The offspring of adolescent and young adult women with a history of cancer face a higher risk of birth defects, according to new research from UTHealth Houston. A study led by Caitlin C. Murphy, PhD, MPH, associate professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, was published recently in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “Concerns like the health of future children are at the top of mind for many young adults diagnosed with cancer, but they are already so overwhelmed at the time of diagnosis with ...

Intrusive thoughts, involuntary repetition of undesirable gestures and behaviors combined with high anxiety... Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a disabling condition, affects around 2% of the population, regardless of age. It is a strong vector of isolation since patients disproportionately focus on various obsessions—to the detriment of relationships, work, and leisure. Treatment mainly consists of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) that allows patients to readjust their thought patterns, combined with antidepressants. Unfortunately, the effects are slow to appear, and 30 to 40% of patients do not respond at all. “In this context, an option ...

Every year, over 15,500 Australians are diagnosed with bowel cancer, and it is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the country. Over 1,700 (one in ten) of those diagnosed are young Australians aged under 50, and this incidence is increasing. There is an urgent need to discover more effective treatments and improve bowel cancer screening, particularly for early-onset bowel cancer (those aged 25-49 years). Australians born in 1990 onwards have double the risk of developing bowel cancer compared with those born in 1950. These younger bowel cancer patients often have poorer outcomes as they typically present with late-stage ...

Patients with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disorder (SCID-X1), sometimes called “bubble boy disease,” are born with a defective gene that prevents them from producing immune cells. Gene therapy from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital restored the immune system in multiple infants with SCID-X1 in 2019 by supplying copies of the corrected gene. Through ongoing efforts to monitor patient safety, St. Jude scientists recently documented where the gene copies integrate into patient DNA, providing a foundation to understand the biology and safety of using lentiviral vectors. The findings were published today in Science Advances.   “We ...

The human brain is a tangled highway of wires emanating from nearly 100 billion neurons, all of which communicate across trillions of junctions called synapses. “Depressingly complex,” Harvard neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman calls it. The only way to understand this highway, says Lichtman, is to create a map. Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has spent several decades generating such maps, and in doing so has pioneered a field known as “connectomics.” ...

  A study published Oct. 4 in Gastroenterology further validates that pyrvinium, a drug that has been used for decades for intestinal pinworms, can be repurposed as a preventative treatment for stomach cancer. Eunyoung Choi, PhD, assistant professor of Surgery, and colleagues have demonstrated in human organoids and mouse models that the drug induces cell death in precancerous lesions. Pyrvinium blockades both the MEK/ERK and STAT3 signaling pathways. In another study she led, which was published last year in Gastroenterology, the researchers demonstrated that pyrvinium blocked regeneration of dysplastic ...

Scientists have caught fast-moving hydrogen atoms – the keys to countless biological and chemical reactions – in action. A team led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University used ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) to record the motion of hydrogen atoms within ammonia molecules. Others had theorized they could track hydrogen atoms with electron diffraction, but until now nobody had done the experiment successfully. The results, published October 5 in Physical ...

The Grand Canyon’s valleys and millions of years of rock layers spanning Earth’s history have earned it a designation as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. But, according to a new UNLV and University of New Mexico study, its marvels extend to vast cave systems that lie beneath the surface, which just might hold clues to better understand the future of climate change — by studying nature’s past. A research team led by UNLV paleoclimatologist and Professor Matthew Lachniet that included the University of New Mexico Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Distinguished Professor Yemane Asmerom and Research Scientist Victor Polyak and other ...

Lugano, Switzerland, 6 October 2023 – Under the promise to “Disseminating innovative research for optimal cancer care” as this year’s tagline reads, the ESMO Congress 2023 will be held in Madrid between 20-24 October 2023 with a virtual component to allow as many people as possible to attend.  From a keynote lecture pinpointing the hallmarks of cancer in the current year through the reinforced commitment towards more academic input in the drug development process for better cancer care, and then further down to the dramatic scenarios brought by the too many situations of crisis in the world which have an unbearable impact ...

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, known as UTRGV, have signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen research cooperation and establish a collaborative program for undergraduate research and education, further cementing relationships and collaboration between the lab and minority-serving institutions. This partnership builds a pathway for students to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, careers through DOE by complementing ...

“Several ongoing trials hope to further elucidate the role of lurbinectedin in highgrade neuroendocrine neoplasms [...]” BUFFALO, NY- October 6, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 10) on June 14, 2023, entitled, “Lurbinectedin, a DNA minor groove inhibitor for neuroendocrine neoplasms beyond small cell lung cancer.” In their new editorial, researchers Deepak Bhamidipati and Vivek Subbiah from the Sarah Cannon Research Institute discuss lurbinectedin as a method to treat neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). NETs encompass a variety ...

Key Takeaways Researchers have posted the results of a multisystem phase II clinical trial of patients with COVID-19 and respiratory failure Patients who received inhaled nitric oxide had improved blood oxygen levels and fewer risks of long-term sensory and motor neurologic symptoms They also experienced a faster reduction of viral load in sputum and blood BOSTON – Inhaled nitric oxide gas widens blood vessels in the lungs and is used to treat severe cardio-pulmonary conditions in newborns and adults. A recent multicenter international ...

East Hanover, NJ – October 6, 2023 –The labor force participation and employment-to-population ratio have held relatively steady throughout the summer and into the fall for people with disabilities, while percentages for people without disabilities may have maxed out at their pre-pandemic baseline, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). In comparison, the employment-to-population ratio for people without disabilities remained flat with no change, while ...

African Americans have long been known to be at increased risk of kidney disease due to a dangerous genetic mutation that creates a hole in the kidney cells, but Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) researchers have now discovered a protective genetic mutation that covers the hole to eliminate the risk.   The findings on the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) gene, published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, could have immediate and broad implications for kidney health because people with both the disease-causing and protective mutation are not at increased risk.   “Our team discovered ...

Aston University, UK, is offering a group of highly talented graduates of Symbiosis Institute of Technology (SIT), India the opportunity to study for a Masters degree.   The two institutions have signed a progression agreement which is designed to make it easier for top SIT graduates to apply for courses at Aston University.   The Aston-SIT partnership has been developed from the support of the British Council via its going global partnerships exploratory grant scheme. The areas of study cover a wide range of MSc programmes in engineering, physical sciences and business studies.   Aston University is in Birmingham, ...

SAN ANTONIO, Oct. 6, 2023 – Three decades after discoveries linking mutations in the BRCA1 gene to breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility, research led by Mays Cancer Center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) has pinpointed the molecular mechanism by which a large portion of these mutations cause cancers in women. The discovery, unveiled in an Oct. 4 research article in the journal Molecular Cell, is poised to assist researchers in developing drugs to battle breast and ovarian cancers and to help identify women who are at an elevated risk of developing these cancers, according to the ...

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two academic disciplines have come to fore: peace and conflict studies and East European studies. Experts from both fields represent important voices in the public discourse. A symposium entitled ‘War and Peace in Ukraine: Reflecting, Studying and Engaging Across Disciplines” will be held from 12 until 13 October 2023 at Bielefeld University. It brings together experts from both fields in order to discuss the relationship between them and challenges of participating in a highly ...

Whether improperly closing a door or shanking a kick in soccer, our brains tell us when we’ve made a mistake because these sounds differ from what we expect to hear. While it’s long been established that our neurons spot these errors, it has been unclear whether there are brain cells that have only one job—to signal when a sound is unexpected or “off.” A team of New York University neuroscientists has now identified a class of neurons—what it calls “prediction-error neurons”—that are not responsive to sounds in general, ...

Dementia, which includes Alzheimer's disease, currently affects around 1.8 million people in Germany. The exact cause has not yet been clarified, but genetic factors play a significant role in the development of the disease.  Most previous analyses aimed at the identification of novel Alzheimer's genes used, a "case-control design". "With this conventional and highly simplistic analysis strategy, a vast amount of clinical information is lost that can be valuable for elucidating new disease mechanisms," says Prof. Dr. Lars Bertram, head of the Lübeck Interdisciplinary Platform for Genome Analysis at the University ...

Increased salinity usually spells trouble for freshwater insects like mayflies. A new study from North Carolina State University finds that the lack of metabolic responses to salinity may explain why some freshwater insects often struggle in higher salinity, while other freshwater invertebrates (like mollusks and crustaceans) thrive. Salinity in this case refers to the concentrations of all the salts in an aquatic environment, not just sodium. “Freshwater habitats in general are getting saltier for a number of reasons, including road salt and ...

The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has responded critically to a reflection paper by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on the approval of new drugs based on single-arm studies. The EMA correctly points out that studies without a control arm are subject to bias and that, in general, it is hardly possible to estimate causal effects from them. However, it does not provide clear criteria for limiting drug approval based on such studies to extremely rare exceptional cases. The FDA shows how to do it There is also no recommendation on external controls - in contrast to guidance published ...

Perovskite-based solar cells, widely considered as successors to the currently dominant silicon cells, due to their simple and cost-effective production process combined with their excellent performance, are now the subject of in-depth research. A team of scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy ISE and the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw presented perovskite photovoltaic cells with significantly improved optoelectronic properties in the journal Advanced Materials and Interfaces. Reducing optical losses in the ...

(Boston)—Naomi Hamburg, MD, the Joseph A. Vita Professor of Medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for her research study, “Endothelial Cell Health Across the Spectrum of Cardiometabolic Disease.”   Cardiometabolic diseases are a group of common but often preventable conditions including heart attack, stroke, diabetes, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The escalating prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors including obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) ...

About The Study: COVID-19 was associated with a substantial risk for autoimmune and autoinflammatory connective tissue disorders in this retrospective cohort study, indicating that long-term management of patients with COVID-19 should include evaluation for such disorders.  Authors: Solam Lee, M.D., Ph.D., of Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine in Wonju, Republic of Korea, is the corresponding author.   To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website ...

Cancer cells are chameleons. They completely change their metabolism to grow continuously. University of Basel scientists have discovered that high levels of the amino acid arginine drive metabolic reprogramming to promote tumor growth. This study suggests new avenues to improve liver cancer treatment. The liver is a vital organ with many important functions in the body. It metabolizes nutrients, stores energy, regulates the blood sugar level and plays a crucial role in detoxifying and removing harmful components and drugs. Liver cancer is one of the world’s most lethal types of cancer. Conditions that cause liver cancer include obesity, excessive ...