Early diagnosis and improvement of breast cancer treatments have reduced breast cancer mortality in recent years, with survival rates reaching 85% today. In spite of these data, breast cancer was still the most frequently diagnosed tumour in the world in 2020, mainly due to increased population screening and social factors such as ageing. RANK protein plays a key role in the development of these tumours. Located in the membrane of cells, when it binds to its partner RANKL, it sends signals that stimulate the development of the mammary gland. When these proteins do not work properly, breast cells begin to divide and multiply ...

Mitochondria - the 'batteries' that power our cells - play an unexpected role in common diseases such as type 2 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, concludes a study of over 350,000 people conducted by the University of Cambridge. The study, published today in Nature Genetics, found that genetic variants in the DNA of mitochondria could increase the risk of developing these conditions, as well influencing characteristics such as height and lifespan. There was also evidence that some changes in mitochondrial DNA were more common in people with Scottish, Welsh or Northumbrian genetic ancestry, implying that mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA (which accounts for 99.9% of our genetic make-up) interact with each other. Almost ...

Scientists have succeeded in dating some of the oldest stars in our galaxy with unprecedented precision by combining data from the stars' oscillations with information about their chemical composition. The team led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, surveyed around a hundred red giant stars, and were able to determine that some of these were originally part of a satellite galaxy called Gaia-Enceladus, which collided with the Milky Way early in its history. The results, published in Nature Astronomy, revealed that the group of stars surveyed all have similar ages, or are slightly younger than the majority of the stars known to have started their lives within the Milky Way. This corroborates existing theories suggesting the Milky Way had already started forming a significant ...

In the largest genetic study of bipolar disorder to date, researchers have identified 64 regions of the genome containing DNA variations that increase risk of bipolar disorder - more than double the number previously identified. The research team also found overlap in the genetic bases of bipolar disorder and other psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, the study supports a role of sleep habits, alcohol, and substance usage in the development of bipolar disorder, although further research is needed to confirm these findings. The study results are published May 17 in Nature Genetics. Bipolar disorder, a complex psychiatric disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of severely high and low mood, affects an estimated 40 to 50 million people worldwide. It typically begins ...

Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute, Royal Marsden, UCL and Cruces University Hospital have found that cells from different parts of kidney tumours behave differently, and surprisingly, cells within the centre of a tumour are the most aggressive and have the highest chance of spreading around the body. Cancers can spread to other parts of the body, with cells taking hold as secondary tumours which make the disease much harder to treat. Understanding the mechanics of this spread, a process called metastasis, could lead to new treatments that block this migration. In their multidisciplinary study ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - New research provides the best evidence to date into the timing of how our early Milky Way came together, including the merger with a key satellite galaxy. Using relatively new methods in astronomy, the researchers were able to identify the most precise ages currently possible for a sample of about a hundred red giant stars in the galaxy. With this and other data, the researchers were able to show what was happening when the Milky Way merged with an orbiting satellite galaxy, known as Gaia-Enceladus, about 10 billion years ago. Their results were published today (May ...

Patients with both diabetes and heart failure who were treated with sotagliflozin, a novel investigational drug for diabetes, for a median of nine to 16 months experienced reductions of 22% to 43% in the risk of death or worsening heart failure compared with similar patients who were treated with a placebo. The drug was effective in patients with all forms of heart failure, including those whose heart muscle is abnormally stiff (preserved ejection fraction) and for whom there is currently no effective treatment, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. "Treatment with sotagliflozin robustly and significantly reduced cardiovascular adverse events across the full spectrum of ...

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have found out how microscopic structures called lipid droplets may help to prevent a high-fat diet causing kidney damage. The work in fruit flies, published in PLoS Biology opens up a new research avenue for developing better treatments for chronic kidney disease. Eating foods high in fats can cause inflammation and metabolic stress in the kidneys, leading to chronic disease, which in severe cases requires dialysis or a transplant. And with obesity on the rise globally, it's a growing problem - around 10% of people in the UK are living with chronic kidney ...

The University of Kent's School of Physical Sciences, in collaboration with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Universities of Cardiff, Durham and Leeds, have developed an algorithm to train computers to analyse signals from subatomic particles embedded in advanced electronic materials. The particles, called muons, are produced in large particle accelerators and are implanted inside samples of materials in order to investigate their magnetic properties. Muons are uniquely useful as they couple magnetically to individual atoms inside the material and then emit a signal detectable by researchers to obtain information on that magnetism. This ability to ...

A program designed to improve hospital care for patients with heart failure, the leading cause of hospitalization among adults over age 65, did not bring additional benefits beyond existing hospital quality improvement programs in a randomized controlled trial presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. Heart failure is a condition in which the heart becomes too weak or too stiff to pump blood effectively to the rest of the body. It causes symptoms such as swelling and fluid retention, shortness of breath and coughing. In the CONNECT-HF study, one group of hospitals received additional auditing and ...

For the first time, Penn State researchers have identified a gene that controls flowering in cacao, a discovery that may help accelerate breeding efforts aimed at improving the disease-ridden plant, they suggested. Characterizing the Flowering Locus T gene in cacao, responsible for the production of florigen -- a protein that triggers flowering in most plants -- is important, according to study co-author Mark Guiltinan, J. Franklin Styer Professor of Horticultural Botany and professor of plant molecular biology. He expects this advancement to enable scientists to develop disease-resistant trees faster, which is critical because 20% to 30% ...

Some words sound like what they mean. For example, "slurp" sounds like the noise we make when we drink from a cup, and "teeny" sounds like something that is very small. This resemblance between how a word sounds and what it means is known as iconicity. In her lab at the University of Miami, Lynn Perry, an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology, previously found that children tend to learn words higher in iconicity earlier in development then they do words lower in iconicity. She also found that adults tend to use more iconic words when they speak to children than when they speak to other adults. "That got us curious about why," said Stephanie Custode, a doctoral student in psychology, who ...

University researchers have carried out the largest systematic review and meta-analysis to date of how people's perceptions of their screen time compare with what they do in practice, finding estimates of usage were only accurate in about five per cent of studies. The international team say this casts doubt on the validity of research on the impact of screen time on mental health, and its influences on government policy, as the vast majority rely on participants to estimate (self-report) how long they spend on digital devices, rather than logs of actual usage, or tracked time. "For decades, researchers have relied on estimates of how we use various technologies to study how people use digital ...

A new study led by researchers from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham for Current Biology has used new methods to analyse the variability of mammal fossils, revealing extraordinary results: it was not dinosaurs, but possibly other mammals, that were the main competitors of modern mammals before and after the mass extinction of dinosaurs. The study challenges old assumptions about why mammals only seemed to diversify, becoming larger and exploring new diets, locomotion and ways of life, after the extinction of the non-bird dinosaurs. It points to a more complex story of competition between distinct mammal groups. ...

Before undergoing surgery, patients often go through a number of tests: blood work, sometimes a chest X-ray, perhaps tests to measure heart and lung function. In fact, about half of patients who had one of three common surgical procedures done in Michigan between 2015 and the midway point of 2019 received at least one routine test beforehand. That's according to new research in JAMA Internal Medicine from a collaboration between the University of Michigan-based Michigan Program on Value Enhancement (MPrOVE) and the Michigan Value Collaborative, a statewide initiative that focuses on improving medical and surgical quality. Yet plenty of evidence suggests that preoperative testing is often unnecessary ...

The experimental heart failure drug omecamtiv mecarbil reduced heart failure hospitalizations by a greater margin among patients with more severely reduced ejection fraction, a measure indicating severe impairment in the heart's pumping ability, compared with those who had moderately reduced ejection fraction, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. Omecamtiv mecarbil works by improving the ability for heart muscle cells to contract and operates through a different biological pathway than any of the current heart failure medications. The research ...

One of the enduring mysteries of the COVID-19 pandemic is why most children tend to experience fewer symptoms than adults after infection with the coronavirus. The immune system response that occurs in the rare cases in which children experience life-threatening reactions after infection may offer an important insight, a Yale-led study published in the journal Immunity suggests. While many children infected with the virus are asymptomatic or go undiagnosed, about one in 1,000 children experience multi-system inflammatory response (MIS-C) four to six weeks after confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The condition ...

Inserm teams led by Laurent Reber (Infinity, Toulouse) and Pierre Bruhns (Humoral Immunity, Institut Pasteur, Paris) and French company NEOVACS have developed a vaccine that could induce long-term protection against allergic asthma, reducing the severity of its symptoms and thus significantly improving patient quality of life. Their research in animals has been published in the journal Nature Communications. Asthma is a chronic disease affecting around 4 million people in France and 340 million worldwide. Allergic asthma is characterized by inflammation of the bronchial tubes and respiratory discomfort caused by the inhalation of allergens, most often dust mites. This exposure to dust mites and other allergens leads to ...

A randomized double-blind controlled trial of convalescent plasma for adults hospitalized with severe COVID-19 found that mortality at 28 days in the treatment arm was half the rate seen in the control arm (12.6% vs. 24.6%), although treatment was not associated with other improvements in clinical status. The study was led by investigators from the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; Columbia University Irving Medical Center; ICAP at Columbia University; Instituto Nacional de Infectologia and Hospital Federal dos Servidores do Estado in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; University of Washington; and New York Blood Center. The results are published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. According ...

Patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction who took the antifibrotic drug pirfenidone saw a significant reduction in a marker of heart muscle scarring compared with patients who received a placebo, based on findings from an early-phase trial presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. "Observational data suggests that heart muscle scarring, or fibrosis, is an important disease process for heart failure prognosis," said Chris Miller, MD, a cardiologist and National Institute for Health Research Clinician Scientist at the University ...

Patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) did not have better health outcomes if they took sacubitril/valsartan combination therapy compared with valsartan alone, according to new data presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. Heart failure, a leading cause of hospitalization among adults over age 65, is a condition in which the heart becomes too weak to pump blood effectively to the rest of the body, causing fatigue and shortness of breath. For patients with severe heart failure, treatment options are limited to a mechanical heart pump or heart transplant. Doctors have sought ways to slow the progression of severe heart failure ...

The likelihood of people surviving COVID-19 in UK hospitals has been improving over time, a new study has found. Research published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine by the ISARIC Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium found that in-hospital mortality declined from 32% at the start of the first wave (Mar-Apr 2020) to 16% at the end of the first wave (Jun-Jul 2020). In their study of 63,972 adults admitted to 247 UK hospitals the researchers found reductions in mortality were observed in all age groups, in all ethnic groups, for both sexes, and in patients with and without comorbidities. This improvement was ...

A group of Brazilian and Portuguese researchers observed a correlation between the presence of lead in the organism and a microRNA (miRNA) that could be associated with the mechanisms that regulate DNA methylation, a physiological process required to control gene expression and ensure that genes function properly. The alterations were detected in blood cells from workers in automotive battery plants, which use lead as a raw material. Curiously, lead levels in blood samples from 85 volunteers – averaging 20 micrograms per deciliter of blood (20 μg/dl) – were lower than the acceptable ceiling defined in Brazilian law (60 μg/dl). The study was supported by FAPESP and ...

A long noncoding RNA whose function was previously unknown turns out to play an important role in promoting the body's immune response against cancer and holds promise for enhancing the efficacy of anti-cancer immunotherapy. That's according to new findings reported in Nature Cell Biology by researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. The group dubbed the RNA they identified LIMIT -- for long noncoding RNA inducing major histocompatibility complex class I and immunogenicity of tumor. "LIMIT is easy to remember, but really it does the opposite. It stimulates immune functions against cancer," says senior study author Weiping Zou, M.D., Ph.D., the Charles B. de Nancrede Professor of Pathology, Immunology, Biology, and Surgery at U-M. Only a small part of the human ...

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found a link between traffic-related air pollution and an increased risk for age-related dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. Their study, based on rodent models, corroborates previous epidemiological evidence showing this association. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of age-related dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. More than 5 million Americans currently live with Alzheimer's disease -- a number that is expected to triple by 2050 as the population ages. ...