Kids growing up in Appalachia are the nation’s largest consumers of sugary drinks. With deaths in Appalachia related to obesity, cancer, diabetes and heart disease on the rise, local teens are working with researchers to lead a successful program helping peers quit sugary drinks for good.
Pancreas cancer is notoriously impervious to treatment and resists both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It has also been thought to provide few targets for immune cells, allowing tumors to grow unchecked. But new research from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shows that pancreas cancer “veils” itself from the immune system by recruiting specialized immune suppressor cells. The research team also found that removing these cells quickly triggers a spontaneous anti-tumor immune response.
A retrospective analysis of oropharyngeal patients with recurrence of disease after primary therapy in the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) studies 0129 or 0522 found that HPV-positive patients had a higher overall survival (OS) rate than HPV-negative patients (at two years post-treatment, 54.6 percent vs. 27.6 percent, respectively), according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium.
Although the time and cost of sequencing the human genome has plummeted, analyzing the 3 billion base pairs of genetic information can take months. Researchers working with Beagle—one of the world’s fastest supercomputers devoted to life sciences—report they can analyze 240 full genomes in 50 hours.
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital-Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified the most common genetic alteration ever reported in the brain tumor ependymoma and evidence that the alteration drives tumor development. The research appears February 19 as an advanced online publication in the scientific journal Nature.
(Lebanon, NH 2/18/14) —How would a city, state, or country handle a disaster in which hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to radiation? When the number of people involved exceeds the capacity of nearby hospitals, how would a community know who to treat? In a new scientific review published on February 12, 2014 in Radiation Environmental Biophysics, Dartmouth researchers say that by examining a person’s teeth or fingernails with specialized equipment, it is possible for first responders to estimate radiation exposure and identify those with the highest risk of illness. The review makes the case for field-based equipment that can easily and quickly allow first responders to decide who needs treatment for radiation exposure in a large-scale event such as major nuclear power plant malfunction or terrorism.
The antidepressant drug citalopram, sold under the brand names Celexa and Cipramil and also available as a generic medication, significantly relieved agitation in a group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In lower doses than those tested, the drug might be safer than antipsychotic drugs currently used to treat the condition, according to results of a clinical trial led by Johns Hopkins researchers that included seven other academic medical centers in the United States and Canada.
A team of researchers at City of Hope has developed a screening assay that can quickly assess up to 1,536 compounds’ effect on estrogen activity in the body. The test can also evaluate whether chemicals act as inhibitors of aromatase, an enzyme linked to breast cancer that converts androgen to estrogen.
Researchers have developed the technology for a catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels.
Many mothers with children on life-sustaining medical devices, such as ventilators and breathing or feeding tubes, suffer physical and psychological distress from the stress of juggling treatments, appointments, therapies and daily family pressures. A pilot study tested an intervention to help them cope.
New research finds that a protein that fuels an inflammatory pathway does not turn off in breast cancer, resulting in an increase in cancer stem cells. This provides a potential target for treating triple negative breast cancer, the most aggressive form of the disease.
One factor that makes glioblastoma cancers so difficult to treat is that malignant cells from the tumors spread throughout the brain by following nerve fibers and blood vessels to invade new locations. Now, researchers have learned to hijack this migratory mechanism, turning it against the cancer by using a film of nanofibers thinner than human hair to lure tumor cells away.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have been awarded approximately $2.3 million from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the processes involved in long-term memory and how deficits in those processes contribute to brain diseases.
A Johns Hopkins study of patients with ischemic stroke suggests that many of those who receive prompt hospital treatment with "clot-busting" tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) therapy can avoid lengthy, restrictive monitoring in an intensive care unit (ICU).
Researchers have found the first direct evidence of a link between prenatal vitamin A deficiency and postnatal airway hyperresponsiveness, a hallmark of asthma. The study, conducted in mice, shows that short-term deficit of this essential vitamin while the lung is forming can cause profound changes in the smooth muscle that surrounds the airways, causing the adult lungs to respond to environmental or pharmacological stimuli with excessive narrowing of airways. The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Scientists engineer the first berry-based chemopreventive confections that can withstand the rigors of a large-scale clinical trial. An ongoing prostate cancer study is trying to determine if the medical edibles can improve post-surgery outcomes
The risk of a kidney donor developing kidney failure in the remaining organ is much lower than in the population at large, even when compared with people who have two kidneys, according to results of new Johns Hopkins research.
Juggling may seem like mere entertainment, but a study led by Johns Hopkins engineers used this circus skill to gather critical clues about how vision and the sense of touch help control the way humans and animals move their limbs in a repetitive way, such as in running. The findings eventually may aid in the treatment of people with neurological diseases and could lead to prosthetic limbs and robots that move more efficiently.
After a child’s stem cell transplant, parents feel increased distress at the time of the procedure, but eventually recover to normal levels of adjustment.
Studying a cycle of protein interactions needed to make fat, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have discovered a biological switch that regulates a protein that causes fatty liver disease in mice. Their findings, they report, may help develop drugs to decrease excessive fat production and its associated conditions in people, including fatty liver disease and diabetes.
New genetic evidence strengthens the case that one well-known type of cholesterol is a likely suspect in causing heart disease, but also casts further doubt on the causal role played by another type. The findings may guide the search for improved treatments.
In most cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a toxin released by cells that normally nurture neurons in the brain and spinal cord can trigger loss of the nerve cells affected in the disease, Columbia researchers reported today in the online edition of the journal Neuron.
Scientists at the University of Utah identified mutations in three key genes that determine feather color in domestic rock pigeons. The same genes control pigmentation of human skin and can be responsible for melanoma and albinism.
With a $3.1 million National Institutes of Health grant, orthopedic researchers and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are looking to improve the outcome of surgical repairs by studying the natural attachment of tendon to bone.
Using electrons more like photons could provide the foundation for a new type of electronic device that would capitalize on the ability of graphene to carry electrons with almost no resistance even at room temperature – a property known as ballistic transport.
Medical associations widely recommend that women visit their obstetricians and primary care doctors shortly after giving birth, but slightly fewer than half make or keep those postpartum appointments, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
Minimizing a person’s sight for as little as a week may help improve the brain’s ability to process hearing.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists led a study showing that mutations in a gene responsible for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disrupt the RNA transport system in nerve cells. The findings appear in the current issue of the scientific journal Neuron and offer a new focus for efforts to develop effective treatments.
New research is lighting up yet another reason for women to quit smoking. In a study published online in the journal Menopause, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report the first evidence showing that smoking causes earlier signs of menopause – in the case of heavy smokers, up to nine years earlier than average – in white women with certain genetic variations.
Two surprising risk factors – diminished lung function and low serum potassium levels - appear to have nearly the same impact as obesity in explaining why African-Americans are disproportionately prone to developing type 2 diabetes, researchers at Duke Medicine report.
African American women today are almost twice as likely to deliver a preterm baby as white, Hispanic or Asian women in the US - a disparity that medical conditions, socioeconomic status, access to prenatal care and health behaviors haven’t been able to fully account for. Two new studies explore the complex relationship between race, stress and inflammation and potential impacts on pregnancy in the hope of reducing preterm births and infant mortality, and improving maternal mental health.
A team of Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) scientists created maps of habitat corridors connecting protected areas in the tropics to incorporate biodiversity co-benefits into climate change mitigation strategies. Drs. Patrick Jantz, Scott Goetz, and Nadine Laporte describe their findings in an article entitled, “Carbon stock corridors to mitigate climate change and promote biodiversity in the tropics,” available online in the journal Nature Climate Change on January 26.
People seriously injured by violence are no more likely to die in the years after they are shot, stabbed or beaten than those who are seriously injured in accidents, Johns Hopkins researchers have found.
Scientists have engineered a microchip coated with blood vessel cells to learn more about the conditions under which nanoparticles accumulate in the plaque-filled arteries of patients with atherosclerosis, the underlying cause of myocardial infarction and stroke.
People living with Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder, appear to function at a level comparable to their healthier peers, according to a cross-sectional study published online in advance of print in Clinical Rheumatology. The study from researchers at Tufts reveals that people living with Sjögren’s perceive significant decline in cognitive, psychological and physical function. Nonetheless, despite the burdens of the disease, levels of function approach that of healthy controls.
The same physics that gives tornadoes their ferocious stability lies at the heart of new University of Washington research, and could lead to a better understanding of nuclear dynamics in studying fission, superconductors and the workings of neutron stars.
The accumulation of age-associated changes in a biochemical process that helps control genes may be responsible for some of the increased risk of cancer seen in older people, according to a National Institutes of Health study.
Roswell Park team reports that the disabling of two key genes, SSeCKS/AKAP12 and Rb, led to early development of prostate cancer and was also associated with high rates of metastasis to nearby lymph nodes.
Disruptive clumps of mutated protein are often blamed for clogging cells and interfering with brain function in patients with the neurodegenerative diseases known as spinocerebellar ataxias. But a new study in fruit flies suggests that for at least one of these diseases, the defective proteins may not need to form clumps to do harm.
A research team led by Wayne State University, in collaboration with Michigan State University, has identified a single gene in honeybees that separates the queens from the workers. The scientists unraveled the gene’s inner workings and published the results in the current issue of Biology Letters. The gene, which is responsible for leg and wing development, plays a crucial role in the evolution of bees’ ability to carry pollen.
Dana-Farber researchers have found that a combination of two already-in-use drugs may have an effect on stopping the growth of the most common genetic subtype of lung cancer setting the stage for clinical trials.
Age is a key risk factor for breast cancer. A recent study by researchers from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC), “Age-related DNA methylation in normal breast tissue and its relationship with invasive breast tumor methylation,” examines the connection between cancer and the aging process to see if epigenetic DNA alterations might contribute to age-related increases in breast cancer risk.
A team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that moderate to severe hot flashes continue, on average, for nearly five years after menopause, and more than a third of women experience moderate/severe hot flashes for 10 years or more after menopause. Current guidelines recommend that hormone therapy, the primary medical treatment for hot flashes, not continue for more than 5 years.
Dartmouth researchers developed a new biological pathway-based computational model, called the Pathway-based Human Phenotype Network (PHPN), to identify underlying genetic connections between different diseases as reported in BioDataMining this week.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have been awarded approximately $1.8 million from the National Cancer Institute to identify signaling pathways that underlie lung cancer and to develop new therapeutic approaches.
The development of DNA-based vaccines with cytokine adjuvants has emerged as particularly promising for inducing antiviral and anti-tumor, cell-mediated immune responses. The protein IL-33 boosts the immune system of a human papilloma virus animal model of cancer.
In the first whole-genome analysis conducted through the Roswell Park Center for Personalized Medicine, and the second ever in bladder cancer, researchers found two distinct patterns of genetic alteration in tumors and identified a potential target.
Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that poly(A) tails on messenger RNAs (mRNAs) shift their role in the regulation of protein production during early embryogenesis. This finding about the regulation of mRNA translation also provides insight into how microRNAs control protein production.
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that valproic acid, a widely prescribed drug for treating epilepsy, has the additional benefits of reducing fat accumulation in the liver and lowering blood sugar levels in the blood of obese mice.
Fewer than one in two children and young adults treated for anxiety achieve long-term relief from symptoms, according to the findings of a study by investigators from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and five other institutions.
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