Body

Wartime urologic injuries require different mindset

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Saving a soldier's life takes precedence over treating traumatic urologic injuries on the battlefield, a Medical College of Georgia researcher says.

DETROIT – For pancreatic cancer patients unable to undergo surgery – the only known cure for this form of cancer – a highly targeted cancer radiation therapy may help slow cancer progression and lessen disease symptoms, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Called stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), the study found it was able to delay pancreatic cancer progression locally, on average, by almost six months.

While, on average, the patients in the study lived about 10 months, one-third lived more than a year.

An international team of Mycologists and Ecologists studying Atlantic sea turtles at Cape Verde have discovered that the species is under threat from a fungal infection which targets eggs. The research, published in FEMS Microbiology Letters , reveals how the fungus Fusarium solani may have played a key role in the 30-year decline in turtle numbers.

Few fish are famed for their parenting skills. Most species leave their freshly hatched fry to fend for themselves, but not discus fish. Jonathan Buckley from the University of Plymouth, UK, explains that discus fish young feed on the mucus that their parents secrete over their bodies until they are big enough to forage. 'The parental care that they exhibit is very unusual,' says Buckley.

28 October 2010 (Geneva, Switzerland) - A report issued today by the International AIDS Society, Universal Access: Right Here, Right Now documents the principal debates around universal access during the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010). The report also takes stock of progress to date and reveals the scale of the future challenge for HIV treatment and prevention at a time when new infections are outstripping those receiving treatment by five to two.

Scientists of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of MDC and Charité in Berlin-Buch have gained new insights into the development of epithelial cells and their molecular repertoire. Dr. Max Werth, Katharina Walentin and Professor Kai Schmidt-Ott have identified a transcription factor (grainyhead-like 2, Grhl2), which regulates the composition of the molecular "bridges" that link adjacent epithelial cells.

Papyrus research provides insights into the 'modern concerns' of the ancient world

What's old is new again. That's the lesson that can be taken from the University of Cincinnati-based journal, "Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists," due out Nov. 1.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Two University of Florida researchers and their international colleagues have used mathematical models and maps to estimate the feasibility of eliminating malaria from countries that have the deadliest form of the disease.

Andrew Tatem led a study that appears online today and in the November print edition of the British medical journal The Lancet Malaria Elimination Series.

Kidney transplant numbers increase for elderly patients

Elderly patients with kidney failure get kidney transplants more often than they did a decade ago, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The results suggest that the chances of receiving a kidney transplant are better than ever for an older patient who needs one.

NEW YORK, October 28, 2010 – An international study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has identified genetic variants in women with BRCA2 mutations that may increase or decrease their risk of developing breast cancer. The study was published today online in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

The findings of the study suggest that genetic variants on chromosomes 10 and 20 may modify risk for breast cancer among women with a BRCA2 mutation.

SEATTLE – An international team of researchers led by an investigator from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has made a second critical advance in determining the cause of a common form of muscular dystrophy known as facioscapulohumeral dystrophy, or FSHD.

DURHAM, N.H. – A major new study that sounds a conservation alarm for the world's vertebrate species notes that the world's seagrass species are faring somewhat better, says a University of New Hampshire researcher who was a coauthor of the study.

Fred Short, UNH research professor of natural resources and director of the worldwide program SeagrassNet, was among the 174 scientists who contributed to "The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates," released online this week in the journal Science.

Wild Scottish sheep could help explain differences in immunity

Strong immunity may play a key role in determining long life, but may do so at the expense of reduced fertility, a Princeton University study has concluded.

AURORA, Colo. (Oct. 28, 2010) - A study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows more than half of patients with a specific kind of lung cancer are responding positively to a treatment that targets the gene that drives their cancer.