Recent outbreaks of Zika virus have revealed that the virus causes brain defects in unborn children. But researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, San Diego report that the virus could eventually be used to target and kill cancer cells in the brain.
Article • Digital Pathology
Europe’s most advanced histopathology unit
Among the earliest centres to embrace the concept of digital pathology, the Leeds Digital Pathology Project began in 2003 thanks to a Department of Health grant. Today the centre is Europe’s largest.
News • Neurology
Biologists find new source for brain’s development
A team of biologists has found an unexpected source for the brain’s development, a finding that offers new insights into the building of the nervous system.
News • Cardiology
Is your walking pace a predictor of heart-related deaths?
A new study suggests that middle-aged people who report that they are slow walkers could be at higher risk of heart disease compared to the general population.
News • Recovery
Stroke patient improvement with a brain-computer interface
University of Adelaide researchers have shown that it is possible for stroke patients to improve motor function using special training involving connecting brain signals with a computer.
Article • Electrospinning
Renewing the promise of bioabsorbable implants
Electrospun materials bring a spark of hope to a cardiovascular landscape darkened by setbacks for reabsorbable stents. It was famously said that implanting a device in a person to cure a disease is to implant a new disease. Simply put, the human body will continually fight against foreign materials, leading to chronic inflammations or repeated interventions.
News • Combination approach
Radiation treatment extends life expectancy for patients with inoperable lung cancer
Patients with unresectable, or inoperable, lung cancer are often given a dismal prognosis, with low rates of survival beyond a few years. Researchers exploring combination therapies have recently discovered improved survival rates by up to one year when patients treated with a newly formulated chemotherapy regimen are also given radiation therapy.
News • Neuron activation
Memories “Lost” to Alzheimer’s May Be Retrievable
Columbia University Medical Center researchers have found that it may be possible to access memories “lost” to Alzheimer’s disease, if their discoveries about memory loss in mice also apply to people with the disease.
News • Dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4)
Obesity, fatty liver, insulin resistance: Liver enzyme might be to blame
German researches have linked the increased production of a certain enzyme in the liver to fatty liver and insulin resistance.
News • Joint disease
Treating arthritis with algae
Could a new weapon in the fight against arthritis be found somewhere beyond the sea? New research from Switzerland encourages this idea.
News • Drug abuse
Methamphetamine use linked to heightened stroke risk in the young
The stimulant methamphetamine, also popularly known as ‘speed,’ ‘ice’ and ‘meth,’ is linked to a heightened risk of stroke among young people, reveals a review of the available evidence, published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
News • Infections
Killing bacteria by hacking plastics with silver and electricity
Researchers at the Swedish Medical Nanoscience Center at Karolinska Institutet have developed an innovative way of hacking conducting plastics so as to prevent bacterial growth.
News • DNA fragments
Using barcodes to trace blood cell development
There are various concepts about how blood cells develop. However, they are based almost exclusively on experiments that solely reflect snapshots. In a publication in Nature, scientists from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg now present a novel technique that captures the process in a dynamic way.
News • Sugar molecules
Sweet help for cancer detection
Scientists from the University of Würzburg have synthesized a complex sugar molecule which specifically binds to the tumor protein Galectin-1. This could help to recognize tumors at an early stage and to combat them in a targeted manner.
News • Vaping
E-Cigarettes accelerate cardiovascular aging
A new study suggests that a single exposure to e-cigarette (e-cig) vapor may be enough to impair vascular function.
News • Young at heart
Cardiac stem cells from young hearts could rejuvenate old hearts
Cardiac stem cell infusions could someday help reverse the aging process in the human heart, making older ones behave younger, according to a new study from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute.
News • Study
Mushroom protein could be used in leukemia treatments
A protein found in the edible mushroom known as "shaggy ink cap" might be able to kill a type of leukemia cell, new research suggests.
News • Weather influence
Rain increases joint pain? Google suggests otherwise
Some people with achy joints and arthritis swear that weather influences their pain. New research, perhaps the deepest, data-based dive into this suggestion, finds that weather conditions are indeed associated with Google searches about joint pain.
News • Rheumatoid arthritis
Hibernation causes inflammation
A research team found that in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, a special cell population called innate lymphoid cells are in a state of hibernation which is why these patients suffer from persistent inflammation.
News • Metastasis
Prostate cancer cells become ‘shapeshifters’ to spread to distant organs
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists report they have discovered a biochemical process that gives prostate cancer cells the almost unnatural ability to change their shape, squeeze into other organs and take root in other parts of the body.
News • Auditory Attention Decoding
Hearing aid uses deep neural network to filter out the noise
Columbia Engineers make major advance in helping the hearing impaired follow a conversation in a noisy environment - and bring cognitive hearing aids a step closer to reality.