Body

Hamilton, ON (Jan. 11, 2016) - McMaster University researchers have taken a giant leap in identifying the early stages of a deadly cancer and predicting how it will develop in individuals.

"We've found that the transition from healthy to cancerous blood stem cells happens in clear, compartmentalized steps," said Mick Bhatia, principal investigator of the study and director of the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute. "We've identified two steps in that staircase."

Five percent of Ontarians account for 65% of provincial health care costs for individual care, with the top 1% accounting for one-third of these costs, according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Chemotherapy often comes with powerful side effects, and one of the reasons for this is that the drugs used to kill cancer cells can also damage other fast-growing cells in the body, like hair follicles. But one possibility for reducing these side effects may be if the chemotherapy drugs only become toxic when they reach the tumor.

HOUSTON - (Jan. 11, 2016) - Parental permission for adolescent participation in research on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is not required ethically and may undermine public health interests, according to a new paper by law and public health experts at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and Baylor College of Medicine.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - January 11, 2016 - From horny goat weed to ginseng and maca, over-the-counter dietary supplements sold to improve male sexual health contain a wide variety of "natural" ingredients. Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reviewed the scientific evidence for the most common ingredients to determine if they are effective - and most importantly - safe. The results are published online ahead of print in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The Pacific Ocean along the West Coast serves as a model for how other areas of the ocean could respond in coming decades as the climate warms and emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide increases. This region -- the coastal ocean stretching from British Columbia to Mexico -- provides an early warning signal of what to expect as ocean acidification continues and as low-oxygen zones expand.

URBANA, Ill. - The organic food industry has grown from fresh produce and grains to snack foods and condiments--from farmers markets to supercenters. Has this new variety in organic products, and the availability of them, affected consumers' perceptions? A University of Illinois researcher and her team designed an experiment to provide insight on some of the variables that may influence opinions about organic foods.

Physicians treating patients with metastatic melanoma -- one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer -- may soon have a superior tool in their efforts to closely track the disease.

Development and implementation of novel methods for publication, visualisation and dissemination of the constantly growing biodiversity and genomic bioinformatic data are the main objective of the first PhD Project Plan available from the open-access Research Ideas and Outcomes journal, a journal created to publish the outputs of the whole research cycle.

A technique that combines the ultrasensitivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with a slippery surface invented by Penn State researchers will make it feasible to detect single molecules of a number of chemical and biological species from gaseous, liquid or solid samples. This combination of slippery surface and laser-based spectroscopy will open new applications in analytical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, environmental monitoring and national security.

DENVER - An increase in the stage of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) due to cancer positive lymph node (LN) discovery was more common following open chest surgery for lung lobe removal of early stage lung cancer compared to the closed chest procedure known as video assisted thoracic surgery (VATS).

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), which are commonly used drugs to reduce acid in the stomach, appear to be associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease but more research is needed to determine whether PPI use causes kidney damage, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

The composition of the gut microbiome in infants at six weeks of age appears to be associated with the delivery method by which they were born and how they were fed, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.

A review of medical literature suggests that exercise, alone or in combination with education, may reduce the risk of low back pain, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Daniel Steffens, Ph.D., of the University of Sydney, Australia, and coauthors identified 23 published reports (on 21 different randomized clinical trials including 30,850 participants) that met their inclusion criteria.

DNA has been used as a 'molecular building block' to construct synthetic bio-inspired pores which will improve the way drugs are delivered and help advance the field of synthetic biology, according to scientists from UCL and Nanion Technologies.