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Enzyme may explain how hepatitis C infection causes fatty liver

A key enzyme may explain how hepatitis C infection causes fatty liver - a buildup of excess fat in the liver, which can lead to life-threatening diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer, report University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and School of Medicine researchers.

10 Jul 2008

Scientists reveal potential new target for anti-malarial drugs

Scientists funded by the Wellcome Trust have identified a key mechanism that enables malaria-infected red blood cells to stick to the walls of blood vessels and avoid being destroyed by the body's immune system. The research, published today in the journal Cell, highlights an important potential new target for anti-malarial drugs.

10 Jul 2008

An analysis of food's affect on the brain

In addition to helping protect us from heart disease and cancer, a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders.

9 Jul 2008

Researchers to compare common ARV as a pill and vaginal gel in unique HIV prevention study

In battle with an epidemic that has outpaced nearly all efforts to contain it, researchers are turning to strategies centered on the same antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that have been used successfully to treat HIV in hopes they will be as effective a stronghold for preventing the virus.

9 Jul 2008

FDA makes changes to drug approval process

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that it is revising the way it communicates to drug companies when a marketing application cannot be approved as submitted.

9 Jul 2008

Combining medical knowledge to save lives

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the biggest killer among chronic diseases, claiming 17 million lives globally every year. Yet doctors can only attribute 50% of cardiovascular diseases to known risk factors.

9 Jul 2008

Nanomaterials key to new strategies for blocking metastasis

A new treatment strategy using targeted nanoparticles to block metastasis with anti-cancer drugs leads to good results using significantly lower doses of toxic chemotherapy, with less collateral damage to surrounding tissue, according to a collaborative team of researchers at the Center of Nanotechnology for Treatment, Understanding, and Monitoring of Cancer at the University of California, San Diego. In designing this system, the investigators, led by David Cheresh, Ph.D., have identified what may become a generic method for using nanotechnology to target metastasis.

9 Jul 2008

Circulating tumor cells can reveal genetic signature of dangerous lung cancers

Using a miniature laboratory-on-a-chip device, a team of investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital, led by Daniel Haber, M.D., Ph.D., and Mehmet Toner, Ph.D., both members of the MIT-Harvard Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE), has developed a method that detects and analyzes the genetic signature of rare tumor cells in the bloodstream.

9 Jul 2008

Gene silencer and quantum dots reduce protein production to a whisper

More than 15 years ago, scientists discovered a way to stop a particular gene in its tracks. The Nobel Prize-winning finding holds tantalizing promise for medical science, but so far it has been difficult to apply the technique, known as RNA interference, in living cells.

9 Jul 2008

Nanotechnology, biomolecules, and light unite to "cook" cancer cells

Using carbon nanotubes linked to tumor-homing antibodies, a research team headed by Ellen Vitetta, Ph.D., M.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has shown that they can specifically kill the targeted tumor cells using near-infrared light. This work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

9 Jul 2008

Holey nanoparticles create new tumor imaging and therapeutic agent

Using a polymer that has both water-soluble and water-insoluble regions, a team of investigators from the Siteman Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence has created a nanoparticle shaped like a bialy, a close relative of the bagel. Combining this nanoparticle with manganese, a metal that boosts magnetic resonance imaging signals, and an antibody that targets blood vessels, the investigators then created a new type of imaging agent that also has the potential to deliver drugs to tumors.

9 Jul 2008

Nanoparticles detect telomerase activity

Telomerase, an enzyme that prevents chromosomes from shortening when they divide, is widely suspected of playing a key role in making cancer cells immortal.

9 Jul 2008

Nanocantilevers image nanoparticles in cells

Borrowing from a Nobel Prize-winning technique credited with starting the nanotechnology revolution, a team of researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Northwestern University's Nanomaterials for Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics has developed a method for imaging nanoparticles inside of cells.

9 Jul 2008

Improving quantum dot synthesis

Materials researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a simplified, low-cost process for producing high-quality, water-soluble quantum dots for biomedical applications.

9 Jul 2008

Swedish study finds many men not told wife's cancer incurable or told too late

A study conducted in Sweden found that more than 40 percent of widowers in that country whose wives died from cancer four or five years earlier reported they were either never told that their spouse's cancer was incurable, or they heard this information during the last week of her life.

9 Jul 2008

New antimicrobial coatings from single-walled carbon nanotubes and lysozyme

A team of researchers in Auburn University's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering has produced new antimicrobial coatings with potential to prevent diseases from spreading on contaminated surfaces - possibly solving a growing problem not only in hospitals but also in schools, offices, airplanes and elsewhere.

9 Jul 2008

Post-operative asymmetry between breasts after cancer treatment affects quality of life

Most women with breast cancer assume that surgery to preserve their breast will be less disfiguring than a mastectomy that removes the entire breast.

9 Jul 2008

Young women's breast cancers more aggressive and less responsive to treatment

Young women's breast cancers tend to be more aggressive and less responsive to treatment than the cancers that arise in older women, and researchers at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy may have discovered part of the reason why: young women's breast cancers share unique genomic traits that the cancers in older women do not exhibit.

9 Jul 2008

The good and bad side of dopamine

The chemical dopamine induces both desire and dread, according to new animal research in the July 9 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Although dopamine is well known to motivate animals and people to seek positive rewards, the study indicates that it also can promote negative feelings like fear.

9 Jul 2008

Slowing the biological processes of aging is way to prevent and fight diseases

A group of aging experts from the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that the best strategy for preventing and fighting a multitude of diseases is to focus on slowing the biological processes of aging.

9 Jul 2008