DALLAS – July 16, 2009 – A new study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers sheds light on the challenges involved in identifying which high-risk population would benefit most from bladder-cancer screening.
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(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have shown that disclosing genetic risk information to adult children of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) who request this information does not result in significant short-term psychological distress. The report from the REVEAL Study*, which appears in the July 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first randomized trial to disclose to participants whether or not they carried the ε4 variant of the APOE gene, a variant that has been found to increase the risk of developing AD.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---When people learn they are predisposed to Alzheimer's disease, any depression or anxiety is not long lasting, a new study indicates.
These findings help address a longstanding debate about whether learning such information might cause lasting psychological harm, at least among those with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, says Scott Roberts, a University of Michigan researcher at the School of Public Health and co-author of the study findings, which appear today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Most children who suffer from chronic daily headaches may outgrow the disabling condition, according to research published in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Nearly 1.5 percent of middle school children are affected by chronic daily headaches, which includes chronic migraines and tension-type headaches.
Scientists have sequenced the genome of the parasite that causes intestinal schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia or snail fever), a devastating tropical disease that afflicts more than 200 million people worldwide.
Najib El-Sayed, associate professor in the University of Maryland's College of Chemical and Life Sciences, led the transatlantic research team, along with Matthew Berriman of the UK's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Their work is published in the July 16, 2009 edition of Nature and featured on the journal's cover.
Dartmouth Medical School immunologists have devised a Trojan horse to help overcome ovarian cancer, unleashing a surprise killer in the neighborhoods of a hard-to-treat tumor.
Using nanoparticles, the team has reprogrammed a protective cell corrupted by ovarian cancers to feed their growth, back from tumor friend to tumor foe. Their research, published for Journal of Clinical Investigation, offers a promising approach to orchestrate an attack against a cancer whose survival rates have barely budged over the last three decades.
Genetics researchers have unveiled a reference standard of deletions and duplications of DNA found in the human genome. Drawn from over 2,000 healthy persons, the study provides one of the deepest and broadest sets of copy number variations (CNVs) available to date, along with a new research tool for diagnosing and identifying genetic problems in patients.
A team from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia published its high-resolution map and analysis of CNVs in the human genome in the July 10 online edition of the journal Genome Research.
DURHAM, N.C. -- An osteoporosis drug proven to save lives after hip fractures may do so by strengthening the body's immune system, according to geriatrics researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Patrick Lane, age 74, was plagued by recurring aortic aneurysms ten years ago that threatened his survival. His doctor at the time suggested he contact a leading vascular surgeon at UCLA who was pioneering a new treatment technique for high-risk patients who couldn't receive traditional surgery.
Patrick was the first patient at UCLA to receive the novel method in 1998 and is still doing well today. Dr. Quinones-Baldrich performed Patrick's procedure, which is a hybrid method called CESA (combined endovascular and surgical approach).
Two UCSF research papers this week are marking major breakthroughs in the effort to tackle schistosomiasis (bilharzia), a tropical disease that infects more than 200 million people worldwide and causes long-term debilitating illness and occasional paralysis or death.
One paper documents a multinational success, led by a team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in England, in sequencing the genome of the Schistosoma mansoni blood fluke, which has taken nearly a decade to achieve, researchers said.
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-based research team has identified how a chromosomal abnormality known to be associated with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) – the most common cancer in children – initiates the disease process. In the July issue of Cell Stem Cell, they describe how expression of this mutation in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which usually occurs before birth, leads to the development of leukemia many years later.
A new study finds that a change in a single gene has sent two closely related bird populations on their way to becoming two distinct species. The study, published in the August issue of the American Naturalist, is one of only a few to investigate the specific genetic changes that drive two populations toward speciation.
Significant sea ice formation occurred in the Arctic earlier than previously thought, according to a study published this week in Nature. "The results are also especially exciting because they suggest that sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica, which goes against scientific expectation," says scientific team member Dr Richard Pearce of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).
Scientists from a diverse group of universities and research fields have collaborated to establish a new field called Primate Archaeology. Devoted to the history of tool use in all primate species, Primate Archaeology aims to revise and improve scientists' understanding of human origins and evolution.
Two international research teams have determined the complete genetic sequences of two species of parasitic flatworms that cause schistosomiasis, a debilitating condition also known as snail fever. Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma japonicum are the first sequenced genomes of any organism in the large group called Lophotrochozoa, which includes other free-living and parasitic flatworms as well as segmented roundworms, such as the earthworm.