Metabolites News and Research

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Quicker, more effective, and more reliable protocols for RNA extractions

Ask any molecular plant biologist about RNA extractions and you might just open up the floodgates to the woes of troubleshooting. RNA extraction is a notoriously tricky and sensitive lab procedure. New protocols out of the University of Florida are quicker, more effective, and more reliable than previous methods.

27 May 2015

Decreased removal of toxic peptides causes onset of Alzheimer's disease

Jens Pahnke and his team at the University of Oslo has recently published results in the prestigious scientific journal 'BRAIN' showing that decreased removal of toxic peptides in the brain causes the onset and first clinical signs of Alzheimer's disease, rather than overproduction as has previously been assumed. This information can now be used to target specific genes to enhance their function in the brain of elderly or people at risk.

22 May 2015

Kidney function plays critical role in sepsis patients

Researchers at Duke Medicine have determined that kidney function plays a critical role in the fate of patients being treated for sepsis, a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection.

21 May 2015

New findings could help better understand neurodegenerative diseases

Researchers at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), of the University of Luxembourg, have, under Dr. Manuel Buttini, successfully measured metabolic profiles, or the metabolomes, of different brain regions, and their findings could help better understand neurodegenerative diseases.

18 May 2015

Removing bacterial biofilms could help prevent and treat colon cancers, study suggests

A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has uncovered a big clue to how bacteria may promote some colon cancers.

8 May 2015

Certain metabolites in the blood could predict clinical outcome in children undergoing heart surgery

The study, published today in the journal Critical Care Medicine and carried out at Royal Brompton Hospital, followed children undergoing surgery for congenital heart disease, and found that by analysing metabolites in the blood -- molecules created as a result of metabolism -- it was possible to predict a child's clinical outcome.

6 May 2015

Urine profiles provide clues to how obesity causes disease

Scientists have identified chemical markers in urine associated with body mass, providing insights into how obesity causes disease...

30 Apr 2015

New metabolic blood profile method could help predict breast cancer

According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women both in the developed and less developed world, and in the long term the scientists hope that the new method will lead to better prevention and early treatment of the disease.

16 Apr 2015

Blueberries may be effective in treatment for PTSD

Up to 8 percent of people in the U.S. suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as the result of witnessing or being the victim of a traumatic event. People with PTSD have been in a situation in which they were at risk of death, serious injury or sexual violence or have seen first-hand loved ones faces such threats. They may experience flashbacks, emotional detachment and jumpiness, among other symptoms that affect their ability to function in everyday life.

30 Mar 2015

CNIO researchers describe presence of MDH2 gene mutations in hereditary neuroendocrine tumors

Researchers in the Hereditary Endocrine Cancer Group of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre -- led by Alberto Cascón and Mercedes Robledo -- have described the presence of mutations in the MDH2 gene, in a family with very rare neuroendocrine tumours associated with a high hereditary component: pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas that affect the suprarenal and parathyroid glands (groups of chromaffin cells in the central nervous system), respectively.

30 Mar 2015

Metabolic imbalance can trigger respiratory diseases in early childhood

An imbalance in our metabolism can trigger inflammatory processes in the body and activate the immune system. In a recent study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, UFZ researchers have been able to show that this applies even to newborns and children under one year of age, and is correlated with the development of respiratory diseases in early childhood.

26 Mar 2015

Transplanted regulatory T cells may help in controlling inflammatory diseases

With a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, a team of researchers - including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Juergen Hahn - will investigate the potential of using transplanted regulatory T cells (Tregs) to reduce inflammation in diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, which currently has no known viable treatment options.

19 Mar 2015

Researchers discover new metabolic mechanisms linked to macrophage polarization

A group of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, Agios Pharmaceuticals and ITMO University has discovered new metabolic mechanisms that regulate macrophage polarization - the unique ability of these immune cells to change their specialization depending on the required task.

18 Mar 2015

Scientists examine how substances at low concentrations may impact human health

A public and scientific discussion is currently taking place focusing on the question whether substances at low concentrations may lead to health impairments in humans. For this reason, an increasing number of experimental studies to test such effects are currently conducted using different chemicals.

18 Mar 2015

Study shows fatigue pathways are more sensitive in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

The mechanism that causes high-performance athletes to "feel the burn" turns out to be the culprit in what makes people with chronic fatigue syndrome feel exhausted by the most common daily activities, new University of Florida Health research shows.

13 Mar 2015

New device can detect cyanide exposure within 70 seconds

A victim of cyanide poisoning can die within 30 minutes. The diagnostic test to determine cyanide exposure takes 24 hours.

13 Mar 2015

Researchers gain new insights into molecular mechanisms affected by weight gain

Until now there have been few molecular epidemiological studies regarding the effects of weight changes on metabolism in the general population. In a recent study conducted and funded within the framework of the Competence Network Obesity, researchers at the Institute of Epidemiology II at Helmholtz Zentrum München evaluated molecular data of the KORA study.

12 Mar 2015

MDC scientists identify new molecular signaling pathway that regulates placental development

During pregnancy, the mother supplies the fetus with nutrients and oxygen via the placenta. If placental development is impaired, this may lead to growth disorders of the embryo or to life-threatening diseases of the mother such as preeclampsia, a serious condition involving high blood pressure and increased urinary protein excretion.

11 Mar 2015

Blood gas testing: an interview with David Stein, PhD, CEO, Point of Care, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics

The industry term ‘blood gas testing’ has come to mean the accurate measurement and reporting of a wide menu of blood parameters, all on a single platform.

From Siemens Healthineers Point of Care Diagnostics 9 Mar 2015

People who quit smoking have improved metabolic effects, new study finds

People who quit smoking have improved metabolic effects, a new study finds. The results will be presented in a poster Thursday, March 5, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego.

9 Mar 2015