Body

In a study appearing in the April 19, 2016 issue of JAMA, Matthew D. Snape, F.R.C.P.C.H., M.D., of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a phase 1 trial to evaluate the tolerability and immunogenicity of two candidate Ebola vaccines, an adenovirus type 26 vector vaccine (Ad26.ZEBOV), and a modified Ankara vector vaccine (MVA-BN-Filo).

The billions of single-celled marine organisms known as phytoplankton can drift from one region of the world's oceans to almost any other place on the globe in less than a decade, Princeton University researchers have found.

Unfortunately, the same principle can apply to plastic debris, radioactive particles and virtually any other man-made flotsam and jetsam that litter our seas, the researchers found. Pollution can thus become a problem far from where it originated within just a few years.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - An increase in women with breast cancer choosing double mastectomy may be influenced by media coverage of celebrities, a new study finds.

From 2000 to 2012, 17 celebrities publicly disclosed their breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Researchers from the University of Michigan analyzed 727 articles from major U.S. print publications that covered these celebrity diagnoses. Results are published in Annals of Surgical Oncology.

There are many false beliefs and myths about the role of oxidants and antioxidants in the human body. Traditionally, oxidants are presented as harmful and antioxidants as health-promoting. However, scientists have known for many years that endogenous oxidants are essential chemical messengers that help keep up the functions of the organism.

Spanish researchers have analysed the effect of endurance running training on the stiffness index, a variable that is directly related to bone quality. The results confirm that the greater the race distance that is trained, the better; this can be used, therefore, to prevent the progressive decline in bone mineral density that occurs with age.

In healthy individuals, bone quality -chiefly determined by bone mineral density- depends on factors such as sex, age, race and diet. It can be modified, however, by making life style changes -for instance by doing regular exercise.

This week, FORCE2016 is taking place in Portland, USA. The FORCE11 yearly conference is devoted to the utilisation of technological and open science advancements towards a new-age scholarship founded on easily accessible, organised and reproducible research data.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. - Sharks, skates, and rays are oddities among the fish: They have appendages growing out of the gill arch, a small cradle of bones that supports the gills. This anatomical peculiarity has led to the proposal that the paired limbs of humans, and before that the paired fins of fish, evolved from the transformation of gill arches in early fish.

NEW ORLEANS, April 19, 2016 - Watercress extract taken multiple times a day significantly inhibits the activation of a tobacco-derived carcinogen in cigarette smokers, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), partner with UPMC CancerCenter, demonstrated in a phase II clinical trial presented today at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

In a clinical trial of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, half of 25 patients with a rare type of virus-linked skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma experienced substantial tumor shrinkage lasting nearly three times as long, on average, than with conventional chemotherapy. Several patients had no remaining evidence of disease. Results of the study are expected to be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2016 (abstract CT096) in New Orleans and published online April 19 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

SEATTLE AND NEW ORLEANS - In a phase 2 clinical trial of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab as a first-line systemic therapy for advanced Merkel cell carcinoma, or MCC - a rare, aggressive type of skin cancer - the clinical response rate was similar to that typically seen with standard chemotherapy, but the duration of the response appeared to be markedly longer. There are currently no therapies that have been approved by the U.S.

The immunotherapy drug nivolumab has become the first to show a survival benefit in head and neck cancer, after a major international trial found that it was more effective than standard chemotherapy.

Patients taking nivolumab were more than twice as likely to be alive after one year of the trial as those treated with chemotherapy, according to data presented at the American Association of Cancer Research annual meeting in New Orleans.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most challenging problems in modern medicine. A new study by Erida Gjini and Patricia H. Brito from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC; Portugal), provides a new mathematical model to evaluate the best treatment protocol to clear an infection, by taking into account the role of the host immune system. This new conceptual framework, published in the latest edition of the scientific journal PLoS Computational Biology*, may be used in the future for personalised treatments.

?Researchers from VIB-UGent reveal that adult circulating monocytes that get access to the macrophage niche in the liver or the lung can acquire identical tissue-specific macrophage functions and self-maintenance capacities as macrophages of embryonic origin. This paves the way towards monocyte-based cellular therapy in diseases associated with macrophage dysfunction, such as the disease known as pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Using a mouse model for pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, the authors demonstrate that this rare disease can be cured by a single transfer of monocytes.

South Africa's mountains are essential to the economic well-being of the country, providing many goods and services essential for social and economic prosperity. However, the biodiversity value of these mountains is still poorly understood. This is exemplified by the large number of plant species still only known from one or two collections made well over a century ago.

Prostate cancers are either low-grade, low-risk forms that may be monitored but otherwise untreated. Or they're serious enough to require surgery and radiation.

Monitoring can cause patients anxiety. Radical treatment comes with complications.

For those patients with a low-risk form who still want to take action, MRI-guided laser ablation is a growing treatment that occupies the middle ground by killing tumor cells directly while limiting the effects to the immediate location.

But what happens to the prostate after ablation?