A UAB study shows that a gene therapy approach can help neurons remove lipofuscin, or cellular debris, in mouse models for frontotemporal dementia. The study added a gene that encodes for the missing protein progranulin.
Lingering inflammation after heart attack can lead heart failure. It can also claim another victim — the kidneys. New research shows that a bioactive compound called resolvin D-1, injected as a therapeutic dose, is able to limit this collateral damage in the kidneys, as tested in an animal model.
Allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation recipients are at a significantly higher risk of cognitive impairment in the years post-transplantation, according to a study published in Journal of Clinical Oncology. Published by Noha Sharafeldin, M.D., M.Sc., Ph.D., instructor in UAB’s Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship and Division of Hematology and Oncology, this study helps add a missing piece to a long-unsolved puzzle about post-transplant effects on recipients, specifically that vulnerable subpopulations of similar transplants can benefit from targeted interventions in the years after they receive their lifesaving treatment.
Imaging of biomolecules is taking a leap forward at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. UAB installed a $600,000 direct electron detector on its cryo-electron microscope in January, and validation tests to fine-tune the resolution are underway.
Researchers have detailed, for the first time, the normal human transcriptome of the blood-nerve barrier. This barrier — a tight covering of endothelial cells — maintains the microenvironment of peripheral nerves. Knowledge of the transcriptome will aid research in peripheral nerve disease.
Nirav Patel, M.D. Physician-scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham using “big-data” recently summarized in the Journal of the American Heart Association the prevalence of cardiovascular manifestations, rates of defibrillator placement (ICD) and predictors of in-hospital mortality in sarcoidosis — a disorder that affects multiple organs.
The places change, and the death tolls do, too — three at a marathon, eight on a New York City street, 26 at an elementary school, 27 in a church, 49 in a nightclub, 58 at a country music festival. These nonsensical, violent attacks leave many people critically wounded and in need of immediate care with every second crucial to the injured, says University of Alabama at Birmingham trauma surgeon Jeff Kerby, M.
A new study finds that the manufacturing process of novel, nanocrystalline-diamond micro-anvils that can produce a pressure nearly two times greater than that found at the center of the Earth has proved to be “remarkably consistent” and demonstrates “a high level of reproducibility in fabrication.”
The University of Alabama at Birmingham's 1917 Clinic celebrates 30 years of treatment for those living with HIV. In it's first year, the clinic saw just 100 people but three decades later, the clinic has served more than 12,000 patients. The need for care has enabled the 1917 Clinic to be the largest HIV medical provider in the state, as well as a national leader in care.
Stable, biocompatible microcapsules have gained a new power — the ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species. This may aid microcapsule survival in the body as the tiny polymer capsules carry a drug or other biomolecules, or find use in antioxidant therapy or industrial applications.
Security researchers develop automated verification model to better secure voice over internet communication from eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks.
In animal experiments, a human-derived glioblastoma significantly regressed when treated with the combination of an experimental enzyme inhibitor and the standard glioblastoma chemotherapy drug, temozolomide.
Researchers have data that diabetes impairs removal of dead heart-muscle cells by macrophages after heart attacks, and that exosomes can improve this removal. Impaired removal may be the reason diabetes increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, including heart failure.
Researchers have created the first network map for 200 of the membrane proteins that help plants sense microbes or other stresses. The map shows how a few key proteins act as master nodes critical for network integrity, and the map also reveals unknown interactions.
Large, human cardiac-muscle patches created in the lab have been tested, for the first time, on large animals in a heart attack model. This clinically relevant approach showed that the patches significantly improved recovery from heart attack injury.
Replacing the popular contraceptive shot known as DMPA with alternative methods of contraception could help protect women in sub-Saharan Africa and other high-risk regions from becoming infected with HIV.
Research shows that missense mutations in a cluster of just five codons in the NF1 gene are an important risk factor for severe symptoms of the genetic disease neurofibromatosis type 1. Such information is vital to help guide clinical management and genetic counseling in this complex disease.
Tyler Williamson went to TEDx Birmingham’s 2017 event in March expecting to be inspired and to network and make new connections with fellow attendees. What the 27-year-old did not anticipate was that inspiration would lead him to volunteer to become a living kidney donor just seven months later.
Clinicians should recommend exercise and cognitive training for patients with mild cognitive impairment — a common precursor of Alzheimer’s type dementia — according to new guidelines published online in Neurology®.
Physicists want to create novel compounds that surpass diamonds in heat resistance and nearly rival them in hardness. In a paper in the journal Materials, they investigate how the addition of boron, while making a diamond film via plasma vapor deposition, changes properties of the diamond material.
Using zebrafish mutants in four different estrogen receptors, Daniel Gorelick has found a novel mechanism of estrogen action on heart physiology. Broader use of the mutants, he says, may have significant implications for studies of estrogenic environmental endocrine disruptors.
Turning down the lights and reducing noise levels as part of a stimulation reduction initiative can decrease assaults and the amount of time patients must spend in restraint at psychiatric intensive care units, according to new research from UAB.
Researchers suggest combining a calorie-restricted diet with high-intensity interval training could be a solution for reducing weight regain after weight loss.
Ganesh Halade has published a functional and structural compendium of the simultaneous changes taking place in the heart, spleen and kidneys in mice during the period of acute heart failure immediately following a heart attack and during the longer period of chronic heart failure that comes next.
In a study published in Stem Cell Reports, Rui Zhao and colleagues have partly solved a long-unanswered basic question about stem cells — why are pluripotent stem cells that have mutations to block the production of microRNAs unable to differentiate?