LA JOLLA, CA-In making your pro-longevity resolutions, like drinking more red wine and maintaining a vibrant social network, here's one you likely forgot: dialing down your mitochondria. It turns out that slowing the engines of these tiny cellular factories could extend your life-an observation relevant not only to aging research but to our understanding of how cells communicate with each another.
SANTA CRUZ, CA--Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have identified a key molecule for establishing blood stem cells in their niche within the bone marrow. The findings, reported in the January issue of Cell Stem Cell, may lead to improvements in the safety and efficiency of bone marrow transplants.
Most cancer tissues are invaded by inflammatory cells that either stimulate or inhibit the growth of the tumor, depending on what immune cells are involved. Now a Swedish-Belgian research team has shown that a protein that naturally occurs in the body, HRG, inhibits tumor growth and metastasis into secondary organs by activating specific immune cells. The study is being published today in the Net edition of the prestigious journal Cancer Cell.
Remarkable new research overthrows the conventional view that cancer always develops in a steady, stepwise progression. It shows that in some cancers, the genome can be shattered into hundreds of fragments in a single cellular catastrophe, wreaking mutation on a massive scale.
The scars of this chromosomal crisis are seen in cases from across all the common cancer types, accounting for at least one in forty of all cancers. The phenomenon is particularly common in bone cancers, where the distinctively ravaged genome is seen in up to one in four cases.
A multinational team of researchers led by stem cell scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Scripps Research Institute has documented specific genetic abnormalities that occur in human embryonic (hESC) and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines. Their study, "Dynamic changes in the copy number of pluripotency and cell proliferation genes in human ESCs and iPSCs during reprogramming and time in culture" will be published in the January 7 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Mount Sinai researchers coordinating the largest clinical study to date of "Sarcoid Like" Granulomatous Pulmonary Disease in World Trade Center (WTC) responders have found that the rate of the condition was increased in this group as compared to the records of pre-9/11 FDNY personnel. The study is published online in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
Today, the BMJ declares the 1998 Lancet paper that implied a link between the MMR vaccine and autism "an elaborate fraud."
Dr Fiona Godlee, BMJ Editor in Chief says "the MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud" and that such "clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare."
Researchers from Israel have determined that more than half of liver transplant recipients develop post-transplantation metabolic syndrome (PTMS), placing them at greater risk for cardiovascular disease. Prior to transplantation only 5% of the patients were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, but rates of obesity, hypertriglyceridemia, hypertension, and diabetes were significantly higher post transplantation.
The use of combined treatments for severe acute pancreatitis is safe and effective in managing the disease, resulting in shorter hospitalizations and fewer radiological procedures than standard therapy, according to a study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. In a related study, doctors found that patients with infected pancreatic necrosis were able to avoid surgery through primary conservative treatment, which is in-patient medical treatment.
Women who underwent gastric band surgery to lose weight reported significant improvements in urinary function and quality of life after the operation, according to research published in the January issue of the urology journal BJUI.
However, men undergoing the procedure did not enjoy the same significant urinary function improvements as the women. They also reported that erectile function was slightly worse after surgery, unlike studies following non-surgical weight loss where sexual function actually improved.
They are the most widely produced fruit in the world and now scientists in Japan have discovered that tomatoes contain a nutrient which could tackle the onset of vascular diseases. The research, published in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, reveals that an extracted compound, 9-oxo-octadecadienoic, has anti-dyslipidemic affects.
JUPITER, FL, January 5, 2011 – A scientist from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute has devised a new method of analyzing and quantifying changes in proteins that result from a common chemical process. The new findings could provide new insights into the effects of a highly destructive form of stress on proteins in various disease models, particularly cancer.
AURORA, Colo. (Jan. 5, 2011) – The number of women who die from complications of anesthesia during childbirth has plummeted 59 percent over the last two decades thanks to improved monitoring and better medical techniques, according to a recent study.
The report's lead researcher, Joy Hawkins, MD, professor of anesthesiology and director of Obstetric Anesthesia at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said the risks have been dramatically reduced due to a greater focus on eliminating complications of general anesthesia.
Cardiologists at the University of Connecticut Health Center have identified a protein fragment that when detected in the blood can be a predictor of heart attack.
Cancer cells reproduce by dividing in two, but a molecule known as PML limits how many times this can happen, according to researchers lead by Dr. Gerardo Ferbeyre of the University of Montreal's Department of Biochemistry. The team proved that malignant cancers have problems with this molecule, meaning that in its absence they can continue to grow and eventually spread to other organs. Importantly, the presence of PML molecules can easily be detected, and could serve to diagnose whether a tumor is malignant or not.