Body

MISSOULA - It sounds rather simple: In order to restore the original high level of biodiversity in our rivers, they should be returned to their original state. Yet, researchers from the University of Montana and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) determined it really is not that easy, as efforts often are limited by historical, cultural or economic factors.

BOSTON - The development of a new method to grow three-dimensional organoid cultures of pancreatic tumors directly from patients' surgical tissue offers a promising opportunity for testing targeted therapies and drug responses and personalizing treatments in a rapid, cost-effective manner. The findings are currently reported in the Advance Online issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

Philadelphia (27 October 2015)--A workhorse of a drug that a few weeks ago earned its developers a Nobel prize for its success in treating multiple tropical diseases is showing early promise as a novel and desperately needed tool for interrupting malaria transmission, according to new findings presented today at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting.

EPFL researchers have discovered how intestinal worm infections cross-talk with gut bacteria to help the immune system.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A new study suggests a potential new way to block one of the most common cancer-causing genes, without causing severe side effects.

The Notch gene plays a role in many types of cancer. It's the most common cancer-causing gene in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. About 60 percent of children and adults with T-cell leukemia harbor a Notch mutation.

But drugs designed to block Notch have caused serious side effects such as severe diarrhea or skin cancers.

Quebec City, October 27, 2015--After more than a century of speculation, researchers have finally proved that American eels really do migrate to the Sargasso Sea to reproduce. A team supervised by Professor Julian Dodson of Université Laval and Martin Castonguay of Fisheries and Oceans Canada reports having established the migratory route of this species by tracking 28 eels fitted with satellite transmitters. One of these fish reached the northern boundary of the Sargasso Sea, the presumed reproduction site for the species, after a 2,400 km journey.

CINCINNATI - Analyzing gene expression of an expectant mother's amniotic fluid could give doctors an important tool for deciding when it is safe to deliver premature babies.

Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report they have identified a way to test RNA and specific genetic signatures in amniotic fluid to see whether fetal lungs - and potentially other organs - are mature enough for a safe and viable delivery. The paper is published online in the journal BMC Medical Genomics.

DALLAS - Oct. 27, 2015 - Activating an enzyme that sounds an alarm for the body's innate immune system causes two lethal autoimmune diseases in mice, while inhibiting the same enzyme rescues them, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

The findings, published in the Oct. 20 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could someday lead to new therapies for autoimmune diseases.

A massive field effort on the Belizean Barrier Reef has revealed for the first time that the offspring of at least one coral reef fish, a neon goby, do not disperse far from their parents. The results indicate that if marine protected areas aim to conserve such fishes, and biodiversity more broadly, then they must be spaced closely enough to allow larvae to disperse successfully between them.

Restoring testosterone production in men may be as effective as replacing it, without compromising their fertility. Two phase III clinical trials show that a drug that restores the body's natural production of testosterone has no negative effect on a man's sperm count while a topical testosterone gel causes a significant drop. The findings, which are published in BJU International, could change the way men are treated for low testosterone.

An analysis of deaths in the United States between 1969 and 2013 finds an overall decreasing trend in the age-standardized death rate for all causes combined and for heart disease, cancer, stroke, unintentional injuries, and diabetes, although the rate of decrease appears to have slowed for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, according to a study in the October 27 issue of JAMA.

Among black adults with asthma treated with an inhaled corticosteroid, adding a long-acting beta-agonist did not improve the time to an asthma exacerbation compared with adding the anticholinergic tiotropium, according to a study in the October 27 issue of JAMA.

Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2015 -- In a new twist, a team of researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin has applied to acoustic waves the concept of "scattering cancellation," which has long been used to systematically cancel the dominant scattering modes of electromagnetic waves off objects.

The work provides fundamental new tools to control acoustic scattering and should improve the ability to make acoustic measurements in the laboratory. It is described this week in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing.

155 countries representing around 90% of global emissions have submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) on climate policy to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in preparation of the new climate negotiations to be held in December in Paris.

A study by Rhode Island Hospital researchers confirmed that a drug used to treat a disease afflicting millions of people in developing countries is safe to give pregnant women following their first trimester. The finding could prove critical to the care of pregnant women and lactating women with schistosomiasis, a disease caused by a parasitic worm, who were denied the drug out of concern for their health and the health of their fetuses.