Body

For its studies, the team of the Institute of Experimental Genetics (IEG) used mice that had become obese and had developed type 2 diabetes due to a high-fat diet. Their offspring were obtained solely through in vitro fertilization (IVF) from isolated oocytes and sperm, so that changes in the offspring could only be passed on via these cells. The offspring were carried and born by healthy surrogate mothers. This enabled the researchers to rule out additional factors such as the behavior of the parents and influences of the mother during pregnancy and lactation.

More than 25% of the people on the national US waiting list for a heart will die before receiving one. Despite this discouraging figure, heart transplants are still on the rise. There just hasn't been an alternative. Until now.

The "cyborg heart patch," a new engineering innovation from Tel Aviv University, may single-handedly change the field of cardiac research. The bionic heart patch combines organic and engineered parts. In fact, its capabilities surpass those of human tissue alone. The patch contracts and expands like human heart tissue but regulates itself like a machine.

One in four seniors is bringing along stowaways from the hospital to their next stop: superbugs on their hands.

Moreover, seniors who go to a nursing home or other post-acute care facility will continue to acquire new superbugs during their stay, according to findings made by University of Michigan researchers published today in a JAMA Internal Medicine research letter.

Understanding the complexity of cancer is a major goal of the scientific community, and for kidney cancer researchers this goal just got closer. Dr.

Reducing a barrier that generally hinders the easy generation of new molecules, a team led by City College of New York chemist Mahesh K. Lakshman has devised a method to cleave generally inert bonds to allow the formation of new ones. The study is the cover story in the journal ACS Catalysis published by the American Chemical Society.

Exercise helps to alleviate the symptoms of many chronic health conditions such as knee osteoarthritis, low back pain, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, heart disease and more, yet it is often overlooked as a treatment. A review in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) aims to provide an easy-to-use how-to guide for health care professionals to prescribe exercise for specific chronic diseases.

Canada's overhaul of food labels should include a separate 'added sugar' column to help Canadians manage their sugar intake and be in line with US standards, states a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

BOSTON - A type of breast cancer that often develops resistance to targeted therapies was driven back into remission in mice by a drug that blocks the division of cancer cells, a new study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has found. The results, reported today in Cancer Cell, prompted investigators to launch a clinical trial of the new agent in women with a metastatic form of this cancer, known as HER2-positive breast cancer.

A team of investigators from Houston Methodist Research Institute may have transformed the treatment of metastatic triple negative breast cancer by creating the first drug to successfully eliminate lung metastases in mice. This landmark study appears today in Nature Biotechnology (early online edition).

Athens, Ga. - A new study by University of Georgia researchers could help protect more than 13 million American homes that will be threatened by rising sea levels by the end of the century.

It is the first major study to assess the risk from rising seas using year 2100 population forecasts for all 319 coastal counties in the continental U.S. Previous impact assessments use current population figures to assess long-term effects of coastal flooding.

An HIV drug could stop one of the early changes in skin cancer cells that leads to them becoming resistant to treatment, according to a Cancer Research UK-funded study published in Cancer Cell today (Monday).

The researchers looked at melanoma skin cancers from 11 patients who had started standard treatment for the cancer**. They found that the cancer cells used a molecular switch to temporarily rewire themselves to become more able to withstand the drugs in the first two weeks of treatment, and then went on to develop permanent resistance through genetic changes.

A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team investigating how the earliest stages of life might have developed has discovered a way the first living cells could have met a key challenge -- maintaining a constant internal environment, a process called homeostasis, even when external conditions change.

La Jolla, Calif., March 14, 2016 -- Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a new combination therapy for the most aggressive form of medulloblastoma, a fast growing type of pediatric brain cancer. The study was published online today in Cancer Cell, and is expected to lead to a clinical trial to confirm the benefits of the novel drug combination.

San Antonio -- March 14, 2016 -- Rapid melting of ice and Arctic permafrost is altering tundra regions in Alaska, Canada and Russia, according to a new study released in the journal Nature Geoscience. Ice-wedge degradation has been observed before in individual locations, but this is the first study to determine that rapid melting has become widespread throughout the Arctic.

Fires caused by lightning strikes on hydrocarbon storage plants are a century-old, yet to be addressed, problem, according to research published in the International Journal of Forensic Engineering. In the era of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, this is becoming an even more poignant issue for the fossil fuel industry.