Biomedicine News and Research

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Aquatic resistance training improves tibiofemoral cartilage quality in postmenopausal women with knee pain

Postmenopausal women with mild knee osteoarthritis, who may avoid strenuous exercise due to pain, can safely promote cartilage health and improve aerobic fitness with intensive aquatic resistance training.

31 May 2016

Applying deep neural networks to predict pharmacologic properties of drugs and drug repurposing

Deep learning, frequently referred to as artificial intelligence, a branch of machine learning utilizing multiple layers of neurons to model high-level abstractions in data, has outperformed humans in tasks including image, text and voice recognition, autonomous driving and others, and is now being applied to drug discovery and biomarker development.

28 May 2016

Insilico Medicine collaborates with National Laboratory Astana to study age-related pathologies

Insilico Medicine announced an agreement with National Laboratory Astana, Nazarbayev University, one of the most rapidly growing universities in the world to collaboratively study aging and age-associated pathologies.

19 May 2016

Scientists uncover whole new way of treating antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Australian scientists may have found a way to stop deadly bacteria from infecting patients. The discovery could lead to a whole new way of treating antibiotic-resistant "superbugs". The researchers have uncovered what may be an Achilles heel on the bacteria cell membrane that could act as a potential novel drug target.

17 May 2016

Estrogen-inhibiting drug may suppress dangerous brain seizures

A class of drug that inhibits estrogen production and is used to treat breast cancer has been found to quickly and effectively suppress dangerous brain seizures, according to a new Northwestern University study.

13 May 2016

Human gut model HuMiX represents actual conditions, processes that occur within intestines

One of the most complex human organs is the digestive tract: Here, the body comes into contact with all manner of diet-derived compounds and with countless bacteria.

11 May 2016

Unique attributes of zebrafish may help study human blood disorders

Genetic regulation of the various types of blood cells in zebrafish and humans is highly similar, making it relatively easy and cost-effective to perform genetic, chemical, imaging and other molecular studies on this invaluable model organism to study normal hematopoetic development in humans as well as blood disorders and malignancies, as described in a Review article in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

9 May 2016

Researchers report tumors can continue to grow even without supply of new blood vessels

When medication is used to shut off the oxygen supply to tumor cells, the cells adapt their metabolism in the medium term -- by switching over to producing energy without oxygen. This observation by biomedical scientists at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel could be used for treatments that can inhibit tumor growth in the long term, as the researchers report in the latest issue of the journal Cell Reports.

29 Apr 2016

Researchers identify protein that helps cancer cells to spread

Aggressive cancer cells spread from a tumour to another part of the body through the blood vessel. To be able get in and out of the blood vessel, the cancer cell needs to penetrate tissue. Researchers from The University of Bergen have discovered a protein that the cancer cell uses like scissors to cut up tissue, so it can spread from a tumour to a new organ.

13 Apr 2016

Researchers investigate biochemical, physiological characteristics of facial and extraocular muscles

In a new study, a research team at Basel University Hospital in Switzerland investigates the biochemical and physiological characteristics of orbicularis oculi, a group of facial muscles that control the eyelids and are selectively spared or involved in different neuromuscular disorders. What they found also helps to explain why another set of muscles—the extraocular muscles that control the movement of the eye—are not affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy, congenital muscular dystrophy, and aging.

12 Apr 2016

Complete genetic map of scleroderma opens door for diagnosis and targeted treatment

Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease that affects one out of every 10,000 people in Europe and North America, mostly middle-aged women, and causes death in a high percentage of cases.

11 Apr 2016

Blocking of LIPG activity could arrest breast cancer growth

In an article published in Nature Communications, the researchers report that breast cancer cells need to take up lipids from the extracellular environment in order to continue proliferating.

6 Apr 2016

Magnesium could be safe, cost-effective therapeutic intervention for genetic coagulation disorder

An international team of scientists was able to demonstrate in mouse and patient studies, how magnesium affects the production of blood platelets and that the TRPM7 channel function plays a key role in this process. Scientists of the Rudolf Virchow Center and the Hospital of the University of Würzburg were primarily involved in this study. Their results were published in the current journal "Nature Communications".

4 Apr 2016

Scientists identify RingoA protein as key regulator of meiosis

Published today in Nature Communications, a study by scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine headed by ICREA researcher Angel R. Nebreda has reported that the protein RingoA is a key regulator of meiosis--the cell division process that gives rise to ovules and sperm for sexual reproduction in mammals.

31 Mar 2016

UTA chemists design efficient water-based system for synthesis of organic compounds

Chemists at The University of Texas at Arlington have devised a safer, more environmentally friendly, less expensive and more efficient water-based system for the synthesis of organic compounds typically used in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, cosmetics, plastics, textiles and household chemicals.

29 Mar 2016

Researchers disprove previously assumed behavior of macrophage immune cells

What happens when macrophage immune cells are activated in the course of an inflammation to combat pathogens such as bacteria or viruses? Researchers of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine of the University of Luxembourg pursued this very question. The researchers discovered that the immune cells behave differently from what was previously assumed. Their metabolism upholds the production of antimicrobial substances and fatty acids during activation. In this way, they deliver important resources for the immune responses they trigger.

21 Mar 2016

Research finds new molecular details of facultative stem cells

In a study published this week in PLOS Genetics, scientists Nareg J. Djabrayan and Jordi Casanova from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine and CSIC, have identified two molecular signals and the pathway of events that allows cells in a tissue that are already specialized to regain their behaviour as stem cells.

14 Mar 2016

Advances in the field of MPI: an interview with Professor Kannan Krishnan

In around 2004, there was a Phillips paper that discussed a new imaging technique called MPI. At that time, I had an eager, promising graduate student named Matt Ferguson who wanted a project, so I asked him to take a look.

From Bruker BioSpin - NMR, EPR and Imaging 1 Mar 2016

Single antibody could hold promise as potential treatment for human cases of EVD

A single monoclonal antibody isolated from a human survivor of Ebola virus disease (EVD) completely protected monkeys from lethal infection with the virus, according to research published in today's online edition of the journal Science.

27 Feb 2016

Researchers identify, isolate and characterize two Ebola virus neutralizing monoclonal antibodies

The Institute for Research in Biomedicine, affiliated to the Università della Svizzera italiana, and Humabs BioMed SA, a Swiss antibody therapeutics company, have identified, isolated and characterized two Ebola virus neutralizing monoclonal antibodies from the blood of a survivor of an Ebola infection.