There are 640 muscles in the human body, or maybe it is 639. Or maybe it is 850. Or 656. It all depends on whom you ask. In any case, it is a lot. Stanford bioengineer Scott Delp knows; he has programmed almost every one into his latest work, OpenSim, a software application that helps medical professionals and bioengineers study, diagnose and correct abnormalities in how people move.
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Scientists at A*STAR'S Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB), have made a breakthrough discovery in the understanding of lung regeneration. Their research showed for the first time that distal airway stem cells (DASCs), a specific type of stem cells in the lungs, are involved in forming new alveoli to replace and repair damaged lung tissue, providing a firm foundation for understanding lung regeneration.
EAST LANSING, Mich. – As the world's biodiversity hotspots are increasingly stressed by their human neighbors, zoning is becoming a common strategy to balance environmental protection and human needs. But a recent study shows zoning for conservation demands reality checks.
Washington, DC -- People over age 70 years of age can safely donate a kidney, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The results provide good news for patients who need a kidney but have limited options for donors; however, kidneys from these elderly donors do not last as long as those from younger living donors.
Scientists including those from Queen's University have discovered that taking regular aspirin halves the risk of developing hereditary cancers.
Hereditary cancers are those which develop as a result of a gene fault inherited from a parent. Bowel and womb cancers are the most common forms of hereditary cancers. Fifty thousand people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel and womb cancers every year; 10 per cent of these cancers are thought to be hereditary.
- Suloxdexide is no better than placebo at preventing kidney failure or reducing urinary protein excretion in diabetes patients with kidney failure.
- Kidney disease due to diabetes is the most common cause of kidney failure in developed countries.
- The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is expected to double by 2030. Kidney disease cases are sure to rise in parallel.
A new approach to vaccinating cattle could help farmers worldwide, research suggests.
Scientists have developed a technique using a harmless parasite – which lives in cows but has no effect on their health – to carry medicines into the animals' bloodstream.
Researchers created the vaccine by inserting key genetic material from a vaccine into the parasite's DNA. The manipulated parasite is intended to be injected into cattle, where it would continue to thrive in their bloodstreams, releasing small amounts of vaccine slowly over time.
Two remarkable discoveries were today revealed by researchers into genome analysis of Leishmania parasites. These results uncovered a surprising level of variation at the genome structure level.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new fourth-generation oncolytic virus designed to both kill cancer cells and inhibit blood-vessel growth has shown greater effectiveness than earlier versions when tested in animal models of human brain cancer.
Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) are developing the oncolytic virus as a treatment for glioblastoma, the most common and deadly form of brain cancer (average survival: 15 months after diagnosis).
New Rochelle, NY, October 24, 2011—Cytokines, a varied group of signaling chemicals in the body, have been described as the software that runs the immune system, but when that software malfunctions, dysregulation of the immune system can result in debilitating autoimmune diseases such as lupus, arthritis, and diabetes.
Physicists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) are opening a new window into the life of biological cells, using a technique that lets them grab the ends of a single protein molecule and pull, making continuous, direct measurements as it unfolds and refolds. Their latest results, reported in the journal Science, reveal a complex network of intermediate structural and kinetic states along the way to functionally correct folded forms, including both express routes and dead ends.
BOSTON--Challenging a half-century-old theory about why chemotherapy agents target cancer, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have devised a test that can predict how effective the drugs will be by determining whether a patient's tumor cells are already "primed" for death.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- People who use over-the-counter thyroid supplements may be putting their health at risk, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Thyroid Association. The supplements contain varying amounts of two different kinds of thyroid hormones apparently derived in large part from chopped up animal thyroid glands, says the study's senior investigator, Victor Bernet, M.D., an endocrinologist at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
A new study from University of California, Berkeley, researchers demonstrates that adult stem cells can reshape our organs in response to changes in the body and the environment. Current thinking has been that, once embryonic stem cells mature into adult stem cells, they sit quietly in our tissues, replacing cells that die or are injured but doing little else.
When a bacterial cell divides into two daughter cells and those two cells divide into four more daughters, then 8, then 16 and so on, the result, biologists have long assumed, is an eternally youthful population of bacteria. Bacteria, in other words, don't age -- at least not in the same way all other organisms do.