Body

Scientists from Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania have identified a biological pathway that could explain why current asthma therapies often prove ineffective.

The discovery has the potential to lead to new treatments for many of the 25 million people in the U.S., including seven million children, who suffer from the chronic condition.

PHILADELPHIA - After a kidney transplant, women may experience decreased kidney damage from ischemia reperfusion injury compared to men due to the impact of gender-specific hormones, suggests a new preclinical study and an analysis of patient data published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

CATONSVILLE, MD - What do Toyota, Aveda, and Clif Bar have in common? A forthcoming article in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science finds that Twitter fans of these brands are all more likely to follow accounts that tweet about the environment. This in turn creates a greener image than other brands in their sectors.

Kidney transplantation outcomes are adversely affected by ischemia-reperfusion injury, which occurs as a result of blood flow restrictions during the reperfusion stage of transplant surgery. In animal models of transplantation, females show increased tolerance to ischemia compared to males, but it is unclear whether sex disparities extend to human kidney transplantations. In this month's issue of the JCI, research led by Matthew Levine at the University of Pennsylvania linked female resilience to renal ischemia with protective effects of estrogen.

A symposium presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 offers updated results on the ongoing phase 1b clinical trial of anti-PDL1 immunotherapy atezolizumab in advanced stage colorectal cancer patients. Treated at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, one of the earliest trial participants is Rodney Bearfoot, who remains on trial with stable disease three years after being diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

Aiken, S.C. - Thirty years ago, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, became the site of the world's largest nuclear accident. While humans are now scarce in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, continued studies--including a just-published camera study conducted by researchers from the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory--validate findings that wildlife populations are abundant at the site.

Two hundred-twenty-five million trees dead in the southwest in a 2002 drought. Three hundred million trees in Texas in 2011. Twelve million this past year in California. Throughout the world, large numbers of trees are dying in extreme heat and drought events. Because mass die-offs can have critical consequences for the future of forests and the future of Earth's climate, scientists are trying to understand how a warming climate could affect how often tree mortality events occur - and how severe they could become.

New Haven, Conn.-- A Yale-led study finds that a new vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV) would significantly reduce both cervical cancer incidence and healthcare costs if states coordinated policies to improve coverage.

The study was published April 18 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dinosaurs were already in an evolutionary decline tens of millions of years before the meteorite impact that finally finished them off, new research has found.

• Nanoparticle shuts off allergic reaction to allergens
• Approach works in allergy and auto-immune disease
• Clinical trial is in the works

CHICAGO --- In an entirely new approach to treating asthma and allergies, a biodegradable nanoparticle acts like a Trojan horse, hiding an allergen in a friendly shell, to convince the immune system not to attack it, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. As a result, the allergic reaction in the airways is shut down long- term and an asthma attack prevented.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have found that circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters -- which are more efficient in spreading cancer throughout the body than are single CTCs -- can pass through capillary-sized blood vessels. Their findings, which contradict the widely-held belief that CTC clusters are too large to pass through capillaries, are being published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and suggest potential strategies to reduce clusters' metastatic potential.

HOUSTON - (April 18, 2016) - Thank the little "muscles" in your neurons for allowing you to remember where you live, what your friends and family look like and a lot more.

New research at Rice University suggests actin filaments that control the shape of neuron cells may also be the key to the molecular machinery that forms and stores long-term memories.

Using unique demographic records on 140,600 reproducing individuals from the Utah Population Database, a research team led from Uppsala University has come to the conclusion that lowered birth rates are one reason why women outlive men in today's societies. The study is published in Scientific Reports.

The causes underpinning sex differences in lifespan are hotly debated. While women commonly outlive men, this is generally less pronounced in societies before the demographic transition to low mortality and fertility rates.

Massive tree die-offs due to drought have ravaged forests across the American West and left ecologists struggling to predict how and when tree deaths will happen, and how rising temperatures due to climate change might affect the health of forests.

SEATTLE AND NEW ORLEANS - Dr. Sunil Hingorani, a member of the Clinical Research and Public Health Sciences divisions at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will present recent groundbreaking developments in treating pancreas cancer with engineered T-cells at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 in New Orleans on April 16.