Prescription drugs and their dosages may be standardized, but not every patient reacts to a medicine in the same way. The personal genetic characteristics of individuals and populations can explain why a specific prescription successfully treats one patient and not another, so medical researchers are adopting the new approach called "personalized medicine" and a Tel Aviv University lab is leading the way.
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Early detection is critical for improving cancer survival rates. Yet, one of the deadliest cancers in the United States, lung cancer, is notoriously difficult to detect in its early stages.
Now, researchers have developed a method to detect lung cancer by merely shining diffuse light on cells swabbed from patients' cheeks.
Many a holiday is ruined by food poisoning, frequently caused by the bacterium Campylobacter jejuni. Although Campylobacter infections are rarely life-threatening they are extremely debilitating and have been linked with the development of Guillain-Barré syndrome, one of the leading causes of non-trauma-induced paralysis worldwide.
Increased global attention and research needs to be given to stroke prevention and the social and economic effects of the condition in developing countries, according to an academic at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Patient personality affects the accuracy of reports by friends and family members of mood history and symptoms and can cause missed diagnoses of depression, according to research published online by the journal International Psychogeriatrics.
Friends and family members of a person who is highly outgoing and fun-loving and who is likely to experience happiness and excitement, for example, often miss the signs that indicate the person is depressed.
Photosynthesis is the process used by plants to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into the energy-rich chemicals upon which all life-forms depend. The energy trapped in these compounds comes from sunlight, and photosynthetic organisms – plants, algae and certain types of bacteria – capture this energy in a usable form with the help of protein complexes called photosystems. Photosystems include antenna proteins that collect incident light, and green plants have two sorts of photosystems, which respond best to light of different wavelengths.
Large-scale crop failures like the one that caused the recent Russian wheat crisis are likely to become more common under climate change due to an increased frequency of extreme weather events, a new study shows.
However, the worst effects of these events on agriculture could be mitigated by improved farming and the development of new crops, according to the research by the University of Leeds, the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Exeter.
October 6, 2010 — (BRONX, NY) — The osteoporosis drug raloxifene may be useful in treating kidney disease in women, suggests a new study led by Michal Melamed, M.D., M.H.S., assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology & population health at the Albert Ein
Microbes matter -- perhaps more than anyone realizes -- in basic biological development and, maybe, they could be a target for reducing cancer risks, according to University of Oregon researchers.
With bits of DNA extracted from century-old museum specimens, researchers have found a place for the extinct Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) in the family tree of pigeons and doves, identifying this unique bird's closest living avian relatives for the first time. The new analysis, which appears this month in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, reveals that the Passenger Pigeon was most closely related to other North and South American pigeons, and not to the Mourning Dove, as was previously suspected.
LOS ANGELES (Oct. 6, 2010) – Cardiac imaging researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute are recommending that physicians not overlook fatty deposits around the heart when evaluating patients for risk of major heart problems.
Although abdominal fat is often considered in making these assessments, recent research suggests that measuring fatty tissue around the heart is an even better predictor, and noninvasive CT scanning may provide this important information.
"We found a significant relationship between bacterial infections and acute asthma attacks - above and beyond the expected relationship between viral infections and attacks," says Hans Bisgaard, a professor of paediatrics at the DPAC.
The study examined 361 children between the ages of four weeks and three years to determine the presence of viral and bacterial infections during severe asthma attacks. The results conclude that the number of attacks was just as high in children with bacterial respiratory infections as in those with viral infections.
Common frog (Rana temporaria) populations across the UK are suffering dramatic population crashes due to infection from the emerging disease Ranavirus, reveals research published in the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) journal Animal Conservation.
Using data collected from the public by the Frog Mortality Project and Froglife, scientists from ZSL found that, on average, infected frog populations experienced an 81 per cent decline in adult frogs over a 12 year period.
LONDON – (07 October 2010) – To mark World Menopause Day on 18th October 2010, the International Menopause Society (IMS) is launching new Recommendations for the management of postmenopausal vaginal atrophy, a distressing condition that will affect up to half of women after menopause. This new guidance is essential as, according to new research, one in two women with vaginal atrophy (VA) will live with their condition unnecessarily for over three years, despite effective treatments being available.
