Eight days. That's how long it takes for skin cells to reprogram into red blood cells. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, together with colleagues at Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, have successfully identified the four genetic keys that unlock the genetic code of skin cells and reprogram them to start producing red blood cells instead.
Body
Dentin is one of the most durable biological materials in the human body. Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin were able to show that the reason for this can be traced to its nanostructures and specifically to the interactions between the organic and inorganic components. Measurements performed at BESSYII, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin's synchrotron radiation source, showed that it is the mechanical coupling between the collagen protein fibers and mineral nanoparticles which renders dentin capable of withstanding extreme forces.
A program encouraging overweight or obese adolescents to increase their physical activity through use of their everyday environment, rather than organized classes or sports programs, produced significant increases in participants' daily physical activity that were sustained for at least three to four months. A report on a pilot study conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) health center in Revere, Mass., is being published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
June 2, 2016 - Visual blurring -- like that produced by bifocals or multifocal lenses -- may cause errors in foot position when walking. And that could contribute to the risk of tripping and falling in older adults, suggests a study in the June issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
Use of a new technique developed at the Babraham Institute has allowed researchers to take an in-depth look at the gene shuffling process that is responsible for our body's ability to recognise a vast range of foreign agents such as disease-causing microorganisms (pathogens). Failure in this process lies at the heart of a variety of immunodeficiency diseases and is also relevant to the decline in immune function observed with age.
At any given moment, the human genome spells out thousands of genetic words telling our cells which proteins to make. Each word is read by a molecule known as a tRNA.
"We've long thought of these molecules as little more than middle men participating in the process of translating proteins," explains Sohail Tavazoie, Leon Hess Associate Professor and head Rockefeller University's Elizabeth and Vincent Meyer Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology. But new research conducted in his lab suggests tRNA dynamics may play an important role in modulating the types of proteins in a cell.
Blacks between the ages of 45 and 54 die of strokes at a rate that is three times greater than their white counterparts, according to the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, which looked at stroke incidence and mortality of nearly 30,000 participants over the age of 45 from an ethnically and demographically diverse sample of the U.S. population. The findings suggest that the higher risk of death from strokes in blacks is due mostly to the higher incidence in this population, and not to worse outcomes following stroke.
Cancer immunotherapies--drugs that work by making a patient's immune system better at spotting and destroying tumor cells--are increasingly generating headlines. A number of these drugs are now being used for the treatment of melanoma, lung, and kidney cancers, and are showing promise in clinical trials with other diseases as well.
But creating drugs that manipulate the immune system presents unique challenges. With several experimental treatments, initial studies done in cells and animals produced encouraging results, yet the drugs didn't work as hoped in clinical trials.
A person's genetic makeup plays a role in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis that develop when the body is attacked by its own immune system. But little is known about how immune cells are pushed into overdrive.
Now, in new research that points to potential therapeutic targets for autoimmune diseases, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified genetic master switches that turn up - or down - the activity of specific types of immune cells.
Each year, influenza causes between 250,000 and half a million deaths around the world. Pregnant women and young infants have a higher risk of complications related to influenza; these complications can easily lead to death. The problem is particularly severe in the developing world, where access to health care is often limited, and health centers and hospitals are scarce and under-resourced. Babies are particularly vulnerable because there is no influenza vaccine approved for infants younger than six months.
Eating walnuts may change gut bacteria in a way that suppresses colon cancer, researchers led by UConn Health report in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.
A team of researchers from UConn Health and The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine found that mice that ate 7-10.5 percent of their total calories as walnuts developed fewer colon cancers. The effect was most pronounced in male mice, which had 2.3 times fewer tumors when fed walnuts as part of a diet similar to the typical American's. That's equivalent to a human eating about an ounce of walnuts a day.
Heralded on the cover of Time magazine in 2000 as a genetically modified (GMO) crop with the potential to save millions of lives in the Third World, Golden Rice is still years away from field introduction and even then, may fall short of lofty health benefits still cited regularly by GMO advocates, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.
In 2014, before the FIFA World Cup opened in Brazil, there were fears that many of the 600,000 foreign visitors expected for the world's largest soccer tournament would acquire dengue fever. Their numbers could reach hundreds or even thousands, according to some predictions.
Amsterdam, NL, June x, 2016 - By using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), researchers at the Center for Structural Biology and Bioinformatics, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium can greatly increase the amount of information that can be extracted from a protein microarray. In a new report in the current issue of Biomedical Spectroscopy and Imaging, they show how high-quality spectra can be obtained from spots of protein no larger than the diameter of a human hair.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 31, 2016) St. Jude Children's Research Hospital research related to survivorship and the pediatric solid tumors neuroblastoma, adrenocortical carcinoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma will be presented at the 2016 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting. The five-day event begins June 3 in Chicago.