An international research collaboration led by UC San Francisco researchers has identified a genetic variant common in Latina women that protects against breast cancer. The variant, a difference in just one of the three billion "letters" in the human genome known as a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), originates from indigenous Americans and confers significant protection from breast cancer, particularly the more aggressive estrogen receptor–negative forms of the disease, which generally have a worse prognosis. "The effect is quite significant," said Elad ...

Blind cave fish may not be the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to understanding human sight, but recent research indicates they may have quite a bit to teach us about the causes of many human ailments, including those that result in loss of sight. A team of researchers, led by Suzanne McGaugh, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences, is looking to the tiny eyeless fish for clues about the underpinnings of degenerative eye disease and more. A new study, published in the October 20 online edition of Nature Communications, ...

Head Start programs may help low-income parents improve their educational status, according to a new study by Northwestern University researchers. The study is one of the first to examine whether a child's participation in the federal program benefits mothers and fathers – in particular parents' educational attainment and employment. "Studies on early childhood education programs have historically focused on child outcomes," said study lead author Terri Sabol, an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Social policy at Northwestern's School of Education ...

Geneva, Switzerland – 20 October 2014: Researchers may have developed a way to potentially assist prognostication in the first 24 hours after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) when patients are still in a coma. Their findings are revealed today at Acute Cardiovascular Care 2014 by Dr Jakob Hartvig Thomsen from Copenhagen, Denmark. Acute Cardiovascular Care is the annual meeting of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and takes place 18-20 October in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr Thomsen said: "When we talk ...

According to Nationwide Children's Hospital researchers, 63,000 children under the age of six experienced out-of-hospital medication errors annually between 2002 and 2012. One child is affected every eight minutes, usually by a well-meaning parent or caregiver unintentionally committing a medication error. The most common medication mistakes in children under the age of six occur in the children's home, or another residence and school. The most common medicines involved are painkillers and fever-reducers like ibuprofen and acetaminophen. "This is more common than people ...

Ankylosing spondylitis is a systemic disease that causes inflammation in the spinal joints and was thought to have affected members of the ancient Egyptian royal families. Now a new study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), refutes that claim, finding instead a degenerative spinal condition called diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) in royal Egyptian mummies from the 18th to early 20th Dynasties. Ankylosing spondylitis is a member of a group of inflammatory conditions called the spondyloarthropathies ...

CHICAGO, OCTOBER 20, 2014 – The U.S. Government has initiated a major effort to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer's disease by 2025. However, a workgroup of nearly 40 Alzheimer's researchers and scientists says the research milestones in the U.S. Government's National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease must be broadened in scope, increased in scale, and adequately funded in order to successfully achieve this goal. A series of proposals by the workgroup to enlarge and strengthen the Plan are published today in Alzheimer's & Dementia: the Journal of the Alzheimer's ...

Scientists have uncovered a surprising way to reduce the brain damage caused by head injuries - stopping the body's immune system from killing brain cells. The study, published in the open access journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications, showed that in experiments on mice, an immune-based treatment reduced the size of brain lesions. The authors suggest that if the findings apply to humans, this could help prevent brain damage from accidents, and protect players of contact sports like American football, rugby and boxing. To date, there are no effective treatments to ...

Viagra could be used as a safe treatment for heart disease, finds new research published today in the open access journal BMC Medicine. The study reveals that long-term daily treatment of Viagra can provide protection for the heart at different stages of heart disease, with few side effects. Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor (PDE5i) is the main ingredient in Viagra and other drugs commonly used to treat erectile dysfunction. The inhibitor blocks the enzyme PDE5, which prevents relaxation of smooth muscle tissue. The presence of PDE5 in the heart has led to previous research ...

The findings suggest that this disturbing trend could be due the emergence of more virulent group B streptococcal strains and call for a renewed evaluation of preventive strategies to reduce neonatal disease. Passed from mother to child during birth, group B streptococcus is the most common cause of infection in newborns. Guidelines for the prevention of disease have been widely adopted in high-income countries. But despite these efforts, the bacterium remains a leading cause of blood stream infections and meningitis worldwide, typically affecting babies younger than ...

BETHESDA, MD – Breaking down complex conditions such as Type 2 Diabetes and obesity into the specific metabolic proteins and processes that underlie them offers a new approach to studying the genetics of these diseases and how they are interrelated, according to research presented today at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego. By studying specific proteins that contribute to such conditions – and the genes that encode them – scientists can develop new drugs that directly target the metabolic processes that do ...

Improving household electricity access in India over the last 30 years contributed only marginally to the nation's total carbon emissions growth during that time, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. "Energy access is fundamental to development: it brings improvements to all aspects of life, including education, communication, and health," says IIASA researcher Shonali Pachauri, who conducted the study. While increased energy access is widely agreed to be an important goal for development efforts, such as the UN Sustainable Energy ...

VIDEO: Michael Helmrath, M.D., M.S., surgical director of the Intestinal Rehabilitation Program at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, talks about researchers successfully growing human intestinal tissue in mice. The study describes... Click here for more information. CINCINNATI --Researchers have successfully transplanted "organoids" of functioning human intestinal tissue grown from pluripotent stem cells in a lab dish into mice – creating an unprecedented ...

DNA has garnered attention for its potential as a programmable material platform that could spawn entire new and revolutionary nanodevices in computer science, microscopy, biology, and more. Researchers have been working to master the ability to coax DNA molecules to self assemble into the precise shapes and sizes needed in order to fully realize these nanotechnology dreams. For the last 20 years, scientists have tried to design large DNA crystals with precisely prescribed depth and complex features – a design quest just fulfilled by a team at Harvard's Wyss Institute ...

AMHERST, Mass. ¬– The claim by microbiologist Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst that the microbe Geobacter produces tiny electrical wires, called microbial nanowires, has been mired in controversy for a decade, but the researchers say a new collaborative study provides stronger evidence than ever to support their claims. UMass Amherst physicists working with Lovley and colleagues report in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology that they've used a new imaging technique, electrostatic force microscopy (EFM), to resolve ...

Berlin, 19th October 2014 What's in a name? Doctors have found that the name of the drug you are prescribed significantly influences how the patient sees the treatment. Now in a significant shift, the world's major psychiatry organisations are proposing to completely change the terminology of the drugs used in mental disorders shifting it from symptom based (e.g. antidepressant, antipsychotic etc.) to pharmacologically based (e.g. focusing on pharmacological target (serotonin, dopamine etc.) and the relevant mode of action). This will mean that patient will no longer have ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester hope a major breakthrough could lead to more effective methods for detoxifying dangerous pollutants like PCBs and dioxins. The result is a culmination of 15 years of research and has been published in Nature. It details how certain organisms manage to lower the toxicity of pollutants. The team at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology were investigating how some natural organisms manage to lower the level of toxicity and shorten the life span of several notorious pollutants. Professor David Leys explains the research: ...

Kansas City, MO - While megakaryocytes are best known for producing platelets that heal wounds, these "mega" cells found in bone marrow also play a critical role in regulating stem cells according to new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. In fact, hematopoietic stem cells differentiate to generate megakaryocytes in bone marrow. The Stowers study is the first to show that hematopoietic stem cells (the parent cells) can be directly controlled by their own progeny (megakaryocytes). The findings from the lab Stowers Investigator Linheng Li, Ph.D., described ...

At least 2 percent of people over age 40 and 5 percent of people over 70 have mutations linked to leukemia and lymphoma in their blood cells, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Mutations in the body's cells randomly accumulate as part of the aging process, and most are harmless. For some people, genetic changes in blood cells can develop in genes that play roles in initiating leukemia and lymphoma even though such people don't have the blood cancers, the scientists report Oct. 19 in Nature Medicine. The findings, based ...

CHICAGO – Oct. 19, 2014 – The first tear duct implant developed to treat inflammation and pain following cataract surgery has been shown to be a reliable alternative to medicated eye drops, which are the current standard of care, according to a study presented today at AAO 2014, the 118th annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The device, known as a punctum plug, automatically delivers the correct amount of postoperative medication in patients, potentially solving the issue of poor compliance with self-administering eye drops. After cataract ...

BETHESDA, MD – A child's genetic makeup may contribute to his or her mother's risk of rheumatoid arthritis, possibly explaining why women are at higher risk of developing the disease than men. This research will be presented Tuesday, October 21, at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego. Rheumatoid arthritis, a painful inflammatory condition that primarily affects the joints, has been tied to a variety of genetic and environmental factors, including lifestyle factors and previous infections. Women are three times more likely ...

BETHESDA, MD – Scientists studying birth defects in humans and purebred dogs have identified an association between cleft lip and cleft palate – conditions that occur when the lip and mouth fail to form properly during pregnancy – and a mutation in the ADAMTS20 gene. Their findings were presented today at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego. "These results have potential implications for both human and animal health, by improving our understanding of what causes these birth defects in both species," said Zena ...

Geneva, Switzerland – 19 October 2014: Women are more likely to develop anxiety and depression after a heart attack (myocardial infarction; MI) than men, according to research presented at Acute Cardiovascular Care 2014 by Professor Pranas Serpytis from Lithuania. Acute Cardiovascular Care is the annual meeting of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and takes place 18-20 October in Geneva, Switzerland. Professor Serpytis said: "The World Health Organization predicts that by 2020 depression will be the second ...

BETHESDA, MD – Human geneticists have discovered that a region of the genome associated with autism contains genetic variation that evolved in the last 250,000 years, after the divergence of humans from ancient hominids, and likely plays an important role in disease. Their findings were presented today at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego. Researchers at the University of Washington analyzed the genomes of 2,551 humans, 86 apes, one Neanderthal, and one Denisovan. They closely examined a region of human chromosome 16 ...

Berlin, 19th October 2014 All humans have a natural opioid system in the brain. Now new research, presented at the ECNP Congress in Berlin, has found that the opioid system of pathological gamblers responds differently to those of normal healthy volunteers. The work was carried out by a group of UK researchers from London and Cambridge, and was funded by the Medical Research Council. This work is being presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology congress in Berlin. Gambling is a widespread behaviour with about 70% of the British population gambling occasionally. ...