The first tissue-engineered trachea (windpipe), utilising the patient's own stem cells, has been successfully transplanted into a young woman with a failing airway. The bioengineered trachea immediately provided the patient with a normally functioning airway, thereby saving her life.
These remarkable results provide crucial new evidence that adult stem cells, combined with biologically compatible materials, can offer genuine solutions to other serious illnesses.
November 17, 2008 – (Bronx, NY) – A team of researchers led by investigators at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has determined that certain commonly-prescribed medications may have the unintended consequence of increasing the frequency of migraine attacks. This important finding could alter the way doctors prescribe migraine medicines.
Scholars in the Institute of Bio-inspired Structure and Surface Engineering (IBSS), Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) used a three-dimensional locomotion video-recording and measuring system to observe and measure the angular rotation of joints in gecko's limbs when they were running on horizontal floor and climbing on vertical wall. This work helps us to understand gecko's locomotion from the view point of angle change of joints and to provide a direct reference to plan the gait of gecko-robots.
Two new compounds created by a University of Central Florida professor show early promise for destroying breast cancer tumors.
Associate Professor James Turkson's compounds disrupt the formation and spread of breast cancer tumors in tests on mice. The compounds, S3I-201 and S3I-M2001, break up a cancer-causing protein called STAT3, and researchers have observed no negative side effects so far.
"The compounds are very promising," Turkson said. "They've worked very well in mice, and now we're looking for partners to help us take these compounds to the next level of trials."
Scientists in Leeds have devised a new way to create the next generation of man-made molecules in a breakthrough that could revolutionise drug development.
Creating new drugs to combat disease and illness requires the completion of a complex 3D jigsaw. The shape of the drug must be right to allow it to bind to a specific disease-related protein and to work effectively, and this shape is determined by the core framework of the molecule.
Men and women who have tried to kill themselves and are suffering from unipolar disorder (major depression), bipolar disorder (manic depression) or schizophrenia are at a very high risk of committing suicide within a year of their first attempt, concludes a study published today on bmj.com.
Despite recent doubts about its effectiveness, the influenza vaccine does give valuable protection against illness, hospital admission and death caused by influenza, and people over 65 should have the flu jab this winter, say experts on bmj.com today.
Several prominent media articles have suggested that the flu vaccination programme for the over 65s is not worthwhile. Rachel Jordan from the University of Birmingham and Jeremy Hawker from the Health Protection Agency review the evidence surrounding the ongoing controversy.
Washington, DC -- Researchers from Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center/Georgetown University Medical Center will present numerous scientific findings at the Seventh Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Washington, Nov. 16-19, 2008. Presentations by Lombardi researchers include topics such as colonoscopy use among black women, pregnancy and breast cancer, genetic testing feasibility prior to breast cancer surgery, BRCA1/2 uninformative results and distress, BRCA1-related cancer development, and estrogen-related breast cancers.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Sagging college enrollments may be the next symptom of the sub-prime mortgage mess, according to a University of Michigan economist.
"Our analysis shows a clear connection between parents' home ownership and home equity, and adult children's college attendance," said U-M researcher Frank Stafford, who directs the Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).
A review of previously published studies suggests that rates of adverse outcomes for mothers or pregnant women and newborn babies, such as gestational diabetes and low birth weight, may be lower after bariatric surgery compared with pregnant women who are obese, according to an article in the November 19 issue of JAMA.
It appears that for the first time human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), an emerging tick-borne infectious disease found in the U.S. and Europe, has been identified in China and apparently was transmitted from person to person, according to a study in the November 19 issue of JAMA.
A small percentage of males born with cryptorchidism (failure of one or both testicles to descend into the scrotum), the most frequent congenital birth defect in male children, are more likely to have genetic mutations, including for a syndrome that is a common genetic cause of infertility, according to a study in the November 19 issue of JAMA.
Obese women who have weight loss surgery before becoming pregnant have a lower risk of pregnancy-related health problems and their children are less likely to be born with complications, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Women who underwent bariatric surgery and lost weight before becoming pregnant had a significantly lower risk of gestational diabetes and high blood pressure than obese women who did not have surgery, according to the study published in the Nov. 19 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Over the years, hunting for cancer-related genes and understanding how they work has been an important, although time-consuming, exercise. At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), five different research groups have now combined their expertise to speed up the rate of discovering cancer-related genes and validating their function in living animals.
"One type of solar cell design starts with a chain of chromophores strung between two electrodes," explained Dewey Holten, Ph.D., professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences. "This chain absorbs the light energy and directs that energy towards one electrode, where it is deposited as an electron. The molecule which lost the electron now has a positive charge left behind called a hole. The hole migrates down the chain towards the opposite electrode. The electron and the hole recombine in the external circuit, creating the electrical current to do work."