An international research team led by Dr. Tak Mak, Director, the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), has discovered a new aspect of "metabolic transformation", the process whereby tumour cells adapt and survive under conditions that would kill normal cells.
Body
All animals move – cheetahs faster, snails more slowly. Muscle contractions are the basis of all movements, at least according to general opinion. But there are animal groups, that don't have any muscles at all, as they branched off from the evolutionary path before muscle cells evolved. However these animal groups, for instance the sea sponges, are not immovable. Sponges are able to contract without muscles. These contractions were already known to sponge divers in ancient Greece, as Aristotele described in 350 BC.
Boston, MA – For the first time, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have identified a human lung stem cell that is self-renewing and capable of forming and integrating multiple biological structures of the lung including bronchioles, alveoli and pulmonary vessels. This research is published in the May 12, 2011 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
JUPITER, FL, May 11, 2011 – A team led by a scientist from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute has identified a new role for a biological pathway that not only signals the body's metabolic response to nutritional changes, but also affects lifespan.
The study, published in the May 12, 2011 issue of the journal Nature, was conducted on Caenorhabditis elegans (nematodes or roundworms), which are a widely accepted model for human aging research.
Scientists are reporting development of three promising formulations that could be used in a vaccine to treat methamphetamine addiction — one of the most serious drug abuse problems in the U.S. The report appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
For diagnosing head and neck ailments, tests that use radiation are always less desirable than those that don't. Otolaryngologists have a wide range of techniques available to them, including CT or "CAT" scans, MRI and ultrasound. CT uses significant radiation and MRI a lower amount, but ultrasound is a non-invasive, non-radiating technique. It does not require injection of radioactive contrast material and has no side effects.
Recently published research shows that coffee drinkers enjoy not only the taste of their coffee but also a reduced risk of cancer with their cuppa. More detailed research published today in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research shows that drinking coffee specifically reduces the risk of antiestrogen-resistant estrogen-receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer.
LIVERMORE, Calif. --Skin cells shed from livestock infected with foot and mouth disease could very well spread the disease.
In a new paper appearing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Michael Dillon proposed that virus-infected skin cells could be a source of infectious foot and mouth disease virus aerosols. His proposal is based on the facts that foot and mouth disease virus is found in skin and that airborne skin cells are known to transmit other diseases.
SALT LAKE CITY—Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer; it also occurs in adults. Now researchers working with zebrafish at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have identified previously undiscovered high-risk genetic features in T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia (T-ALL), according to an article published online May 9, 2011, in the cancer research journal Oncogene.
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Hamilton, ON (May 10, 2011) – It's a disease affecting those closest to us – our fathers, brothers and sons.
Prostate cancer impacts one in six men in Canada. Last year, roughly 24,600 men were diagnosed with the disease.
Most types of prostate cancer are curable if caught and treated early. But little is understood about the mechanisms that cause a tumour to metastasize and spread to other parts of the body.
Until now, the scientific community had assumed that wild animals died before they got old. Now, a Spanish-Mexican research team has for the first time demonstrated ageing in a population of wild birds (Sula nebouxii) in terms of their ability to live and reproduce.
"It was always thought that senescence was something particular to humans and domestic animals, because we have an extended life expectancy", Alberto Velando, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Ecology and Animal Biology Department of the University of Vigo, tells SINC.
Bacterium Salmonella enterica regulates virulence according to iron levels found in its surroundings
Salmonella enterica, one of the main causes of gastrointestinal infections, modulates its virulence gene expression, adapting it to each stage of the infection process, depending on the free iron concentration found in the intestinal epithelium of its host. Researchers at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have demonstrated for the first time that the pathogen activates these genes through the Fur protein, which acts as a sensor of iron levels in its surroundings.
LOS ANGELES (May 9, 2011) – A common, tiny tropical fish plays a key role in a new model for Cushing disease, giving researchers a powerful tool to conduct extensive searches for effective treatments for this serious hormonal disorder, testing up to 300 drugs weekly.
The model – published online on May 2 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- was created in the laboratory of Shlomo Melmed, MD, dean of the medical faculty at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, by his research team led by Ning-Ai Liu, MD, PhD.
According to new research at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, high rates of chronic hepatitis B infection (HBV) are found in pregnant minority and immigrant women in the New York City area, and most of them do not receive education, appropriate follow-up testing or referral, which is considered the standard of care for all persons newly identified as HBV carriers.