New research in the Journal of Cell Biology helps explain how the toxic protein responsible for botulism can enter circulation from the digestive system. The study appears online May 10 (www.jcb.org).
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have applied advanced radiation techniques for head and neck cancer to avoid treating critical structures that affect swallowing and eating. A new study shows these principles and techniques treated the cancer effectively while greatly reducing long-term swallowing complications.
Saranac Lake, N.Y. – Inducing cellular immunity as a means to protect against influenza virus is the focus of several laboratories at the Trudeau Institute.Researchers here have recently identified two important signaling components required by the immune system that might allow us to pre-position our own virus-fighting T cells to the lungs, the site of initial infection.
In two new papers, Rice University researchers report using ultracentrifugation (UCF) to create highly purified samples of carbon nanotube species.
One team, led by Rice Professor Junichiro Kono and graduate students Erik Haroz and William Rice, has made a small but significant step toward the dream of an efficient nationwide electrical grid that depends on highly conductive quantum nanowire.
Increased cholesterol levels are being increasingly recognised as risk factors for the onset and progression of several cancers. Now researchers in Portugal show that high levels of cholesterol can affect the microenvironment of the bone marrow, so that more cells move from the bone marrow to peripheral, circulating blood. These findings, by Sergio Dias and his team, an external group of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, have implications for transplantation and further understanding bone marrow malignancies, are to appear in the next issue of the journal Blood.
Rockville, Md., May 10, 2010 — To promote the establishment of universal standards for prescription medication labels—and to address the widespread problem of patient misinterpretation of medication instructions—an advisory panel formed by the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) recently issued a set of recommendations to bring consistency to labeling on dispensed prescription packaging. The recommendations are patient-centered, and were developed following a call for such standards by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the issue of health literacy.
In the first study of its type, Australian researchers have shown that healthy people with a genetic predisposition to Type 2 diabetes gain more weight overeating over the short term than their non-genetically-prone counterparts.
In a 28-day study undertaken at Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, scientists set out to mimic the kind of overfeeding that typically takes place during feasting periods like Christmas.
More individualized therapy and better supportive care helped push the survival for children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to 71 percent three years after diagnosis, according to new research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators and reported in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology. The survival rate of 71 percent is 20 percent better than previously reported U.S. rates and is similar to the success achieved in a 2009 Japanese study, said Jeffrey Rubnitz, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Oncology department.
By using entire islands as experimental laboratories, two Dartmouth biologists have performed one of the largest manipulations of natural selection ever conducted in a wild animal population. Their results, published online on May 9 by the journal Nature, show that competition among lizards is more important than predation by birds and snakes when it comes to survival of the fittest lizard.
The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) has released a new position statement on Vitamin D for older adults which makes important recommendations for vitamin D nutrition from an evidence-based perspective.
Vitamin D is important for bone and muscle development, function and preservation. For this reason it is a vital component in the maintenance of bone strength and in the prevention of falls and osteoporotic fractures.
Researchers from Southhampton and Cambridge Universities in the UK have presented evidence that vigorous physical activity in young children results in stronger hip bones. The results were presented at the World Congress on Osteoporosis (IOF WCO-ECCEO10) in Florence, Italy.
More than 200 six-year olds participated in the study. Using advanced scanning technology, the researchers measured bone mass and analysed the structure of the femoral neck (hip) and thigh bone. Physical activity was assessed for seven continuous days.
Washington, DC – A study by researchers from the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) identifies a potential new combination therapy to "rescue" treatment sensitivity to fulvestrant in estrogen receptor positive breast cancers. The findings were published on May 15, 2010 as the cover story of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.
A new analysis finds that the costs of treating cancer have nearly doubled over the past two decades and that the shares of these costs that are paid for by private health insurance and Medicaid have increased. The study also reveals that cancer costs have shifted away from inpatient treatments to outpatient care. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the information could be used to prioritize future resources for treating and preventing cancer.
A new study indicates that patients aged 75 years or older who have confined kidney tumors do not live longer if they have their entire kidney removed. The research reveals that these patients typically have other medical problems of greater significance and that many should receive more conservative cancer-related care, such as observation or treatments that spare the noncancerous parts of their kidneys. The study is published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
A team of University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers has discovered that common intestinal bacteria appear to promote tumor growths in genetically susceptible mice, but that tumorigenesis can be suppressed if the mice are exposed to an inhibiting protein enzyme.