The pedal-to-the-metal signals driving the growth of several types of cancer cells lead to a common switch governing the use of glucose, researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have discovered.
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A study by researchers from the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University (OSU) explored the competitive advantage organizations gain when hiring key employees away from a competitor. The loss of a key employee can hinder organizational performance, even in superior organizations that have established advantageous routines via strategic initiatives that set them apart from their competitors, because the lost employees bring strategic knowledge with them to the hiring firm.
Control, independence, ambition, pressure, worry, guilt and resentment are all experienced by female breadwinners, according to Dr. Rebecca Meisenbach from the University of Missouri in Columbia, USA. Dr. Meisenbach explored the experiences of American female breadwinners to get an insight into how these women experience the phenomenon of being the provider. Her paper was just published online in Springer's journal Sex Roles.
Heart function significantly improved in children and young adults with single-ventricle congenital heart disease who have had the Fontan operation following treatment with sildenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension, say researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Single-ventricle defects are a collection of cardiac malformations that impair the heart's ability to pump blood. Examples include tricuspid atresia, pulmonary atresia/intact ventricular septum and hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
Toddlers and obese children suffer more than other youth when exposed to secondhand smoke, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2009.
Embryonic stem (ES) cells, known for their capacity to proliferate indefinitely and differentiate into almost all types of cells including hepatocytes, have raised the hope of cellular replacement therapy for liver failure. There have been several protocols available for hepatic fate specification from ES cells, however, most of the protocols currently used result in low yield or purity of functional hepatocytes. Valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, has been demonstrated to facilitate the hepatic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells.
Several studies have shown that lipid peroxidation stimulates collagen production in fibroblasts and hepatic stellate cells (HSC), and plays an important role in the development of liver fibrosis. Hepatoprotective effects of green tea against carbon tetrachloride, cholestasis and alcohol induced liver fibrosis were reported in many studies. However, the hepatoprotective effect of green tea in dimethylnitrosamine (DMN)-induced models has not been studied.
Biliary drainage is performed as a palliative treatment of hilar cholangiocarcinoma. The reduction of serum bilirubin is usually the hallmark of successful biliary drainage. However, some patients may have persistent jaundice or scanty bile output after biliary drainage.
A research team, led by Dr. Chiung-Yu Chen from National Cheng Kung University retrospectively analyzed the clinical and imaging characteristics of these patients in an attempt to identify the factors related to bile output and reduction of serum bilirubin after percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD).
Prions are causing fatal and infectious diseases of the nervous system, such as the mad cow disease (BSE), scrapie in sheep or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München and Technische Universität München have now succeeded in elucidating another disease mechanism of prion diseases: The prion-infected cell changes its gene expression and produces increased quantities of cholesterol. Prions need this for their propagation.
DNA recovered from fossilised bones of the moa, a giant extinct bird, has revealed a new geological history of New Zealand, reports a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A team of scientists led by the University of Adelaide has reconstructed a history of marine barriers, mountain building and glacial cycles in New Zealand over millions of years, using the first complete genetic history of the moa.
Colorectal carcinoma is one of the most common cancers in the world. Approximately one in four of these patients have metastases at diagnosis, liver being the most common site involved. Although historically it was considered that liver metastases meant a very poor prognosis, today, due to improved systemic therapy, many patients will be candidates for local hepatic treatments such as surgery or less aggressive radiofrequency ablation. Both of these procedures have resulted in improvements in global and disease-free survival.
Indomethacin has been proved by epidemiological and experimental studies to be closely associated with peptic ulcer development. Vardenafil is a potent phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitor and its effects on the gastric mucosa havenot been reported.
The routine prescription of extended-release niacin, a B vitamin (1,500 milligrams daily), in combination with traditional cholesterol-lowering therapy offers no extra benefit in correcting arterial narrowing and diminishing plaque buildup in seniors who already have coronary artery disease, a new vascular imaging study from Johns Hopkins experts shows.
If you're watching the complex processes in a living cell, it is easy to miss something important—especially if you are watching changes that take a long time to unfold and require high-spatial-resolution imaging. But new research* makes it possible to scrutinize activities that occur over hours or even days inside cells, potentially solving many of the mysteries associated with molecular-scale events occurring in these tiny living things.
The evolutionary history of New Zealand's many extinct flightless moa has been re-written in the first comprehensive study of more than 260 sub-fossil specimens to combine all known genetic, anatomical, geological and ecological information about the unique bird lineage.
That lineage ended only about 600 years ago after a journey through time that most likely began about 80 million years earlier on the prehistoric supercontinent of Gondwana, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by an international team of researchers.