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TSRI scientists receive $1.7 million NIH grant to find new target for treating Huntington's disease

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have won nearly $1.7 million from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to investigate the mechanisms that contribute to Huntington's disease, a fatal inherited disease that some have described as having ALS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's--at the same time.

12 Feb 2016

MGH study reveals effects of obesity on pancreatic and breast cancer

Massachusetts General Hospital investigators may have uncovered a novel mechanism behind the ability of obesity to promote cancer progression. In their report published online in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the research team describes finding an association between obesity and an overabundance of a factor called PlGF (placental growth factor) and that PlGF's binding to its receptor VEGFR-1, which is expressed on immune cells within tumors, promotes tumor progression.

12 Feb 2016

Silicon Biosystems Menarini, Macrogen to jointly develop genomic cancer tests

Silicon Biosystems Menarini and Macrogen, Inc. today announced they will form a partnership to provide clinical assays and innovative procedures for precision medicine in cancer.

12 Feb 2016

Distinctive gene 'signature' may lead to new way to diagnose Lyme disease

Researchers at UC San Francisco and Johns Hopkins may have found a new way to diagnose Lyme disease, based on a distinctive gene "signature" they discovered in white blood cells of patients infected with the tick-borne bacteria.

12 Feb 2016

Ultrasound-activated microbubbles help preserve healthy heart tissue

Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering used ultrasound-activated microbubbles to improve preservation of heart muscle and function in a pig heart attack model.

12 Feb 2016

Animal study shows link between oxygen-sensing neurons and fat-burning circuit

A new study in animal models, led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is the first to show that oxygen sensing in the brain has a role in metabolism and sensing an organism's internal state.

12 Feb 2016

Pioneering technique shows promise for new medical diagnostics, targeted drug delivery

Living systems rely on a dizzying variety of chemical reactions essential to development and survival. Most of these involve a specialized class of protein molecules--the enzymes.

12 Feb 2016

Nutrients in food may influence our genes

Almost all of our genes may be influenced by the food we eat, suggests new research published today in the journal Nature Microbiology. The study, carried out in yeast - which can be used to model some of the body's fundamental processes - shows that while the activity of our genes influences our metabolism, the opposite is also true and the nutrients available to cells influence our genes.

12 Feb 2016

CNIO researchers reveal how combination of dasatinib and demcizumab reduces lung adenocarcinomas

Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent types of cancer, with more than 20,000 new cases diagnosed each year in Spain. Lung adenocarcinomas carrying oncogenic KRAS, the engine driving these tumours in 30% of cases, constitute the most aggressive sub-type because, unlike other types of lung cancer, there are no targeted therapies beyond the standard cisplatin-based treatment.

12 Feb 2016

Natural extract from India's neem tree shows promise against pancreatic cancer

A natural extract derived from India's neem tree could potentially be used to treat pancreatic cancer, according to a new study in the journal Scientific Reports.

12 Feb 2016

Discovery throws light on how human diseases work

Researchers from the University of Warwick have discovered how cells in the human body build their own 'railway networks', throwing light on how diseases such as bowel cancer work.

12 Feb 2016

Exercise-associated bone loading during adolescence, young adulthood benefits bone density in adulthood

Men have many reasons to add high-impact and resistance training to their exercise regimens; these reasons include building muscle and shedding fat. Now a University of Missouri researcher has determined another significant benefit to these activities: building bone mass.

12 Feb 2016

Transition to family foods drives development of infant gut microbiota

After the age of nine months, the development of the infant gut microbiota is driven by the transition to family foods, not maternal obesity, according to results from a new study. The study was published online this week in mSphere, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

11 Feb 2016

TAU research highlights neuroprotective potential of protein-protectant drug candidate SKIP

Activity-dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP), essential for brain formation, is frequently mutated in children on the autism spectrum. In older men and women, ADNP expression in the blood is correlated with cognition and further altered in Alzheimer's disease.

11 Feb 2016

Novel test could help get best treatment for advanced bowel cancer patients

A NEW test could help patients with advanced bowel cancer get the best treatment for their disease, according to a Cancer Research UK clinical trial published today (Thursday) in JAMA Oncology.

11 Feb 2016

Study identifies FGF21 protein as potential therapeutic agent for cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes

New research on the blood lipid-lowering protein FGF21 shows how it redistributes fatty acids by two distinct mechanisms. The discovery could lead to improved pharmaceutical treatment for type 2 diabetes and other obesity-related diseases.

11 Feb 2016

GEMS project to explore events leading to MS in at-risk individuals

A team of investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has launched a study of individuals at risk for multiple sclerosis (MS). By focusing on first-degree family members of MS patients, the research team seeks to better understand the sequence of events that leads some people to develop the disease.

11 Feb 2016

UW-Madison research team starts work on Zika virus infection

In October, when David O'Connor last visited Brazil as part of a decade-long research program studying drug-resistant strains of HIV, one of his Brazilian collaborators had a request.

11 Feb 2016

CMU researchers create robotically-driven experimentation system to reduce drug discovery cost

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have created the first robotically driven experimentation system to determine the effects of a large number of drugs on many proteins, reducing the number of necessary experiments by 70 percent.

11 Feb 2016

Yale Cancer Center researchers identify cause of myeloma

Yale Cancer Center researchers have identified what causes a third of all myelomas, a type of cancer affecting plasma cells. The findings, published in the Feb. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, could fundamentally change the way this cancer and others are treated.

11 Feb 2016