Body

LA JOLLA, CA--As an arm of the innate immune system, white blood cells called neutrophils form the first line of defense against invading pathogens. Neutrophils spend most of their lives racing through the bloodstream, patrolling for bacteria or other foreign particles. Once they arrive at tissues besieged by infectious agents, they halt on a dime and then blast through the vessel wall to reach the inflammatory attack site. They do this by activating integrins, a class of adhesion receptors that can switch on in less than a second.

The European Demographic Datasheet 2016, produced by demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Vienna Institute of Demography, provides a comprehensive look at key demographic indicators and main population trends for all European countries, including population projections for 2050. The datasheet will be launched at the European Population Conference on 31 August 2016.

The study, published today in Genome Biology and funded by the Medical Research Council, combined genetic sequence information with measures of gene regulation in schizophrenia patients and matched controls.

Schizophrenia is an inherited, neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by episodes of psychosis and altered brain function. Despite previous research successfully identifying genetic variants associated with schizophrenia, scientists remain uncertain about which genes cause the condition and how their function is regulated.

Among nearly 400,000 patients hospitalized with a certain type of heart attack in England and Wales between 2003 and 2013, improvement in survival was significantly associated with use of an invasive coronary strategy (such as coronary angiography) and not entirely related to a decline in baseline clinical risk or increased use of pharmacological therapies, according to a study published online by JAMA. The study is being released to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2016.

The Sarcoma research group of Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), led by Dr. Òscar Martínez-Tirado, has developed a modified version of an orthotopic model that allows researchers to recreate more closely the metastatic steps in Ewing sarcoma (ES), the second most common bone tumor in children and adolescents.

Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. (Aug. 29, 2016) -- As the recent Miami outbreak of Zika virus, transmitted by the bite of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, prompts an all-out war on the pest, new research reveals that female mosquitoes can pass the virus on to their eggs and offspring, bolstering the need for larvicide use as an integral part of the effort to stop the spread of the virus.

A new study by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital in collaboration with researchers at the University of York and Leeds in the UK and MD Andersen Cancer Center in Texas puts to the test anecdotes about experienced radiologists' ability to sense when a mammogram is abnormal. In a paper published August 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, visual attention researchers showed radiologists mammograms for half a second and found that they could identify abnormal mammograms at better than chance levels.

The number of cardiovascular drugs in the research pipeline has declined across all phases of development in the last 20 years even as cardiovascular disease has become the number one cause of death world-wide, according to research published today in JACC: Basic to Translational Science.

Ice age inhabitants of Interior Alaska relied more heavily on salmon and freshwater fish in their diets than previously thought, according to a newly published study.

Specific mutations in the protein associated with Parkinson's Disease, in which just one of its 140 building blocks is altered, can make a dramatic difference to processes which may lead to the condition's onset, researchers have found.

The study of dental calculus from Late Mesolithic individuals from the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans has provided direct evidence that Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domestic cereals already by c. 6600 BC, i.e. almost half a millennium earlier than previously thought.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Aug. 29, 2016 - Since the isolation of morphine from opium in the 19th century, scientists have hoped to find a potent opioid analgesic that isn't addictive and doesn't cause respiratory arrest with increased doses.

Now scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center report that in an animal model a novel pain-killing compound, BU08028, is not addictive and does not have adverse respiratory side effects like other opioids. The research findings are published in the Aug. 29 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

No specific treatments are currently available for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), a type of tumor that lacks the receptors targeted by many breast cancer therapies. Although many TNBC tumors lack two tumor suppressors, RB1 and p53, the specific downstream pathways that can be targeted as potential treatments for these tumors have not been identified. In this issue of the JCI, a team led by Eldad Zacksenhaus at Toronto General Research Institute discovered that the growth of TNBC-like breast tumors is supported by enhanced mitochondrial function.

Ciliopathies are diseases that affect the cilia, sensory organelles that most mammalian cells possess and which play a critical role in many biological functions. One such disease is Senior Løken Syndrome a rare condition that can involve both a severe kidney disease and the blinding disease Leber congenital amaurosis, or LCA.

A decade ago, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues identified a dog with a similar blinding condition, and in 2013 they reported the causative gene.

August 29, 2016 - For people with nearsightedness (myopia), the lens doesn't compensate for growth or other changes in the structure of the eye, according to a long-term follow-up study in the September issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.