Body

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 2016 - Radiation oncologists from across the United States convened on Capitol Hill yesterday to encourage members of Congress to invest in cancer research with sustainable and predictable funding and to protect patients' access to high quality cancer care through value-based physician payment models. The 95 doctors were in Washington for approximately 150 meetings with Congressional leaders from their home districts and states as part of the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO) 13th annual Advocacy Day.

Advanced prostate cancer is usually treated by removing androgen, the male hormone that helps it grow. Although initially effective, this treatment often leads to the tumor becoming castration resistant- a lethal condition. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and University of Michigan, along with collaborators in other institutions, have determined that castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) has particular metabolic characteristics that may open new possibilities for treatment. The results appear in Nature Communications.

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin condition that affects some 125 million people worldwide. It is characterized by itchy, scaly skin plaques. The exact cause of psoriasis is unclear. But mounting evidence implicates the immune system in the overproduction of cell-signalling molecules called cytokines, which stimulate skin cells called keratinocytes to express genes that maintain an inflammatory microenvironment. Now, scientists at Hokkaido University in Japan have found more evidence that a cytokine called IL-17A is especially critical in this process.

Escherichia coli (E. coli) are bacteria that live all around and inside of us. Most E. coli are harmless, but some strains can cause illness, and can even, in extreme cases, be deadly. With recent outbreaks of E. coli around the world, there is a fear of acquiring an infection from these bacteria. An important component of fighting these kinds of bad bacteria is a better understanding of how bacteria divide and multiply. In each bacterium, a large protein complex - called the divisome - governs cell division.

A study of more than 6,000 marine fossils from the Antarctic shows that the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs was sudden and just as deadly to life in the polar regions.

Previously, scientists had thought that creatures living in the southernmost regions of the planet would have been in a less perilous position during the mass extinction event than those elsewhere on Earth.

Yale researchers were fishing for a new weapon against antibiotic resistance and found one floating in a Connecticut pond, they report May 26, 2016 in the journal Scientific Reports.

With the emerald ash borer beetle devastating ash tree populations throughout the United States -- from locations as far north as Massachusetts and as far south as Louisiana -- solutions to help fight the insect are critical.

In nearly every biological community, distributions among species are highly uneven. That is, there is a large number of rare species with very few members and only a small number of common species concentrating most members of the community.

DENVER - May 24, 2016 - Simultaneous pre-treatment with antihistamines that block both the H1 and H4 antihistamine receptors suppressed the gastrointestinal symptoms of food allergy in mice, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. The findings, published online in the journal Allergy, provide new insight into the development of food allergy and suggest potential therapies for prevention and treatment of food allergy.

SAN FRANCISCO - May 25, 2016 - Researchers studying babies with a Zika virus-related birth defect say they have found previously unreported eye problems possibly linked to the virus that could result in severe visual impairment. In three Brazilian infants with microcephaly, the researchers observed retinal lesions, hemorrhaging and abnormal blood vessel development not noted before in relation to the virus.

Among nearly 35,000 initially healthy women who were followed-up for about 20 years, those with new-onset atrial fibrillation had an increased risk of cancer, according to a study published online by JAMA Cardiology.

Ottawa, May 25, 2016 - A new study from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI), in collaboration with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), has established that greater adoption of hospital-initiated tobacco cessation interventions improve patient outcomes and decrease further healthcare utilization. The study is published today in the British Medical Journal's Tobacco Control.

The UK Lung cancer screening trial (UKLS) has been successfully completed and demonstrated that patients with a high risk of developing lung cancer can be identified with early stage disease and have up to a 73% chance of surviving for five years or more. The UKLS trial was conducted by experts in the University of Liverpool.

NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. (May 25, 2016) - A veterinarian sees a canine patient with severe rib and head injuries whose cause of injury is unknown. Without having witnessed the incident, how can the veterinary professional distinguish an accident from abuse?

Inflammatory bowel diseases, or IBD, such as ulcerative colitis, are intractable diseases with unknown etiology. The number of patients with IBD in Japan has tremendously increased in recent years. However, there are no definitive treatments at present. Recently, the dysfunction of the intestinal mucosal barrier has been thought to be one of the causes for IBD. Indeed, in genetically-modified mice in which the mucosal barrier is defective, intestinal bacteria invade the colonic mucosa, and this causes high susceptibility to intestinal inflammation.