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Yale-led study provides roadmap to discover new treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

A Yale-led collaborative study boosts scientific understanding of how the lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) progresses, providing a roadmap for researchers to discover new treatment targets for the disease.

15 Nov 2019

Study uncovers how the molecule-sorting station in our cells is formed and maintained

The cells in our body are workshops that continuously operate to produce and process substances to keep us going. When a substance enters a cell for processing, it is surrounded by a portion of the cell's outer membrane to form a sac.

15 Nov 2019

Research breakthrough may lead to new therapeutic targets for cancers

Computational modeling is the use of computers to simulate and study the behavior of complex systems. Computational approaches are widely adopted in the bioimedical sciences and can be used to sift through large volumes of complex data to extract recurrent patterns that may point to a disease's causes and effects.

15 Nov 2019

Mining 'darkest' parts of the genome in cancer cells yields gold

Mining the rich uncharted territory of the genome or genetic material of a cancer cell has yielded gold for Princess Margaret scientists: new protein targets for drug development against prostate cancer.

15 Nov 2019

Scientists reverse learning and memory deficits with drugs in animal model of Down syndrome

In a surprising finding using the standard animal model of Down syndrome (DS), scientists were able to correct the learning and memory deficits associated with the condition -- the leading genetic cause of cognitive disability and the most frequently diagnosed chromosomal disorder in the U.S. -- with drugs that target the body's response to cellular stresses.

15 Nov 2019

Non-coding enhancer DNA may be key for identifying genetic risk in neurological conditions

One might think that the primary cause of most genetically linked diseases comes from mutations in coding DNA -- alterations in coding regions of the genome that can lead directly to changes in the expression of particular proteins important for a healthy body.

14 Nov 2019

Altering malarial parasite genes to prevent malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by the parasitic organism called Plasmodium, of which there are several types that cause the different kinds of malarial fever. This age-old infection still kills over 400,000 people every year, all over the world. A new study published in the journal Cell on November 14, 2019, shows how a simple tweaking of the genes of this organism could quite conceivably lead to the elimination of this disease altogether.

14 Nov 2019

Lithium corrects radiation damage to brain in young cancer patients

A new study on mice, published online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, on November 14, 2019, shows that the intermittent use of lithium, which is widely used to stabilize the mood in conditions such as bipolar disorder, can correct memory and learning losses due to radiation therapy to the brain in very young animals, even when the lithium is given long after the injury.

14 Nov 2019

Study sheds light on how Zika virus causes microcephaly in newborns

A new study led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine revealed how in utero Zika virus infection can lead to microcephaly in newborns. The team discovered that the Zika virus protein NS4A disrupts brain growth by hijacking a pathway that regulates the generation of new neurons.

14 Nov 2019

New computational model could help in the development of anti-cancer drugs

Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki have developed a computational model, Combined Essentiality Scoring (CES) that enables accurate identification of essential genes in cancer cells for development of anti-cancer drugs.

14 Nov 2019

Researchers develop, test new blood assay that predicts patients at risk of death from sepsis

After decades of little or no progress, biomedical researchers are finally making some headway at detecting and treating sepsis, a deadly medical complication that sends a surge of pathogenic infection through the body and remains a major public health problem.

14 Nov 2019

Deterministic mechanoporation of cells en masse to cure cancer

What if you could cure cancer by re-engineering patients' cells to better target and destroy their own tumors? With the advent of powerful new cellular engineering technologies, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

13 Nov 2019

Uncovering the secret weapon of rabies viruses

In a new study published in the journal Cell Reports, scientists have discovered the exact site at which the immune system is disabled by the rabies virus, opening the way for a new and highly effective means of rabies prevention. This is a long-awaited discovery and could transform the field of rabies immunization.

13 Nov 2019

Leukemia type B cell can transform into a macrophage through epigenetic changes

All the tissues of our body have the same DNA, but they perform very different functions and have very different aspects.

13 Nov 2019

Resistant schizophrenia associated with low IQ and family history

According to a new study published on November 12, 2019, in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, individuals with schizophrenia resistant to treatment are more likely to have a family history and a lower IQ compared to other schizophrenic patients. This finding could help design more effective therapies for this subgroup of patients, as for instance, drugs that improve mental processes.

12 Nov 2019

Fresh light on why aggressive breast tumors form and how they can be treated

New research presented at the Society for Endocrinology annual conference in Brighton appears to identify novel methods of therapy for an aggressive type of breast cancer as well as uncovering potential causative factors. The focus of the study is to show how common chemicals present in our surroundings are possibly putting women at risk of a type of breast cancer called triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).

12 Nov 2019

Study finds vitamin B12 deficiency in pregnancy may induce obesity

A new study which was presented at the annual conference of Society for Endocrinology reports that vitamin B12 deficiency could disrupt the normal metabolism of fat and could indirectly contribute to weight gain and obesity in pregnancy. This emphasizes the need supplement this vitamin during pregnancy, because obesity in pregnancy is linked to a number of adverse health outcomes over the long term, including diabetes.

12 Nov 2019

Medical steroid use could push up diabetes risk

Glucocorticoids (GCs), or steroids, as they are popularly called, are often prescribed for their anti-inflammatory effects in a host of conditions including acute asthmatic attacks, allergies, and arthritis. However, are they doing good or harm?

12 Nov 2019

Collaborative study shows sex-specific processes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Recent studies have found a high genetic similarity of the psychiatric diseases schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, whose disease-specific changes in brain cells show an overlap of more than 70 percent.

12 Nov 2019

Researchers uncover new and unexploited drug target for childhood cancer

An Australian-led international research effort has broken fresh ground in the race to find more effective treatments for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, by uncovering a new and as-yet unexploited target in cancer cells that therapeutic drugs can be aimed at.

12 Nov 2019