Body

TAMPA, Fla. (June 27, 2016) - A University of South Florida professor and an international team of experts have found that older people with high levels of a certain type of cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), live as long, and often longer, than their peers with low levels of this same cholesterol.

Historically, efforts to improve end-of-life care have focused primarily on patients with cancer. But few studies have looked at the quality of end-of-life care for patients with other serious illnesses, such as lung, kidney or heart failure or dementia. In a study of patients who died at 146 inpatient facilities within the Veteran Affairs health system, a research team led by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital has found that family-reported end-of-life care was significantly better for patients with cancer or dementia than for patients with other serious illnesses.

WASHINGTON (June 26, 2016) -- In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center's Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) are recruiting as many as 1,200 women to study, in real time, a smartphone app that calculates a woman's chance for pregnancy on a daily basis.

Case reports on 13 cancer patients suggest that a small number of cancer patients taking the immunotherapy drugs ipilimumab and nivolumab may be at some higher-than-normal risk of developing autoimmune joint and tissue diseases, including inflammatory arthritis, according to a preliminary study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers.

International researchers centered at Nagoya University use a highly sensitive technique to identify significantly more DNA sequence repeats in patients with schizophrenia than in control individuals, and outline a possible link between genome instability and disease.

MISSOULA, Montana - Gravel-bed river floodplains are some of the most ecologically important habitats in North America, according to a new study by scientists from the U.S. and Canada. Their research shows how broad valleys coming out of glaciated mountains provide highly productive and important habitat for a large diversity of aquatic, avian and terrestrial species.

This is the first interdisciplinary research at the regional scale to demonstrate the importance of gravel-bed rivers to the entire ecosystem.

A University of Exeter scientist has helped develop an innovative mathematical model for exploring why some individuals evolve to be genetically programmed to be nice, while others stay nasty.

Dr Sasha Dall, Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Ecology, and a team of international colleagues have designed a new mathematical framework for examining social behaviour in a range of different species that will help advance our understanding of the evolution of sociality.

Washington, DC - June 24, 2016 - Bacteria that have the potential to abet breast cancer are present in the breasts of cancer patients, while beneficial bacteria are more abundant in healthy breasts, where they may actually be protecting women from cancer, according to Gregor Reid, PhD, and his collaborators. These findings may lead ultimately to the use of probiotics to protect women against breast cancer. The research is published in the ahead of print June 24 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

One of the first clues pathologists look for in tissue from a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient is the estrogen receptor, a nuclear protein that converts hormonal messages in the bloodstream into instructions for the cell about how to behave. They also look for the presence of progesterone receptors, primarily to confirm that the estrogen receptor is active.

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan along with collaborators at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) have succeeded in decoding the genome sequence for Hevea brasiliensis, the natural rubber tree native to Brazil. Published in Scientific Reports, the study reports a draft genome sequence that covers more than 93% of expressed genes, and pinpoints regions specific to the biosynthesis of rubber.

WASHINGTON -- Obese male mice and normal weight female mice produce female pups that are overweight at birth through childhood, and have delayed development of their breast tissue as well as increased rates of breast cancer.

The findings, published online June 24 in Scientific Reports by Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers, come from one of the first animal studies to examine the impact of paternal obesity on future generations' cancer risk.

Bremerhaven/Germany, 24 June 2016. The Siberian permafrost regions include those areas of the Earth, which heat up very quickly in the course of climate change. Nevertheless, biologists are currently observing only a minimal response in forest composition. In the places where, when considering the air temperature, pine and spruce forests should be growing, Siberian larch trees are still thriving. The cause of this paradox has been tracked using million-year-old bee pollen by scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute, the University of Cologne, and international partner institutions.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- The genome of the corn plant - or maize, as it's called almost everywhere except the US - "is a lot more exciting" than scientists have previously believed. So says the lead scientist in a new effort to analyze and annotate the depth of the plant's genetic resources.

Doctors and scientists at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City printed and used a 3D kidney to help save a patient's organ during a complicated tumor-removal procedural.

The 3D-printed model allowed doctors to study the patient's kidney in 3D to determine how to best remove the tumor as it was located in a precarious location adjacent to vital arteries and veins.

Thanks to the 3D-printed model of the organ, doctors were able to maneuver around those sensitive areas and successfully remove the tumor and ultimately save the patient's kidney.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Friederike J. Gruhl and Professor Andrew C. B. Cato at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing a three-dimensional model for prostate cancer research based on cryogels. The model will be used to reproduce natural processes and above all to examine the development and the progression of tumors. A current paper on this project published in the scientific journal Small (DOI: 10.1002/smll.201600683) has been crowned top story of the week on "Prostate Cell News", a major international platform and database for prostate cancer research.