CINCINNATI - Researchers report in the journal Cell Reports a targeted molecular therapy that dramatically reduces the initial development of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) in laboratory mouse models of the disease.
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Scientists, led by Dr Jaroslaw Krzywinski, Head of the Vector Molecular Biology group at The Pirbright Institute have isolated a gene, which determines maleness in the species of mosquito that is responsible for transmitting malaria.
After persisting for decades, the hole in the ozone over the Antarctic has begun to "heal," exhibiting an ozone increase, a new study reports. The results suggest that an historic agreement signed nearly three decades prior is having positive returns, not only in terms of slowing the rate of ozone depletion in Earth's second major atmospheric layer (the stratosphere) but also in terms of creating an identifiable ozone increase.
Researchers have engineered T cells to target and kill a malfunctioning component of the immune system responsible for autoimmune disease, while sparing healthy immune cells that still protect the body. The work brings scientists closer to targeting only the disease-causing cells in autoimmune diseases, which isn't possible now. Some autoimmune diseases occur when a subset of B cells, which respond to specific signatures of pathogens, incorrectly see a person's own tissue as foreign, prompting the rest of the immune system to attack.
An international team of scientists from Oxford University, UK, and Tel-Hai College, Israel, has shown that pea plants can demonstrate sensitivity to risk - namely, that they can make adaptive choices that take into account environmental variance, an ability previously unknown outside the animal kingdom.
In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, pea plants were grown with their roots split between two pots, thus facing the decision of which pot to prioritise.
Woman admitted to intensive care after infection from pet dog
An elderly woman was admitted to intensive care due to organ failure following a rare, yet potentially life-threatening infection believed to be transmitted by her household pet, an Italian greyhound.
Writing in the online journal BMJ Case Reports, doctors who treated the 70-year-old patient explain that she developed acute kidney failure after a few days of being admitted to hospital.
CHICAGO: For the majority of patients with large or difficult to remove colorectal polyps (growths in the colon), the incidence of cancer is actually lower than previously thought, and using more advanced endoscopic techniques that spare the colon may be a better, safer alternative to a traditional operation in certain cases, according to study results published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons in advance of print publication.
New research shows similarities in the social organisation of bees and mammals, and provides insight into the genetics of social behavior for other animals. These findings, published in PLOS Computational Biology, use sociogenomics - a field that explores the relationship between social behaviour and the genome - to show strong similarities in socially genetic circuits common in honey bees and mammals.
Increased risk for aggressive serous/serous-like endometrial cancer was increased in women with BRCA1 mutations, although the overall risk for uterine cancer after risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) to remove the fallopian tube and ovary was not increased, according to a new study published online by JAMA Oncology.
The narrowest area of the nose is the internal nasal valve and obstruction can cause airflow trouble. A review article published online by JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery compares over-the-counter mechanical nasal dilators for their efficacy in dilating the internal nasal valve to improve nasal airflow.
Christopher Badger, B.S., of the University of California-Irvine, and coauthors generated a database of 33 available over-the-counter dilators using medical literature and internet searches.
Molecular pathway in brown and beige fat cells allows them to burn off calories instead of storing them as fat.
Amino acid-derived molecules in pathway injected into obese mice caused weight loss.
The discovery could lead to new therapies for obesity, diabetes, and related disorders.
One in eight women and one in ten men have experienced infertility, yet nearly half of them have not sought medical help, according to a study of more than 15,000 women and men in Britain published in Human Reproduction [1], one of the world's leading reproductive medicine journals.
The artificial pancreas -- a device which monitors blood glucose in patients with type 1 diabetes and then automatically adjusts levels of insulin entering the body -- is likely to be available by 2018, conclude authors of a paper in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes). Issues such as speed of action of the forms of insulin used, reliability, convenience and accuracy of glucose monitors plus cybersecurity to protect devices from hacking, are among the issues that are being addressed.
The risk of blindness caused by spinal fusion, one of the most common surgeries performed in the U.S., has dropped almost three-fold since the late 1990s, according to the largest study of the topic to date.
Results of the research were published online June 30, 2016 in Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Kataegis is a recently discovered phenomenon in which multiple mutations cluster in a few hotspots in a genome. The anomaly was previously found in some cancers, but it has been unclear what role kataegis plays in tumor development and patient outcomes. Using a database of human tumor genomic data, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center have discovered that kataegis is actually a positive marker in breast cancer -- patients with these mutation hotspots have less invasive tumors and better prognoses.