Oregon team zeroes in on RNA-bindingUniversity of Oregon scientists have shed new light on the function of an RNA-regulating protein known as muscleblind, which when it misbehaves and binds to rogue RNA can lead to disease affecting roughly one in 8,000 people.
The study, which used a combination of biochemical, biophysical and cell culture studies, was placed online ahead of regular publication in the recent issue of the journal RNA. When the findings were initially presented........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/7/2007 7:08:58 PM)
Research Reveals Critical Knowledge About the Nervous SystemUncover the neural communication links involved in myelination, the process of protecting a nerve's axon, and it may become possible to reverse the breakdown of the nervous system's electrical transmissions in such disorders as multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, diabetes and cancers of the nervous system.
With $697,065 in grants from the New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Injury and the New Jersey Commission on Brain Injury........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/6/2007 10:32:05 PM)
Albuferon for chronic hepatitis CHuman Genome Sciences, Inc. today announced the final results of a Phase 2b clinical trial of the investigational drug, Albuferon (albinterferon alfa-2b), in combination with ribavirin in therapy-naive patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C. This Phase 2b study demonstrated that, with half as a number of injections as Pegasys (peginterferon alfa 2a), Albuferon was just as effective in achieving sustained virologic response (SVR) an........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/5/2007 10:18:39 PM)
Epilepsy genes may cancel each otherInheriting two genetic mutations that can individually cause epilepsy might actually be seizure-protective, said Baylor College of Medicine scientists in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
In the genetics of the brain, two wrongs can make a right, said Dr. Jeffrey L. Noebels, professor of neurology, neuroscience and molecular and human genetics at BCM. We believe these findings have great significance to........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/4/2007 7:58:05 PM)
PET for Alzheime Disease DiagnosisA PET scan (positron emission tomography) that measures uptake of sugar in the brain significantly improves the accuracy of diagnosing a type of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimers disease, a study led by a University of Utah dementia expert has found.
The scan, FDG-PET, helped six doctors from three national Alzheimers disease centers correctly diagnose frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimers in almost 90 percent of cases in the........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/1/2007 10:10:15 PM)
High-fat diet makes mice susceptible to liver injuryA high fat diet may kill regulatory T cells in the liver, allowing steatosis (simple fatty liver) to develop into steatohepatitis (fatty liver with inflammation), as per the results of a new study in the recent issue of Hepatology, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). The article is also available online at Wiley Interscience........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 11/1/2007 10:03:06 PM)
Carotid Artery Stenting Risk In Elderly New Orleans, LA Dr. Hernan Bazan, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Section of Vascular Surgery, at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, is the lead author of a research paper which may help physicians decide which patients with carotid artery occlusive disease should have carotid surgery or carotid stenting. The research sheds light on characteristics of the aortic arch that could help explain why........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/1/2007 9:57:35 PM)
Blocks bacterial communication systemIn hopes of combating the growing scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, in particular drug-resistant staph bacteria, a team of researchers from the Scripps Research Institute has designed a new type of vaccine that could one day be used in humans to block the onset of infection. The advantage of the new vaccine is that it would work not only on current bacterial resistant stains but also would not induce the potential for new bacterial........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/30/2007 9:54:56 PM)
Breast cancer returns more often in black womenContrary to prior studies, African-American women with early-stage breast cancer who have surgery to remove the cancer (lumpectomy) followed by radiation treatment have a higher chance of their cancer coming back in the breast and lymph nodes 10 years after diagnosis, in comparison to their Caucasian counterparts, as per the largest study of its kind, presented at a scientific session October 29, 2007, at the American Society for Therapeutic........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 10/29/2007 10:26:38 PM)
Brain circuits that control hungerScientists at UCLA have determined the brain circuits involved in hunger that are influenced by a hormone called leptin. In prior clinical trials, supplementation of leptin, the signaling molecule produced by fat cells, produced moderate weight loss in some obese patients, purportedly by inhibiting hunger and promoting feelings of being full. Thus, this new work suggests possible new targets for treating obesity.
Reporting in the Oct. 29........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 10/29/2007 10:06:58 PM)
One Step Closer To Cancer VaccineWhen cells become malignant, the sugars on their surfaces undergo distinct changes that set them apart from healthy cells. For decades, researchers have tried to exploit these differences by training the immune system to attack malignant cells before they can spread and ravage the body.
Now, scientists at the University of Georgia Cancer Center have synthesized a carbohydrate-based vaccine that - in mice - has successfully triggered a strong........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 10/29/2007 9:47:01 PM)
Positioning pelvic cancer patients on stomachsOregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute scientists have observed that positioning pelvic cancer patients on their stomachs rather than their backs is a better method for delivering radiation treatment. Because patients return for multiple therapies, being able to reproduce.
the positioning of the patient allowed more precision, which reduces toxicity.
It was a surprising finding, as per as per Martin Fuss, M.D., the director........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 10/28/2007 2:00:27 PM)
How to Avoid a Bad BargainAn award-winning social psychology experiment reveals why we often fail to bargain effectively with each other. This deceptively simple experiment examines the effect of two vital aspects of bargaining: threat and communication.Bargaining is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realising it. It doesn''t just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/28/2007 10:04:07 AM)
Brain Regions Responsible for OptimismVia Slashdot user TaeKwonDood - Quoted - The brain region responsible for believing you can seduce Giselle Bundchen or make a YouTube clone for bobble-head doll movies successful has been located. Surprisingly, it is not in a bottle of Jager, it's in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala.Read More........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 10/28/2007 8:06:10 AM)
Obesity genes hidden in discarded dataPreviously hidden obesity-related genes have been uncovered from old experiments by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. The finding suggests that useful information about a number of medical disorders may be languishing in mountains of discarded data.
"We've devised a fairly simple way to convert large amounts of existing raw data into candidate disease genes for further genetic........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/24/2007 7:46:11 PM)
Fight against HIV needs local scientistsResearchers from developing countries are vitally important in the fight against HIV and they must be given the proper resources to conduct their work, as per a new commentary published recently in the journal Nature Immunology.
Scientists from Imperial College London, who are evaluating multiple candidate vaccines designed to prevent HIV, argue that Western governments and funding agencies must commit to sharing technology and expertise........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/22/2007 8:54:12 PM)
Zinc may reduce pneumonia risk in nursing home elderlyWhen elderly nursing home residents contract pneumonia, it is a blow to their already fragile health. Simin Nikbin Meydani, DVM, PhD of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University and his colleagues report that maintaining normal serum zinc concentration in the blood may help reduce the risk of pneumonia development in that population.
Based on our data, it appears that daily zinc intake can help nursing........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/22/2007 8:46:09 PM)
Ubiquitin builds up an immune responseUbiquitin is a small protein, which can be attached to other cellular proteins, a process known as ubiquitination. Discoveries in the 1980 th on a key function of ubiquitination in the regulation of protein degradation where awarded with the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2004. A study headed by the Junior Group of Dr. Daniel Krappmann (GSF - National Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Toxicology) in collaboration with Dr.........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/21/2007 10:17:40 PM)
Genetic change happens fastWhile looks can be deceiving, heredity is revealing, and two researchers who've studied the genetic makeup of a common field mouse report that what's most revealing to them is how fast both genes and morphology can change.
Oliver Pergams, visiting research assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Robert Lacy, population geneticist and conservation biologist at the Chicago Zoological Society,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/21/2007 10:06:00 PM)
Genome data solves case of the lethal genesIt is better to be looked over than overlooked, Mae West supposedly said. These are words of wisdom for genome data-miners of today. Data that goes unnoticed, despite its widespread availability, can reveal extraordinary insights to the discerning eye. Such is the case of a systematic analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) of the massive backlog of microbial genome sequences from the public databases. The........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/19/2007 4:53:13 AM)
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Why poor kids may make sicker adultsResearchers have known for years that people living in poverty have poorer health and shorter life spans than the more affluent. Now, Cornell University scientists have identified several key mechanisms in 13-year-olds that may help explain how low socio-economic status takes its toll on health.
In the first longitudinal study on the physiological effects of poverty in young children, the Cornell scientists report that the longer........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 11/7/2007 7:41:59 PM)
When to have a child?Women seeking to balance career, social life and family life in making the decision on when to have a child may benefit from applying formal decision-making science to this complex emotional choice.
This decision is too complex to logically consider all the relevant aspects intuitively in ones head, write Professor Ralph Keeney and doctoral student Dinah Vernik of Dukes Fuqua School of Business. Yet, for many, it is too important and........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/7/2007 7:05:06 PM)
Marijuana-like brain chemicals work as antidepressantAmerican and Italian scientists have observed that boosting the amounts of a marijuana-like brain transmitter called anandamide produces antidepressant effects in test rats.
Led by Daniele Piomelli, the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and director of the Center for Drug Discovery at the University of California, Irvine, the scientists used a drug they created, called URB597, which blocks anandamide degradation in the brain,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/5/2007 9:03:22 PM)
Predicting survival after liver transplantationPatients awaiting liver transplantation who also suffer from other medical problems may face poorer survival after transplantation. These comorbid problems, which include coronary disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), connective tissue disease and renal insufficiency, have been incorporated into a new modified comorbidity index which helps predict post-transplant survival. These findings appear in the recent issue of........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/5/2007 8:42:52 PM)
New way to predict survival in older women with lung cancerScientists at UCLAs Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered a novel mechanism to predict survival in older women with early stage lung cancer. The finding may have significant implications for new therapy approaches.
For the first time, UCLA scientists linked higher levels of aromatase, an enzyme that naturally makes estrogen from another hormone called androgen, to more aggressive disease and lower survival rates in women over........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 11/1/2007 10:07:12 PM)
Increase in multiple myeloma survivalMultiple myeloma is one of the most common and devastating bone marrow cancers in the U.S., but survival rates have risen dramatically over the past decade. Recent analyses suggest that this trend may be attributed to new types of drugs and aggressive therapeutic interventions such as stem cell transplantation, as per the results of two studies prepublished online in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology.
Multiple........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 11/1/2007 10:01:16 PM)
Are We Programmed to Laugh When Tickled?Do we learn to laugh when tickled or is it an innate response? That is the question psychologist Professor Clarence Leuba set himself to examine using his own children, no less, as experimental subjects. In 1933 he decided that he would not laugh in the presence of his first child while tickling him (Leuba, 1941). Everyday life in the Leuba household, therefore, was devoid of tickling except for one special experimental period. During this........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 11/1/2007 6:53:25 PM)
New genetic variant for prostate cancerTwo tiny genetic variations may provide the best clues yet for finding more precise ways to estimate prostate cancer risk and improve screening and early detection for men of African descent, report scientists from the University of Chicago and the Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ, in the December 2007 issue of Genome Research, published early online.
The scientists set out to determine whether results from four prior........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 10/31/2007 8:05:28 PM)
Preventing blood clots in cancer patientsAn international panel of scientists led by an oncologist from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center has put together a set of guidelines for the prevention and therapy of dangerous blood clots that threaten cancer patients.
"Cancer patients are at increased risk for what is known as venous thromboembolism -- or the formation of a blood clot -- which can be deadly," said Gary Lyman, M.D., director of the Health Services and Outcomes Research........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 10/29/2007 10:34:23 PM)
'Memory' in cells and moleculesResearch to be reported October 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides evidence that some molecular interactions on cell surfaces may have a memory that affects their future interactions. The report could lead to a re-examination of results from certain single-molecule research.
Scientists who use sequentially repeated tests to obtain statistical samples of molecular properties commonly assume that........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/29/2007 10:12:38 PM)
Structure of Molecular Target of Many DrugsMore than 40 years after beta blockers were first used clinically, researchers can finally get a detailed, three-dimensional look at the drugs' molecular target-the beta2-adrenergic receptor. This receptor hails from a family of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that control critical bodily functions, several of our senses, and the action of about half of today's pharmaceuticals. Because this is the first known structure of a........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 10/29/2007 7:32:55 PM)
Therapeutic gene expression can be sustainable for 1 yearScientists at the Board of Governors Gene Therapeutics Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to sustain therapeutic gene expression in the central nervous system for up to a year, even in the presence of an anti-viral immune response mechanism that is normally present in humans.
The scientists demonstrated in an animal model that the delivery system for the gene, a novel........Go to the Health-articles (Added on 10/28/2007 4:20:22 PM)
IMRT provides quality care for head and neck cancerResults from a University of Pittsburgh study demonstrate that intensity-modulated radiation treatment (IMRT) for head and neck cancer can be uniformly delivered in a large health care system of academic and community cancer centers through a centralized planning and therapy process. The findings were presented today at the 49th annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) in Los Angeles.
Our study........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 10/28/2007 1:52:52 PM)
Cannabis effective in treating neuropathic painSmoked cannabis eased pain induced in healthy volunteers, as per a research studyby scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR.) However, the scientists observed that less may be more.
In the placebo controlled study of 15 subjects, a low dose of cannabis showed no effect, a medium dose provided moderate pain relief, and a high dose increased the pain response. The results........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/24/2007 8:01:40 PM)
Brain Waves That Distinguish False Memories From Real OnesFor the first time, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania are able to pinpoint brain waves that distinguish true from false memories, providing a better understanding of how memory works and creating a new strategy to help epilepsy patients retain cognitive function.
The study, the first to show that brain waves predict the veracity of human memories, is available online in the journal Psychological Science and in the November 2007........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/23/2007 8:57:23 PM)
Getting Fathers Involved in Children's ADHD TreatmentWhile working with parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at the University at Buffalo, Gregory A. Fabiano noticed something was missing: the fathers.
Fabiano, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education, made the discovery while still a graduate assistant at the UB Center for Children and Families, which runs a summer therapy program that has helped more than 2,500 children with behavioral,........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/23/2007 8:49:47 PM)
Epstein-Barr: a virtual look at a vexing virusScientists at Tufts University School of Medicine in collaboration with the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have created a computer program called Pathogen Simulation (PathSim) to study the progression of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in humans. David Thorley-Lawson, PhD, professor of pathology at Tufts University School of Medicine, is combining PathSim, laboratory methods, and clinical studies to provide a new and powerful........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/22/2007 8:49:22 PM)
Genes involved in autismThe Autism Consortium, a group of researchers, clinicians and families dedicated to radically accelerating research and enhancing clinical care for autism, announced recently that it has completed the first genome scan for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) through its Autism Gene Discovery Project and has released the reference data set to a database that autism scientists around the world can use. The scan was conducted using new, high........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/22/2007 8:24:35 PM)
Effectiveness of most PTSD therapies is uncertainA number of people, including significant proportions of active duty military personnel and veterans, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often in conjunction with other injuries or illnesses. While several drugs and psychotherapies are used to treat PTSD, a number of of the studies concerning their effectiveness have problems; as a result, they do not provide a clear picture of what works and what doesn't, says a new report........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/19/2007 5:08:16 AM)
Abusing the NHSA few weeks ago, I wrote an article for Hospital Doctor about the difficulties surrounding flu immunisations. Last year, we received lots of complaints because there was not enough vaccine to go round. That was because we stole half the NHS allocation of vaccine and re-sold it to the private sector making a huge personal profit. It is hard to get by on £250,000 a year particularly when, with our two day week, we have so much leisure time. Or........Go to the Health-blog (Added on 10/18/2007 7:58:26 PM)
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