October 29, 2015 - After peaking in 2007, AIDS mortality in South Africa has decreased with the widespread introduction of effective antiretroviral therapy, according to updated estimates published in AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Wolters Kluwer.
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University of Toronto (U of T) researchers are proposing a new way of understanding Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the devastating and incurable neurological disease. Their findings, published today in the journal Neuron, could be a major milestone on the path to a treatment for both ALS and dementia.
By delving into a previously overlooked corner of ALS research, Professor Peter St. George-Hyslop and his team discovered a new way in which the disease kills nerve cells.
Boulder, CO, USA - A nasty little 66-million-year-old family secret has been leaked by a recently unearthed tyrannosaur bone. The bone has peculiar teeth marks that strongly suggest it was gnawed by another tyrannosaur. The find could be some of the best evidence yet that tyrannosaurs were not shy about eating their own kind.
Despite the fact that the main function of water treatment plants is to clean the polluted waste water produced by human activity, "the effluent from them turns into a source of many pollutants in rivers", explained Ibon Aristi, researcher in the UPV/EHU's department of Plant Biology and Ecology. He has studied the impact of one of these effluents in the river Segre by observing the fluvial community, in other words, by analysing its response to the pollutants in the effluent.
Cell membranes are very elastic. They can become distorted when they are asked to do so, when the cell divides, or when a virus detaches itself from the cell. In both cases, the membrane is deformed by a protein complex called ESCRT-III. Up until now, we did not understand how this complex works. Swiss and French researchers say that this protein complex forms a molecular spring at the surface of the cell, and operates like a watch spring. This article was published in Cell.
PHILADELPHIA--(Oct. 29, 2015)--The gene SPOP is mutated in up to 15 percent of all cases of prostate cancer, making it one of the most mutated genes in the disease. However, when the gene is functioning properly, it acts as a tumor suppressor. Despite what's known about SPOP, scientists have not been able to determine exactly how the gene is able to halt the progression of disease.
(PHILADELPHIA) - Almost all infections make us sick by getting past our first line of defense - the sticky mucous surfaces that line our mouths, our eyes, our lungs and our guts. Once through, it's up to the immune cells that reside in our bodies to fight the disease. Now researchers have found that one virus activates the immune system to continually feed sentinel cells into the mucous membranes where they could offer better and more immediate protection at the front lines, preventing disease before it occurs.
SEATTLE -- Oct. 29, 2015 ¬-- A new study in mice by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that a specialized type of immunotherapy -- even when used without chemotherapy or radiation -- can boost survival from pancreatic cancer, a nearly almost-lethal disease, by more than 75 percent. The findings are so promising, human clinical trials are planned within the next year.
Sharing genomic information among researchers is critical to the advance of biomedical research. Yet genomic data contains identifiable information and, in the wrong hands, poses a risk to individual privacy. If someone had access to your genome sequence -- either directly from your saliva or other tissues, or from a popular genomic information service -- they could check to see if you appear in a database of people with certain medical conditions, such as heart disease, lung cancer or autism.
Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a new gene associated with Cowden syndrome, an inherited condition that carries high risks of thyroid, breast, and other cancers, and a subset of non-inherited thyroid cancers, as published today in the online version of the American Journal of Human Genetics.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Conventional methods of assessing cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength among people with multiple sclerosis may underestimate participants' capabilities, prompting clinicians to prescribe exercise therapies that are less effective than they could be, according to new research by scientists at the University of Illinois.
A research team led by UC San Francisco scientists has identified a molecular switch capable of converting unhealthy white fat into healthy, energy-burning brown fat in mice. Drugs that flip this switch rapidly reduced obesity and diabetes risk factors in mice fed a high fat diet.
A team of researchers has mapped out a universal dynamic that explains the production and distribution of proteins in a cell, a process that varies in detail from protein to protein and cell to cell, but that always results in the same statistical pattern. The findings, which appear in the journal Physical Review E, potentially offer new insights into explaining the variability in phenotypes, or physical appearances.
Everyone who has played in a band or orchestra knows that playing in time creates music, while playing out of time creates cacophony. In an orchestra, each player may be out of tune when warming up, but eventually, all players must reach the same pitch, rhythm, and timing to produce a viable piece of music.
CLEMSON -- While researchers at Clemson University have recently announced an array of breakthroughs in agricultural and life sciences, the size of the data sets they are now using to facilitate these achievements is like a mountain compared to a molehill in regard to what was available just a few years ago.