A new study has shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used to evaluate responses to pre-surgery (neo-adjuvant) chemotherapy or radiation may predict survival among patients with advanced rectal cancer. The findings suggest that MRI-assessed tumor responses to neoadjuvant therapy can help physicians to better plan their patients' subsequent treatments.
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African-Americans are disproportionately affected by hypertension, a puzzle whose solutions has eluded medical science. It may be how people respond to inflammation.
In a study published in Vascular Health and Risk Management, lead author Michael Brown and his team tested the effects of TNF-ά, a protein that causes inflammation when cells are damaged, on endothelial cells, which line blood vessels, in both African-Americans and Caucasians, to determine whether the inflammation affected the cells differently.
Understanding how bacteria infect cells is crucial to preventing countless human diseases. In a recent breakthrough, scientists from the University of Bristol have discovered a new approach for studying molecules within their natural environment, opening the door to understanding the complexity of how bacteria infect people.
Plants produce a vast array of natural products, many of which we find useful for making things such as drugs. There are likely to be many other plant natural products that remain undiscovered or under-exploited, and research from The John Innes Centre, which is strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), is uncovering more about the genetics and evolution of natural product pathways in plants.
CHICAGO – In the evolutionary blink of an eye, a bacterium that causes mild stomach irritation evolved into a deadly assassin responsible for the most devastating pandemics in human history. How did the mild-mannered Yersinia pseudotuberculosis become Yersinia pestis, more commonly known as the Plague?
LA JOLLA, CA – August 29, 2011 — Collaborating researchers at Stanford University and The Scripps Research Institute have identified chemical compounds that show promise as potential therapeutics for a set of medical conditions caused by the abnormal clumping together of a protein known as transthyretin (TTR).
"A multidisciplinary educational programme in cardiovascular prevention directed to children of school age can reduce their parents' cardiovascular risk. Cardiovascular prevention could have more success focusing on children first, inducing healthier lifestyle habits in the whole family, "said investigator Luciana Fornari, from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Health Canada is not prevented by law from publicly disclosing safety and efficacy data from clinical trials, pharmaceuticals, biologics and medical devices and should be more transparent, states an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj110721.pdf.
A new series examines the mechanisms of visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile processes that inform us about the environment.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – The most common breast cancer uses the most efficient, powerful food delivery system known in human cells and blocking that system kills it, researchers report.
This method of starving cancer cells could provide new options for patients, particularly those resistant to standard therapies such as tamoxifen, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers said.
As we grow older, our bones become more brittle and prone to fracturing and that loss of mass is a factor in why older bones fracturing more readily than younger bones and we should slow down loss, but new research from scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows that at microscopic dimensions, the age-related loss of bone quality can be every bit as important as the loss of quantity in the susceptibility of bone to fracturing.
Spanish investigators led by Drs. Eduardo Barge-Caballero and Marisa Crespo-Leiro from the Hospital Universitario A Coruña conducted a multi-institutional retrospective study of 704 patients with critical heart failure, who underwent urgent, high-priority heart transplantation in 15 Spanish hospitals from January, 2000 to December, 2009.
The study presented by Dr. Katrin Streckfuss-Boemeke from Germany, won the ESC Basic Science Young Investigators Award.
"Data gathered in this study demonstrates an easy and fast possibility to generate iPSCs from hair follicles of patients with genetic cardiac diseases and their further differentiation into functional cardiomyocytes. These cells will allow us to model the heart disease of these patients, to investigate the mechanisms of the disease, to perform drug screenings and to develop patient-specific therapeutic strategies," explained Dr Streckfuss-Boemeke.
Results of the phase IIb dal-VESSEL study show that dalcetrapib, an investigational molecule which acts on cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), did not impair endothelial function (as indicated by flow-mediated dilatation) or increase blood pressure, and was generally well tolerated in patients with or at risk of coronary heart disease.
This is the result of a recent experimental study carried out at the University Hospital Freiburg in Germany and funded by the German Research Foundation. In an animal model of peripheral artery disease, blood flow to the lower leg was significantly improved after treatment with the so-called "antagomir"-inhibitor.