April 24, 2015, Vienna, Austria: Findings were presented today at The International Liver CongressTM 2015 on a novel therapeutic candidate for a genomically defined subset of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with an aberrant fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4) pathway. BLU-554, a small molecule inhibitor of FGFR4, has been identified as a potential treatment option for up to 30% of HCC patients. In preclinical studies, the investigational drug was shown to be potent and 'exquisitely selective' for FGFR4 compared to other kinases targeting the FGFR family. ...

April 24, 2015, Vienna, Austria: Results from a large population-based cohort of almost a million people in the UK found that the chances of dying from non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), over a 14-year period, was approximately 50% higher than for those with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Reported today at The International Liver CongressTM 2015, the large study analysed the overall burden of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality across the spectrum of NAFLD. The four stages of NAFLD are steatosis (or simple fatty liver), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis ...

Cincinnati, OH, April 24, 2015 -- Sleep-related deaths are the most common cause of death for infants 1-12 months of age. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants sleep on their back on a firm mattress, without loose bedding. However, many parents use sitting or carrying devices, such as car seats, swings, or bouncers, as alternative sleeping environments, which could lead to potential injury or death. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers describe how the improper use of these items can lead to infant deaths. Erich ...

Turmeric - the familiar yellow spice common in Indian and Asian cooking - may play a therapeutic role in oral cancers associated with human papillomavirus, according to new research published in ecancermedicalscience. One of the herb's key active ingredients - an antioxidant called curcumin - appears to have a quelling effect on the activity of human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a virus that promotes the development of cervical and oral cancer. There is no cure, but curcumin may offer a means of future control. "Turmeric has established antiviral and anti-cancer properties," ...

SEATTLE - Today, Americans are more likely to be heavy drinkers and binge drinkers than in recent years due in large part to rising rates of drinking among women, according to a new analysis of county-level drinking patterns in the United States. By contrast, the percentage of people who drink any alcohol has remained relatively unchanged over time, according to the latest research by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. Published in the American Journal of Public Health on April 23, the study "Drinking patterns in ...

SAN FRANCISCO - New ophthalmology research from the University of Miami shows that dry eye - the little understood culprit behind red, watery, gritty feeling eyes - strikes most often in spring, just as airborne allergens are surging. The study marks the first time that researchers have discovered a direct correlation between seasonal allergens and dry eye, with both pollen and dry eye cases reaching a yearly peak in the month of April. The paper was published online today in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Dry eye can significantly ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- New genetic data suggest the red lionfish invasion in the Caribbean Basin and Western Atlantic started in multiple locations, not just one as previously believed, according to a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey. Florida has often been cited as the likely location of the introduction, but the new research suggests multiple introductions occurred, with some potentially coming from the more southern parts of the range. The Caribbean Basin stretches from parts of Florida's Gulf Coast through South America. Genetically unraveling the progression ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla.--Many loggerhead sea turtles that nest in Dry Tortugas National Park head to rich feeding sites in the Bahamas after nesting, a discovery that may help those working to protect this threatened species. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey used satellites to track the population of loggerheads that nest in the Dry Tortugas - the smallest subpopulation of loggerheads in the northwest Atlantic - and found the turtles actually spend a considerable portion of their lives in the Bahamas, returning to the Dry Tortugas to nest every two-to-five years. ...

Why do animals fight with members of other species? A nine-year study by UCLA biologists says the reason often has to do with "obtaining priority access to females" in the area. The scientists observed and analyzed the behavior of several species of Hetaerina damselflies, also known as rubyspot damselflies. For the study, published this month in the print edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers observed more than 100 damselflies a day in their natural habitat along rivers and streams in Texas, Arizona and Mexico. Male damselflies always ...

As the world's exponentially growing demand for digital data slows the Internet and cell phone communication, City College of New York researchers may have just figured out a new way to increase its speed. Giovanni Milione, a PhD student under City College Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering Robert Alfano, led the pioneering experiment conducted at the University of Southern California with collaborators from Corning Incorporated, Scotland, Italy and Canada. "Conventional methods of data transmission use light which has the fastest speed in the universe. ...

Polymer science will have to add a new giant molecule to its lexicon thanks to a cutting-edge discovery at The University of Akron. Taking a revolutionary "building blocks" approach, researchers have pioneered a way to create a new class of very large polymer molecules, called macromolecules, which assemble themselves into strong, stable structures. The work has been done in collaboration with researchers at Peking University in China and The University of Tokyo in Japan. Their findings have been published in the April 24, 2015 issue of Science magazine. A team led by ...

We know of about two dozen runaway stars, and have even found one runaway star cluster escaping its galaxy forever. Now, astronomers have spotted 11 runaway galaxies that have been flung out of their homes to wander the void of intergalactic space. "These galaxies are facing a lonely future, exiled from the galaxy clusters they used to live in," said astronomer Igor Chilingarian (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/Moscow State University). Chilingarian is the lead author of the study, which is appearing in the journal Science. An object is a runaway if it's ...

You think that your immune system is there to protect you. But what happens when it starts working against you? In the earliest stages of cancer formation, the immune system is forced to make a momentous decision. It either activates and suppresses tumor growth to help the body fight disease, or it becomes dysfunctional, helping the tumor grow and making treatment more difficult. Because this tipping point occurs before a person even realizes something is wrong, doctors are unable to directly observe this critical stage. "We believe that when immune cells enter a tumor ...

WORCESTER, MA - Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have applied a powerful tool in a new way to characterize genetic variants associated with human disease. The work, published today in Cell, will allow scientists to more easily and efficiently describe genomic variations underlying complex, multi-gene diseases. "Up to this point, we've only been able to investigate one disease-causing mutation at a time," said principal investigator Marian Walhout, PhD, co-director of the Program in Systems Biology and professor of molecular medicine at UMMS. ...

The oncologists Manuel Hidalgo, Director of the Clinical Research Programme of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and Ignacio Garrido-Laguna, member of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at Huntsman Cancer Institute of the University of Utah (USA), have recently published a review of state-of-the-art clinical treatments for pancreatic cancer -- including the most current therapies and innovative research -- in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. In their study, which reviews around 200 scientific articles published ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Using a technique that introduces tiny wrinkles into sheets of graphene, researchers from Brown University have developed new textured surfaces for culturing cells in the lab that better mimic the complex surroundings in which cells grow in the body. "We know that cells are shaped by their surroundings," said Ian Y. Wong, assistant professor of engineering and one of the study's authors. "We've shown that you can make textured environments for cell culture fairly easily using graphene." Traditionally, cell culture in the lab has ...

An enzyme secreted by the body's fat tissue controls energy levels in the brain, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings, in mice, underscore a role for the body's fat tissue in controlling the brain's response to food scarcity, and suggest there is an optimal amount of body fat for maximizing health and longevity. The study appears April 23 in the journal Cell Metabolism. "We showed that fat tissue controls brain function in a really interesting way," said senior author Shin-ichiro Imai, MD, PhD, professor of ...

Dolphins that raise their voices to be heard in noisy environments expend extra energy in doing so, according to new research that for the first time measures the biological costs to marine mammals of trying to communicate over the sounds of ship traffic or other sources. While dolphins expend only slightly more energy on louder whistles or other vocalizations, the metabolic cost may add up over time when the animals must compensate for chronic background noise, according to the research by scientists at NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the University ...

TORONTO, ON. (23 April, 2015) - A new study led by University of Toronto researcher Dr. David Lam has discovered the trigger behind the most severe forms of cancer pain. Released in top journal Pain this month, the study points to TMPRSS2 as the culprit: a gene that is also responsible for some of the most aggressive forms of androgen-fuelled cancers. Head of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Faculty of Dentistry, Lam's research initially focused on cancers of the head and neck, which affect more than 550,000 people worldwide each year. Studies have shown that these ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A 47-year-old African-American woman has heavy menstrual bleeding and iron-deficiency anemia. She reports the frequent need to urinate during the night and throughout the day. A colonoscopy is negative and an ultrasonography shows a modestly enlarged uterus with three uterine fibroids, noncancerous growths of the uterus. She is not planning to become pregnant. What are her options? Elizabeth (Ebbie) Stewart, M.D., chair of Reproductive Endocrinology at Mayo Clinic, says the woman has several options, but determining her best option is guided by her ...

ANN ARBOR--Use of clean fuels and updated pollution control measures in the school buses 25 million children ride every day could result in 14 million fewer absences from school a year, based on a study by the University of Michigan and the University of Washington. In research believed to be the first to measure the individual impact on children of the federal mandate to reduce diesel emissions, researchers found improved health and less absenteeism, especially among asthmatic children. A change to ultra low sulfur diesel fuel reduced a marker for inflammation in ...

Boosting teenagers' ability to cope with online risks, rather than trying to stop them from using the Internet, may be a more practical and effective strategy for keeping them safe, according to a team of researchers. In a study, more resilient teens were less likely to suffer negative effects even if they were frequently online, said Haiyan Jia, post-doctoral scholar in information sciences and technology. "Internet exposure does not necessarily lead to negative effects, which means it's okay to go online, but the key seems to be learning how to cope with the stress ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--Drizzling honey on toast can produce mesmerizing, meandering patterns, as the syrupy fluid ripples and coils in a sticky, golden thread. Dribbling paint on canvas can produce similarly serpentine loops and waves. The patterns created by such viscous fluids can be reproduced experimentally in a setup known as a "fluid mechanical sewing machine," in which an overhead nozzle deposits a thick fluid onto a moving conveyor belt. Researchers have carried out such experiments in an effort to identify the physical factors that influence the patterns that form. ...

April 23, 2015 - Interventional treatments--especially surgery--provide good functional outcomes and a high cure rate for patients with lower-grade arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) of the brain, reports the May issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. The findings contrast with a recent trial reporting better outcomes without surgery or other interventions for AVMs. "On the basis of these data, in appropriately selected patients, we recommend treatment for low-grade brain AVMs," concludes ...

A new study by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Assistant Professor Amanda Sharkey and University of Utah Assistant Professor Patricia Bromley found that environmental ratings have spillover effects on other companies' behavior. Rated firms reduce their toxic emissions even more when their peers are also rated. In addition, rated peers can even motivate some unrated companies to reduce their emissions. The research is unusual in that the role of peers in conditioning how firms respond to ratings systems has received little examination. The study, "Can ...