(Philadelphia, PA) - Lupus, multiple sclerosis, and type-1 diabetes are among more than a score of diseases in which the immune system attacks the body it was designed to defend. But just why the immune system begins its misdirected assault has remained a mystery. Now, researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) have shown that bacterial communities known as biofilm play a role in the development of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus -- a discovery that may provide important clues about several autoimmune ailments. A team led by TUSM ...

Adolescents who saw advertising for medical marijuana were more likely to either report using marijuana or say they planned to use the substance in the future, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Studying more than 8,000 Southern California middle school students, researchers found that youth who reported seeing any ads for medical marijuana were twice as likely as peers who reported never seeing an ad to have used marijuana or report higher intentions to use the drug in the future. The study was published online by the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. Researchers ...

Converting large tracts of the Midwest's marginal farming land to perennial biofuel crops carries with it some key unknowns, including how it could affect the balance of water between rainfall, evaporation and movement of soil water to groundwater. In humid climates such as the U.S. Midwest, evaporation returns more than half of the annual precipitation to the atmosphere, with the remainder available to recharge groundwater and maintain stream flow and lake levels. A recent study from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and published in Environmental Research ...

Worcester, Mass. - A study by a multidisciplinary research team, co-directed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), offers new insights into how virulent fungi adapt through genetic modifications to fight back against the effects of medication designed to block their spread, and how that battle leaves them temporarily weakened. These insights may provide clues to new ways to treat notoriously difficult-to-cure fungal infections like thrush and vaginitis. The team studied patients infected with the fungus Candida albicans (C. albicans), which causes common yeast infections ...

WASHINGTON (July 6, 2015) -- The investigation of a simple protein has uncovered its uniquely complicated role in the spread of the childhood cancer, osteosarcoma. It turns out the protein, called ezrin, acts like an air traffic controller, coordinating multiple functions within a cancer cell and allowing it to endure stress conditions encountered during metastasis. It's been known that ezrin is a key regulator of osteosarcoma's spread to the lungs, but its mechanism was not known. Osteosarcoma is a tumor of bone that afflicts children, adolescents and young adults. In ...

Mohamed Boutjdir, PhD, professor of medicine, cell biology, and physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, has led a study with international collaborators identifying the mechanism by which patients with various autoimmune and connective tissue disorders may be at risk for life-threatening cardiac events if they take certain anti-histamine or anti-depressant medications. Dr. Boutjdir is also director of the Cardiac Research Program at VA New York Harbor Healthcare System. The researchers published their findings in the online edition of the American ...

Investigators have discovered the precise molecular steps that enable immune cells implicated in certain forms of asthma and allergy to develop and survive in the body. The findings from Weill Cornell Medical College reveal a new pathway that scientists could use to develop more effective treatments and therapies for the chronic lung disorder. More than 1 in 12 Americans are affected by asthma, a disorder characterized by an overactive immune response to normally harmless substances such as pollen or mold. Scientists had previously discovered that an overabundance of ...

Providers of mental-health services still rely on intervention techniques such as physical restraint and confinement to control some psychiatric hospital patients, a practice which can cause harm to both patients and care facilities, according to a new study from the University of Waterloo. The study, which appears in a special mental health issue of Healthcare Management Forum, found that almost one in four psychiatric patients in Ontario hospitals are restrained using control interventions, such as chairs that prevent rising, wrist restraints, seclusion rooms or acute ...

Older patients with traumatic spinal cord injury are less likely than younger patients to receive surgical treatment and experience a significant lag between injury and surgery, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) The number of people with traumatic spinal cord injury over age 70 is increasing, and it is projected that people in this age group will eventually make up the majority of those with new spinal cord injuries. Currently, most spinal cord injuries occur in people aged 16 to 30 years. To determine whether patients over age ...

Treatment with inhaled nitric oxide (NO) has proven to be life saving in newborns, children and adults with several dangerous conditions, but the availability of the treatment has been limited by the size, weight and complexity of equipment needed to administer the gas and the therapy's high price. Now a research team led by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician who pioneered the use of inhaled nitric oxide has developed a lightweight, portable system that produces NO from the air by means of an electrical spark. The investigators describe their invention in ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Nitrous oxide, commonly known as "laughing gas," has been used in anesthesiology practice since the 1800s, but the way it works to create altered states is not well understood. In a study published this week in Clinical Neurophysiology, MIT researchers reveal some key brainwave changes among patients receiving the drug. For a period of about three minutes after the administration of nitrous oxide at anesthetic doses, electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings show large-amplitude slow-delta waves, a powerful pattern of electrical firing that sweeps across ...

The human organism contains hundreds of distinct cell types that often differ from their neighbours in shape and function. To acquire and maintain its characteristic features, each cell type must express a unique subset of genes. Neurons, the functional units of our brain, develop through differentiation of neuronal precursors, a process that depends on coordinated activation of hundreds and possibly thousands of neuron-specific genes. A new study published in Nature Communications by researchers from the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology (MRC CDN) at IoPPN, carried ...

Intermittent dosing with rapamycin selectively breaks the cascade of inflammatory events that follow cellular senescence, a phenomena in which cells cease to divide in response to DNA damaging agents, including many chemotherapies. The finding, published in Nature Cell Biology, shows that once disrupted, it takes time for the inflammatory loop to reestablish, providing proof-of-principal that intermittent dosing could provide a way to reap the benefits of rapamycin, an FDA-approved drug that extends lifespan and healthspan in mice, while lessening safety issues associated ...

Carrying around a spare tire is a good thing -- you never know when you'll get a flat. Turns out we're all carrying around "spare tires" in our genomes, too. Today, in ACS Central Science, researchers report that an extra set of guanines (or "G"s) in our DNA may function just like a "spare" to help prevent many cancers from developing. Various kinds of damage can happen to DNA, making it unstable, which is a hallmark of cancer. One common way that our genetic material can be harmed is from a phenomenon called oxidative stress. When our bodies process certain chemicals ...

One of the questions raised by climate change has been whether it could cause more species of animals to interbreed. Two species of flying squirrel have already produced mixed offspring because of climate change, and there have been reports of a hybrid polar bear and grizzly bear cub (known as a grolar bear, or a pizzly). "Climate change is causing species' ranges to shift, and that could bring a lot of closely related species into contact," said Meade Krosby, a research scientist in the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group. She is the lead author of a ...

Screening mammography was associated with increased diagnosis of small cancers in a study across U.S. counties but not with significant changes in breast cancer deaths or a decreased incidence of larger breast cancers, which researchers suggest may be the result of overdiagnosis, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. The goal of screening mammography is to reduce breast cancer death by detecting and treating cancer early in the course of the disease. If screening detects tumors early, the diagnosis of smaller and more treatable cancers should ...

Many physicians and advanced practice clinicians, including registered nurse practitioners, midwives and physician assistants, reported to work while being sick despite recognizing this could put patients at risk, according to the results of a small survey published online by JAMA Pediatrics. Health-care associated infections can lead to substantial illness and death and excess costs. This is especially true for immunocompromised patients and others at high risk, including neonates. However, a gap in knowledge exists about the reasons why attending physicians and advanced ...

A small fraction of pregnancies occur in women with epilepsy but a new study suggests those women may be at higher risk for complications and death during delivery, according to an article published online by JAMA Neurology. Between 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of all pregnancies occur in women with epilepsy. However, there is inadequate data on obstetrical outcomes so the risk of adverse outcomes and death in this population of women remains largely unquantified. Sarah C. MacDonald, B.Sc., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, and coauthors looked ...

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a widely used nonpharmacologic treatment for insomnia disorders and an analysis of the medical literature suggests it also can work for patients whose insomnia is coupled with psychiatric and medical conditions, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Previous meta-analyses have suggested that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia can improve sleep, although many of these studies excluded individuals with co-existing psychiatric and medical conditions. Jason C. Ong, Ph.D., of Rush University Medical Center, ...

MADISON - The newfound ability of a protein of the intestines and lungs to distinguish between human cells and the cells of bacterial invaders could underpin new strategies to fight infections. Writing this week (July 6, 2015) in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Laura Kiessling describes the knack of a human protein known as intelectin to distinguish between our cells and those of the disease-causing microbes that invade our bodies. "This has the potential to change the game in terms of how ...

Studying brain scans and cerebrospinal fluid of healthy adults, scientists have shown that changes in key biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease during midlife may help identify those who will develop dementia years later, according to new research. The study, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is published July 6 in JAMA Neurology. "It's too early to use these biomarkers to definitively predict whether individual patients will develop Alzheimer's disease, but we're working toward that goal," said senior author Anne Fagan, PhD, a professor of neurology. ...

A blood-borne molecule that increases in abundance as we age blocks regeneration of brain cells and promotes cognitive decline, suggests a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco and Stanford School of Medicine. The molecule in question, known as beta-2 microglobulin, or B2M, is a component of a larger molecule called MHC I (major histocompatibility complex class I), which plays a major role in the adaptive immune system. A growing body of research indicates that the B2M-MHC I complex, which is present in all cells in the body except red blood cells and plasma cells, ...

What gives plastic objects their flexibility and reduces their brittleness is the concentration of plasticiser. For example, a chemical solvent of the phthalate family called DOP is often used. The trouble is there are concerns that phthalates present health risks. So there is a demand for more alternatives. Now, scientists from China have examined the effect of using DEHHP, a new eco-friendly plasticiser, used in combination with PVC. For a plasticiser to work, there has to be adequate hydrogen bonding with the plastic. By combining experiments and simulations, the team ...

Nearly 800 million people worldwide don't have access to safe drinking water, and some 2.5 billion people live in precariously unsanitary conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Together, unsafe drinking water and the inadequate supply of water for hygiene purposes contribute to almost 90% of all deaths from diarrheal diseases -- and effective water sanitation interventions are still challenging scientists and engineers. A new study published in Nature Nanotechnology proposes a novel nanotechnology-based strategy to improve water filtration. ...

Optogenetics techniques, which allow scientists to map and control nerve cells using light stimulation, are being used to study neural circuits in the brain with unprecedented precision. This revolutionary technology relies on light-sensitive proteins such as channelrhodopsins, and researchers at UC Santa Cruz have now determined the molecular mechanism involved in the light-induced activation of one of these proteins. The new findings, published July 3 in two papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, can help scientists create tailor-made proteins optimized for ...