Article • Antibiotic resistance
Killer bugs put on the critical list
While new agents to fight virulent pathogens are in the pipeline, a new study pinpoints where a recent addition is already being applied in the clinic.
Research
Article • Anti-infection strategies
Antibiotic stewardship programmes bear fruit
Today’s dilemma for hospitals and institutions are increasingly multi-resistant bacteria and decreasingly effective antibiotics to beat them. New substances to fight pathogens are not on the horizon. What can be done? Professor Constanze Wendt, microbiology and infection biology specialist at MVZ Labor Dr. Limbach & Kollegen GbR, in Heidelberg, Germany, describes current anti-infection…
Article • Knowing your enemy
New model to aid antibiotic resistance studies
Scientists in the UK have developed a new model that will help to advance the study of resistance to antibiotics.
Article • Side-effects of global mobility
Multi-drug resistant bacteria: Dangerous travel companions
Trips around the globe, healthcare tourism, migration; we are mobile – and so are bacteria. Particularly dreaded are multi-drug resistant bacteria that ‘hop’ on their host during a hospital stay and are carried across the border. At MEDICA 2017 Labmed Forum Dr Andreas Ambrosch, Head of the Central Lab at Krankenhaus Barmherzige Brüder in Regensburg, Germany, will discuss these unwelcome…
Article • Discussion
Genome editing: Should we tweak human evolution?
According to Darwin, humans will one day become extinct. Some don’t think we need to accept this fate because gene editing may allow us to use our brains to take over the evolutionary story.
News • Sugar processing
Researchers find cellular sweet spot in skin-cancer battle
A team of researchers has pinpointed a sugar modification in cells that spurs the spread of skin cancer. Its findings spotlight a target in the battle against melanoma.
Article • Mass spectometry
Strategies to advance cancer biomarkers
Cancer biomarker testing represents an important element of the clinical biochemistry service, yet progress in this area in the last two decades has been slow.
News • DNA manipulation
Chaos in cancer cells: Mysterious gene transcripts after therapy
Drugs that are used in cancer therapy to erase epigenetic alterations in cancer cells simultaneously promote the production of countless mysterious gene transcripts, scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) now report in Nature Genetics. The substances activate hidden regulatory elements in DNA. The unusual gene activity has the potential to stimulate the immune system – a…
News • Bioengineering
Human heart tissue grown from stem cells improves drug testing
Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR have engineered a three-dimensional heart tissue from human stem cells to test the safety and efficacy of new drugs on the heart.
News • Dangerous journey
Cosmic rays increase cancer risks for Mars astronauts
The cancer risk for a human mission to Mars has effectively doubled following a UNLV study predicting a dramatic increase in the disease for astronauts traveling to the red planet or on long-term missions outside the protection of Earth’s magnetic field.
News • Glucose control
"Sugar sponges" - diabetes treatment of the future?
Many diabetes patients must inject themselves with insulin, sometimes several times a day, while others take medications orally to control blood sugar. The injections, as well as the side effects from both regimens, can be painful. Now, one team reports in the Journal of the American Chemical Society progress toward an insulin-free diabetes treatment that requires fewer injections.
News • Cancer development
Tumor induction from a distance
Current view is that cancer development is initiated from cells that acquire initial DNA mutations. These in turn provoke additional defects, and ultimately the affected cells begin to proliferate in an uncontrolled manner to develop primary tumors. These can later spread and create metastases, or secondary tumors, in other parts of the body. However, according to a study by researchers at the…
How does the body process pain? Study sheds new light
Currently available pain medications have limited efficacy and numerous side effects. New research, however, provides deeper insights into how our bodies process pain, paving the way for an innovative, more effective way of targeting chronic pain.
News • Under the skin
Handheld scanner reveals vascularization in psoriasis patients
A newly developed tissue scanner allows looking under the skin of psoriasis patients. This provides clinically relevant information, such as the structure of skin layers and blood vessels, without the need for contrast agents or radiation exposure. A team of researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) recently introduced the technology in ‘Nature…
News • Acquisition
Oxford Gene Technology to be acquired by Sysmex Corporation
Oxford Gene Technology (OGT), The Molecular Genetics Company, today announced that it has signed an agreement to be acquired by Sysmex Corporation, a Japanese in vitro diagnostic company.
News • Neuro-oncology
Study provides better understanding of how brain tumors ‘feed’
All cancer tumors have one thing in common – they must feed themselves to grow and spread, a difficult feat since they are usually in a tumor microenvironment with limited nutrients and oxygen. A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has revealed new details about how an enzyme called acetyl-CoA synthetase 2 (ACSS2) allows brain tumors to grow despite their harsh…
Article • Point-of-patient
App accelerates deployment of first responders
Point of Care Diagnostics (POCT) has been established for 20 years. Comprehensive smartphone coverage and shareconomy technology are now helping to push the development from previous business models towards a point of patient model. The question is whether medical apps will have the same benefit as those employed for everyday use. Report: Anja Behringer
News • Animal testing
Scientists identify protein linked to chronic heart failure
Researchers in Japan have identified a receptor protein on the surface of heart cells that promotes chronic heart failure. The study, “Corticotropin releasing hormone receptor 2 exacerbates chronic cardiac dysfunction” suggests that inhibiting this protein could help treat a disease that affects more than 20 million people worldwide.
News • Avoidance strategy
Our brains detect disease in others even before it breaks out
The human brain is much better than previously thought at discovering and avoiding disease, a new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reports. Our sense of vision and smell alone are enough to make us aware that someone has a disease even before it breaks out. And not only aware - we also act upon the information and avoid sick people.
News • Behavioral seeding
Social networks may improve your health (or make it worse)
Besides being useful for keeping in contact with friends, relatives and business associates, social networks may even influence your health (and that of your friends) in surprising ways, as the research of Nicholas A. Christakis suggests.
News • Algorithmic examination
Using machine learning to predict sepsis
A machine-learning algorithm has the capability to identify hospitalized patients at risk for severe sepsis and septic shock using data from electronic health records (EHRs), according to a study presented at the 2017 American Thoracic Society International Conference. Sepsis is an extreme systemic response to infection, which can be life-threatening in its advanced stages of severe sepsis and…
News • Polymicrobial infections
Rivalry among pathogens may lead to unexpected benefits
Research at the University of Konstanz has identified a molecule that allows the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa to inhibit its rival, Staphylococcus aureus. This might build the basis for the development of new antibiotics.
News • Drug development
New research could help address heart problems in diabetics
Research published in Experimental Physiology shows that diabetes-induced changes in heartbeat are primarily regulated by the β1-adrenoceptor. This discovery, once confirmed in humans, may lead to better treatment of heart problems in diabetics by enabling more targeted drugs to be produced.
News • Research
Deep sleep maintains the learning efficiency of the brain
For the first time, researchers of the University of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have demonstrated the causal context of why deep sleep is important to the learning efficiency of the human brain. They have developed a new, non-invasive method for modulating deep sleep in humans in a targeted region of the brain.
News • Breast cancer
New imaging technique to ensure surgeons completely remove cancer
Of the quarter-million women diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the United States, about 180,000 undergo surgery to remove the cancerous tissue while preserving as much healthy breast tissue as possible. However, there’s no accurate method to tell during surgery whether all of the cancerous tissue has been successfully removed.