Body

The sequencing of the first genome involving a cockroach species may one day serve as a model system comparable to how research on mice can apply to humans. In this case, the model could hold new revelations about how stress during pregnancy could affect both the mother and her offspring. Emily Jennings, a University of Cincinnati doctoral student in the Department of Biological Sciences, will present a study using RNA-sequencing analysis on a pregnant insect at the annual national meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The meeting takes place Jan.

A review of medical records of patients with genetic variations linked with cardiac disorders found that patients often did not have any symptoms or signs of the conditions, questioning the validity of some genetic variations thought to be related to serious disorders, according to a study in the January 5 issue of JAMA.

In an analysis of approximately 1.4 million pregnancies in Denmark, use of the oral antifungal medication fluconazole during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of spontaneous abortion compared with risk among unexposed women and women who used a topical antifungal during pregnancy, according to a study in the January 5 issue of JAMA.

In a long-term follow-up study among approximately 200,000 Nordic twin individuals, there was an increased cancer risk in twins whose co-twin was diagnosed with cancer, with an increased risk for cancer overall and for specific types of cancer, including prostate, melanoma, breast, ovary, and uterus, according to a study in the January 5 issue of JAMA.

Boston, MA - A large new study of twins has found that having a twin sibling diagnosed with cancer poses an excess risk for the other twin to develop any form of cancer. Among the 23 different types of cancer studied, an excess familial risk was seen for almost all of the cancers, including common cancers such as breast and prostate cancer, but also more rare cancers such as testicular cancer, head and neck cancer, melanoma, ovarian and stomach cancer.

A genetic test that suggests a patient may be at increased risk for potentially fatal heart rhythms is very often not as ominous as it sounds.

That's the take-home message from a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association led by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The study of 2,022 patients identified 63 who had genetic variations considered to be "potentially pathogenic" - capable of producing arrhythmias. Yet their electrocardiograms (ECGs) were no different from those who did not carry the "disease genes."

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Radiation therapy was associated with a lower risk of cancer recurrence in pancreatic cancer surgery patients, making it, like chemotherapy, an important addition to treatment, Mayo Clinic research found. Whether radiotherapy helps patients after pancreatic cancer surgery has been a long-standing question, and the findings suggest that it does, says senior author Christopher Hallemeier, M.D., a radiation oncologist at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center.

With a median survival rate of just five to seven years, Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) is considered the most aggressive known blood cancer -- and available therapies are scarce. Three thousand Americans are diagnosed with MCL every year, and despite progress in personalized therapies to treat metastases elsewhere in the body, systemic therapeutic drug delivery to cancerous blood cells continues to challenge the world of cancer research.

There are certain universal patterns in nature that hold true, regardless of objects' size, species, or surroundings. Take, for instance, the branching fractals seen in both tree limbs and blood vessels, or the surprisingly similar spirals in mollusks and cabbage.

A box of seemingly unremarkable stones sits in the corner of Dr Giulio Lucarini's office at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research where it competes for space with piles of academic journals, microscopes and cartons of equipment used for excavations.

These palm-sized pebbles were used as grinding tools by people living in North Africa around 7,000 years ago. Tiny specks of plant matter recently found on their surfaces shine light on a fascinating period of human development and confirm theories that the transition between nomadic and settled lifestyles was gradual.

The MYC oncogene intervenes in many types of cancer, some of which are very aggressive; researchers suspect that controlling its activity could open avenues to new treatments. However, MYC is an especially complex oncogene that has resisted therapeutic manipulation to date. Researchers of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have now managed to identify a protein that is essential for MYC to cause cancer in mouse models, and they believe that it could be a new target for future anti-cancer drugs.

Breaking a major bone may increase risk of widespread chronic body pain in later life, a new study has found.

Researchers at the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU), University of Southampton, found that men and women who had a spine fracture and women who had a hip fracture were more than twice as likely to experience long term widespread pain as those who had not had a fracture.

In Parkinson's disease, the protein "alpha-synuclein" aggregates within neurons of patients and appears to propagate across interconnected areas of the brain. How this happens remains largely unknown. It has been proposed that alpha-synuclein may behave like a "prion": pathological forms of the protein may be capable of changing the conformation of normal alpha-synuclein and thus triggering its aggregation and neuron-to-neuron propagation (a phenomenon referred to as "seeding").

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 5, 2016 - A new study from the Forsyth Institute is helping to shed more light on the important connections among the diverse bacteria in our microbiome. According to research published in mBio, scientists at Forsyth, led by Dr. Katherine P. Lemon, along with their collaborator at Vanderbilt University, have demonstrated that a harmless bacterium found in the nose and on skin may negatively impact the growth of a pathogen that commonly causes middle ear infections in children and pneumonia in children and older adults.

Amsterdam, Netherlands, 5 January 2016 - A new study, published in the Journal of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, found that e-cigarettes share a similar short-term safety profile as Nicorette® products and are comparable in reducing tobacco withdrawal symptoms.

The study, conducted by Fontem Ventures scientists, used a prototype vaping product with two percent nicotine concentration - the maximum limit prescribed by the EU Tobacco Products Directive - and found it delivered sufficient nicotine to suppress smoking desire.