Body

For the first time, scientists studying stool transplants have been able to track which strains of bacteria from a donor take hold in a patient's gut after a transplant. The team, led by EMBL with collaborators at Wageningen University and the Academic Medical Centre, both in the Netherlands, and the University of Helsinki, Finland found that compatibility between donor and patient likely plays a bigger role in these transplants than previously thought.

Nicotinamide riboside (NR) is pretty amazing. It has already been shown in several studies to be effective in boosting metabolism. And now a team of researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Integrated Systems Physiology (LISP), headed by Johan Auwerx, has unveiled even more of its secrets. An article written by Hongbo Zhang, a PhD student on the team, was published today in Science and describes the positive effects of NR on the functioning of stem cells. These effects can only be described as restorative.

RNA splicing is a major underlying factor that links mutations to complex traits and diseases, according to an exhaustive analysis of gene expression in whole genome and cell line data. Reporting in Science on April 29, 2016 researchers from the University of Chicago and Stanford University studied how thousands of mutations affect gene regulation in traits such as height, and diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai say that tiny doses of a cancer drug may stop the raging, uncontrollable immune response to infection that leads to sepsis and kills up to 500,000 people a year in the U.S. The new drug treatment may also benefit millions of people worldwide who are affected by infections and pandemics.

Pioneering gene therapy has restored some vision to patients with a rare form of genetic blindness for as long as four years, raising hopes it could be used to cure common causes of vision loss, new University of Oxford research published today shows.

A technique which involves injecting a virus into the eye to deliver billions of healthy genes to replace a key missing gene for choroideremia sufferers has provided sustained improvement in vision for up four years for some patients.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Nantes University Hospital in France shows that the bacteria in people's gut may predict their risk of life-threatening blood infections following high-dose chemotherapy.

The study was published today in Genome Medicine, a peer-reviewed open access journal.

Metas­tasis. The very word evokes fear. Defined as the spread of cancer cells from one part of the body to another, metastasis is the cause of approximately 90 percent of deaths among cancer patients. How does metastasis come about? And can we stop it?

While the Fontan procedure has improved the short- and mid-term outcomes for patients born with single ventricle anatomy, long-term complications of Fontan circulation include heart failure. These complications are thought to be secondary to elevated central venous pressure, chronic venous congestion and low cardiac output.

The belief that online user ratings are good indicators of product quality is largely an illusion, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

Yet almost all retailers provide user ratings on their websites and many consumers rely on the information when making purchase decisions, according to the paper, published this month in the Journal of Consumer Research.

DENVER - Capturing and summarizing the remarkable progress in lung cancer prevention, diagnosis, staging, and treatment in 2015, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) announces the inaugural publication of "Scientific Advances in Lung Cancer 2015" in the May 2016 issue of the IASLC's Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO).

The Entomological Society of America (ESA) has issued a statement about the dangers of invasive species and the potential threats they pose to U.S. national interests by undermining food security, trade agreements, forest health, ecosystem services, environmental quality, and public health and recreation.

Invasive insects alone incur control costs of over $2.5 billion in the U.S. per year and cause losses to crops, lawns, forests, and pastures totaling at least $18 billion per year.

Doctors have long known that men with low testosterone are at greater risk for developing type 2 diabetes. For the first time, researchers have identified how testosterone helps men regulate blood sugar by triggering key signaling mechanisms in islets, clusters of cells within the pancreas that produce insulin. The findings, co-authored by Tulane University researchers, are published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Road crashes are the world's leading cause of preventable death and injury in people under 35, accounting for around 5 million casualties every year. Repeat offenders make a disproportionate contribution to these statistics - and are known for their poor response to education and prevention efforts.

But a better understanding of the subconscious and emotional processes of high-risk drivers could make a difference, according to new research from McGill University.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical that is used in a variety of consumer products, such as water bottles, metal food and beverage containers, and thermal paper cash register receipts. Long considered to have health effects on animals and humans, exposure to BPA may lead to reduced quality of embryos during reproduction. Fred vom Saal, a University of Missouri endocrinologist and researcher, has studied BPA and its effects on the reproductive system for more than 20 years.

The human genome contains some 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes, which is surprisingly similar to the number of genes in worms and flies. Where does complexity of our organism and behaviour come from? In many genes, coding regions called "exons" are separated by intervening "introns". Mammals may substantially increase their molecular complexity by removing introns and joining exons in a combinatorial manner. This process known as "alternative splicing" and allowing a single gene to generate multiple protein variants is especially prevalent in the mammalian brain.