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Seafood consumption may benefit older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease

New research published Feb. 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that older adults with a major risk gene for Alzheimer's disease known as APOE?4 who ate at least one seafood serving per week showed fewer signs of Alzheimer's-related brain changes. In contrast, this association was not found in the brains of volunteers who ate fish weekly but did not carry the risk gene.

3 Feb 2016

Small minority of cancer cells contribute to growth and metastasis of tumours

New research shows that a small minority of cancer cells in neuroendocrine tumours of the pancreas contribute to the overall growth and metastasis of the tumour. This discovery was made by a research group at Lund University, in collaboration with researchers at Karolinska Institutet, in Sweden.

3 Feb 2016

Height affects risk of major non-communicable diseases

Height is largely genetically determined, but in recent decades the height of children and adults has steadily increased throughout the world: In adulthood the children are almost always significantly taller than their parents.

3 Feb 2016

Study sheds light on mechanisms linked to formation of healthy egg cells in humans

Congenital disorders such as Down's syndrome could be better understood, following new insights into how healthy cells are formed.

3 Feb 2016

New gene cut-and-paste methods help correct disease-causing mutation in animal model

For the first time, researchers have treated an animal model of a genetic disorder using a viral vector to deliver genome-editing components in which the disease- causing mutation has been corrected.

3 Feb 2016

UAB research explores neurofibromatosis type 1

It is easy to tell a medical research story that has a simple and dramatic moment. But disease is often much more complex, and the work to understand it can be painstaking. A vivid example of that is seen in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Genomics Laboratory, headed by Ludwine Messiaen, Ph.D., professor of genetics. This lab offers clinical genetic testing for a broad array of common and rare genetic disorders.

3 Feb 2016

MYB-QKI fusion gene that drives pediatric low-grade gliomas poses a triple threat

Oncology researchers have discovered that an abnormal fused gene that drives pediatric brain tumors poses a triple threat, operating simultaneously through three distinct biological mechanisms—the first such example in cancer biology.

2 Feb 2016

Saliva gland test may help diagnose early Parkinson's disease

Researchers from Mayo Clinic in Arizona and Banner Sun Health Research Institute have determined that testing a portion of a person's submandibular gland may be a way to diagnose early Parkinson's disease. The study was published this month in Movement Disorders, the official journal of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society.

2 Feb 2016

'Junk' DNA suppresses breast cancer

Supposed "junk" DNA, found in between genes, plays a role in suppressing cancer, according to new research by Universities of Bath and Cambridge.

2 Feb 2016

Understanding crucial role of 'healthy' brain in preventing memory failures linked to Alzheimer's disease

The mechanisms underlying the stability and plasticity of neural circuits in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for spatial memory and the memory of everyday facts and events, has been a major focus of study in the field of neuroscience. Understanding precisely how a "healthy" brain stores and processes information is crucial to preventing and reversing the memory failures associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of late-life dementia.

2 Feb 2016

Study provides new insights into breast cancer metastasis

It has long been thought that cancer metastasizes, or spreads, when a single cancer cell escapes from the original tumor, travels through the bloodstream and sets up shop in distant organs. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that these bad actors don't travel alone; instead they migrate through the body in cellular clusters, like gangs.

2 Feb 2016

Researchers identify definitive genetic defect in angiocentric gliomas

Diagnosis and treatment decisions for a recently recognized type of children's brain tumor should be improved by the discovery of the genetic mechanism that causes it, say researchers who identified the unusual DNA abnormality in angiocentric gliomas.

2 Feb 2016

New study lays foundation for future gene replacement therapies to treat ALS patients

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to specifically modify gene expression in diseased upper motor neurons, brain cells that break down in ALS.

1 Feb 2016

Rockland announces availability of new human melanoma cell lines

Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc. announces the availability of a new collection of human melanoma cell lines that have been developed and characterized over several decades in the laboratory of Meenhard Herlyn, D.V.M., D.Sc., Caspar Wistar Professor in Melanoma Research, Director of the Melanoma Research Center, and professor in the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia.

1 Feb 2016

Alternative splicing: a new approach to drug development? An interview with Lucy Donaldson

RNA is becoming an interesting drug target as it takes possible intervention back one step to the synthesis of a target protein, instead of trying to block or inhibit a process.

1 Feb 2016

Researchers show how bacterial colony protects itself against toxic substances

Bacterial populations move over surfaces in coordinated way known as swarming, which allows them to spread further over organs and tissues and increases the virulence of the infection. This movement is driven by the action of the flagella and the chemoreceptors, the systems responsible for identifying chemical compounds in the environment and which are anchored at the poles of their cells, forming highly organised structures, of which the protein CheW forms part.

1 Feb 2016

Research offers novel insights into root causes of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mysterious and devastating disorder that afflicts one percent of the adult population worldwide. Its symptoms — hallucinations, emotional withdrawal, and cognitive impairment — are chronic and typically emerge just as individuals are entering adulthood. Today's medications treat just one of these symptoms (psychosis); treatments for the underlying disease and its many other symptoms have been hard to develop, because no one really understands what causes the disorder.

31 Jan 2016

Bile acid enables foetus to produce blood stem cells

A research group at Lund University in Sweden has been able to show that bile acid is transferred from the mother to the foetus via the placenta to enable the foetus to produce blood stem cells.

31 Jan 2016

HIV protein alters activity of networked neurons

Nearly half of HIV infected patients suffer from impaired neurocognitive function. The HIV protein transactivator of transcription (Tat) is an important contributor to HIV neuropathogenesis because it is a potent neurotoxin that continues to be produced despite treatment with antiretroviral therapy.

31 Jan 2016

Mild reduction in food intake slows development of autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease

A small reduction in food intake—less than required to cause weight loss—dramatically slowed the development of a common genetic disorder called autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) in mice, a new study in American Journal of Physiology—Renal Physiology reports.

30 Jan 2016