Medical Science News

RSS

Berkeley Lab offers 'on-demand' X-rays

Consumers are now in the era of "on-demand" entertainment, in which they have access to the books, music and movies they want thanks to the internet. Likewise, scientists who use synchrotron light sources are welcoming an era of "on-demand" X-rays, in which they have access to the light beams they want thanks to a technique developed at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

27 May 2015

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

Ceres receives U.S. patent for genetic sequence obtained from soybean

Ceres, Inc., an agricultural biotechnology company, has been awarded a U.S. patent for a genetic sequence derived from soybean, covering uses of the gene in areas such as research, product development and plant transformation.

27 May 2015

Not feeling pain due to genetic mutation may not be a blessing

A rare congenital genetic mutation means that those affected do not feel pain. However, what seems, at first sight, to be a blessing, can have serious consequences. It means that injuries or diseases can go undetected for a long time. The affected gene was identified by an international research team from MedUni Vienna, the University of Munich and the University of Cambridge.

27 May 2015

Scorpion venom could kill cancer cells

When the toxin invades channels in the cells with this disease produces cellular damage until killing them.

27 May 2015

Researchers present new program to evaluate clinical relevance of genetic variants

Millions of genetic variants have been discovered over the last 25 years, but interpreting the clinical impact of the differences in a person's genome remains a major bottleneck in genomic medicine. In a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine on May 27, a consortium including investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Partners HealthCare present ClinGen, a program to evaluate the clinical relevance of genetic variants for use in precision medicine and research.

27 May 2015

Individually rare CNVs may be negatively associated with educational attainment

Individually rare but collectively common intermediate-size copy number variations may be negatively associated with educational attainment, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA. Copy number variations (CNVs) are regions of the genome that differ in the number of segments of DNA.

27 May 2015

Clinical utility data for Guardant360 platform to be presented at ASCO 2015

Guardant Health today announced that five abstracts submitted by the University of California, San Francisco; University of California, San Diego; and MD Anderson highlighting the performance and clinical utility of Guardant360 have been accepted for oral and poster presentations at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, May 29-June 2.

27 May 2015

Scientists identify molecular 'lock' that enables Ebola virus to gain entry to cells

An international team including scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases has identified the molecular "lock" that the deadly Ebola virus must pick to gain entry to cells.

27 May 2015

Tiny drug-delivery system can help identify brain tumor types through 'virtual biopsies'

Biomedical researchers at Cedars-Sinai have invented a tiny drug-delivery system that can identify cancer cell types in the brain through "virtual biopsies" and then attack the molecular structure of the disease.

27 May 2015

UF research opens door to better diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease

University of Florida researchers have identified a biomarker that shows the progression of Parkinson's disease in the brain, opening the door to better diagnosis and treatment of the degenerative disease.

27 May 2015

Racial stereotypes can impact the way we communicate, understand others

Racial stereotypes and expectations can impact the way we communicate and understand others, according to UBC research. The new study, published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, highlights how non-verbal "social cues" - such as photographs of Chinese Canadians - can affect how we comprehend speech.

27 May 2015

DNA changes during drug withdrawal may offer promising ways to develop effective addiction treatments

One of the major challenges of cocaine addiction is the high rate of relapse after periods of withdrawal and abstinence. But new research reveals that changes in our DNA during drug withdrawal may offer promising ways of developing more effective treatments for addiction.

27 May 2015

Research findings cast new light on biological process that can lead to diabetes

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientists have pinpointed a cell that begins the process of scarring in fatty tissue. The findings cast new light on a biological process that occurs with obesity and can lead to diabetes.

27 May 2015

People who have higher HDL function experience fewer heart attacks later in life

HDL is the 'good cholesterol' that helps remove fat from artery walls, reversing the process that leads to heart disease. Yet recent drug trials and genetic studies suggest that simply pushing HDL levels higher doesn't necessarily reduce the risk of heart disease.

27 May 2015

NYU chemists find that microRNA can serve as 'decoder ring' for understanding biological functions

MicroRNA can serve as a "decoder ring" for understanding complex biological processes, a team of New York University chemists has found. Their study, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to a new method for decrypting the biological functions of enzymes and identifying those that drive diseases.

27 May 2015

Canadian researchers shed light on molecular dynamics of chronic pain

Chronic pain affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and is a major cause of disability, causing more disability than cancer and heart disease. Canadian researchers, including Michael Salter at SickKids are shedding light on the molecular dynamics of chronic pain. They have uncovered a critical role for a class of cells present in the brain and spinal cord, called microglia, in pain.

27 May 2015

Liverpool scientists complete genomics studies on multidrug resistant Typhoid fever in Africa

The team has completed two genomics studies on the tropical disease, a condition that is estimated to cause up to 30 million illnesses and over a quarter of a million deaths globally each year.

27 May 2015

Neuroscientists reveal inner workings of the brain in people with autism

Strapped into a motion-enabled simulator and wearing 3D glasses, 36 adolescent volunteers recently experienced what it was like to "travel" through a field of virtual stars. The experiments provided new and convention-busting data about how sensory stimuli are processed by the brains of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

27 May 2015

Study explores how one genome could produce three different castes within bumblebees

Biologists from the University of Leicester have discovered that one of nature's most important pollinators - the buff-tailed bumblebee - either ascends to the status of queen or remains a lowly worker bee based on which genes are 'turned on' during its lifespan.

27 May 2015

Medical Science News

Berkeley Lab offers 'on-demand' X-rays

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

Ceres receives U.S. patent for genetic sequence obtained from soybean

Not feeling pain due to genetic mutation may not be a blessing

Scorpion venom could kill cancer cells

Researchers present new program to evaluate clinical relevance of genetic variants

Individually rare CNVs may be negatively associated with educational attainment

Clinical utility data for Guardant360 platform to be presented at ASCO 2015

Scientists identify molecular 'lock' that enables Ebola virus to gain entry to cells

Tiny drug-delivery system can help identify brain tumor types through 'virtual biopsies'

UF research opens door to better diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease

Racial stereotypes can impact the way we communicate, understand others

DNA changes during drug withdrawal may offer promising ways to develop effective addiction treatments

Research findings cast new light on biological process that can lead to diabetes

People who have higher HDL function experience fewer heart attacks later in life

NYU chemists find that microRNA can serve as 'decoder ring' for understanding biological functions

Canadian researchers shed light on molecular dynamics of chronic pain

Liverpool scientists complete genomics studies on multidrug resistant Typhoid fever in Africa

Neuroscientists reveal inner workings of the brain in people with autism

Study explores how one genome could produce three different castes within bumblebees

Achieving and maintaining ISO/IEC 27001 and BS 10012 certifications

Expanding research and clinical options for children with cancer

Examining how pain could play a direct protective role in the gut

Latest News