The Hedgehog signaling pathway is involved in a preliminary study and case report describing positive responses to an experimental anticancer drug in a majority of people with advanced or metastatic basal cell skin cancers. One patient with the most common type of pediatric brain cancer, medulloblastoma, also showed tumor shrinkage.
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The first genetic link in the evolution of the heart from three-chambered to four-chambered has been found, illuminating part of the puzzle of how birds and mammals became warm-blooded.
Frogs have a three-chambered heart. It consists of two atria and one ventricle. As the right side of a frog's heart receives deoxygenated blood from the body, and the left side receives freshly oxygenated blood from the lungs, the two streams of blood mix together in the ventricle, sending out a concoction that is not fully oxygenated to the rest of the frog's body.
A key compound resupplies bone marrow with fast-acting stem cells that can more quickly rekindle blood cell production, according to a study published in the journal Blood. While the study was in mice, the authors say it has the potential to increase survival among patients with life-threatening blood cell shortages.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Dietary supplements claiming to help postmenopausal women with bone health may not be doing what they say, according to new research from Purdue University.
Some obese prostate cancer patients may have improved treatment outcomes when treated with image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) over traditional external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) because IGRT corrects for prostate shifts, which, if not planned for, can lead to incorrect doses of radiation to the disease site, according to a study in the September 1 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, .
Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other reptiles.
The research, published in the September 3 issue of the journal Nature, shows how a specific protein that turns on genes is involved in heart formation in turtles, lizards and humans.
Researchers Dr. Marc Therrien at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of the Université de Montréal, and Dr. Frank Sicheri, at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, have discovered a new target that may be instrumental in the development of new, more effective cancer therapies.
Research published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology has found that an individual's quality of life prior to treatment can help predict the overall survival of patients with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Scientists here are the first to demonstrate that the link between diesel fume exposure and cancer lies in the ability of diesel exhaust to induce the growth of new blood vessels that serve as a food supply for solid tumors.
The researchers found that in both healthy and diseased animals, more new blood vessels sprouted in mice exposed to diesel exhaust than did in mice exposed to clean, filtered air. This suggests that previous illness isn't required to make humans susceptible to the damaging effects of the diesel exhaust.
A laboratory study by University of Maryland researchers suggests that some of the worst fears about a virulent H1N1 pandemic flu season may not be realized this year, but does demonstrate the heightened communicability of the virus.
Scientists in Michigan are reporting the development of a powerful new probe for identifying proteins affected by a key chemical process important in aging and disease. The probe works like a GPS or navigation system for finding these proteins in cells. It could lead to new insights into disease processes and identify new targets for disease treatments, the researchers say. Their study is scheduled for the Sept. 18 issue of ACS Chemical Biology, a monthly journal.
Genes that regulate the energy consumption of cells have a different structure and expression in type II diabetics than they do in healthy people, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet published in Cell Metabolism. The researchers believe that these 'epigenetic mutations' might have a key part to play in the development of the disease.
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers have found that early stage cancers of the esophagus can be treated as effectively by less-invasive, organ-sparing endoscopic therapy as compared to more complex surgical removal of the esophagus, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in the September 2009 issue of Gastroenterology.
BETHESDA, Md. (September 2, 2009) — Exercise helps prevent weight regain after dieting by reducing appetite and by burning fat before burning carbohydrates, according to a new study with rats. Burning fat first and storing carbohydrates for use later in the day slows weight regain and may minimize overeating by signaling a feeling of fullness to the brain.
X-linked nephrogenic diabetes insipidus (XNDI) is a severe congenital kidney disease caused by mutations in the V2R gene. Currently, there is no effective drug to specifically treat XNDI, mainly because there are no good animal models of the disease. However, Jürgen Wess and colleagues, at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, have now developed a viable mouse model of XNDI that recapitulates the major manifestations of the human disease.