Cambridge, MA—Harvard scientists have merged stem cell and 'organ-on-a-chip' technologies to grow, for the first time, functioning human heart tissue carrying an inherited cardiovascular disease. The research appears to be a big step forward for personalized medicine, as it is working proof that a chunk of tissue containing a patient's specific genetic disorder can be replicated in the laboratory. The work, published in Nature Medicine, is the result of a collaborative effort bringing together scientists from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the Wyss Institute for Biologically ...

VIDEO: Dr. Nerlie Abram, from the Australian National University, explains why ocean winds have stopped Antarctica from warming as much as other continents. Her research also explains droughts in Southern Australia. Click here for more information. New Australian National University-led research has explained why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts. Researchers have found rising levels of carbon dioxide ...

The breakthrough, published in the journal Nature Materials, could offer an easier way of detecting pathogenic bacteria outside of a clinical setting and could be particularly important for the developing world, where access to more sophisticated laboratory techniques is often limited. The research was led by Professor Cameron Alexander, Head of the Division of Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering and EPSRC Leadership Fellow in the University's School of Pharmacy, building on work by PhD student Peter Magennis. Professor Alexander said: "Essentially, we have hijacked ...

Athens, Ga. – The 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout discharged roughly five million gallons of oil and up to 500,000 tons of natural gas into Gulf of Mexico offshore waters over a period of 84 days. In the face of a seemingly insurmountable cleanup effort, many were relieved by reports following the disaster that naturally-occurring microbes had consumed much of the gas and oil. Now, a team of researchers led by University of Georgia marine scientists have published a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience that questions this conclusion and provides evidence that microbes ...

Our bodies produce a family of proteins that recognize and kill bacteria whose carbohydrate coatings resemble those of our own cells too closely, scientists have discovered. Called galectins, these proteins recognize carbohydrates from a broad range of disease-causing bacteria, and could potentially be deployed as antibiotics to treat certain infections. The results are scheduled for publication in Nature Chemical Biology. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine made the discovery with the aid of glass slides coated with an array of over 300 different glycans ...

A new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City has found that atrial fibrillation patients who are on blood thinning medications are at higher risk of developing dementia if their doses are not in the optimal recommended range. The study of more than 2,600 AFib patients found they are significantly more likely to develop dementia when using medicines to prevent blood clots, such as warfarin, when their dosing is too high or too low for an extended period of time. Findings from the study will be presented at the 2014 ...

Research from North Carolina State University shows that blueberries produce more seeds and larger berries if they are visited by more diverse bee species, allowing farmers to harvest significantly more pounds of fruit per acre. "We wanted to understand the functional role of diversity," says Dr. Hannah Burrack, an associate professor of entomology at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. "And we found that there is a quantifiable benefit of having a lot of different types of bees pollinating a crop." The researchers looked at blueberries in North Carolina ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 9, 2014) – Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a genetic cause of a facial disorder known as hemifacial microsomia (HFM). The researchers find that duplication of the gene OTX2 induces HFM, the second-most common facial anomaly after cleft lip and palate. HFM affects approximately one in 3,500 births. While some cases appear to run in families, no gene had been found to be causative. That is until Whitehead Fellow Yaniv Erlich and his lab set out to do just that. Their work is described in this week's issue of the journal PLOS ONE. Patients ...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – May 6, 2014 – For over 30 years, aspirin has been known to prevent heart attacks and strokes, but who exactly should take a daily aspirin remains unclear. New research published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes shows that your coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, a measurement of plaque in the arteries that feed the heart, may help determine whether or not you are a good candidate for aspirin. "Many heart attacks and strokes occur in individuals who do not appear to be at high risk," states lead author, Michael D Miedema, MD, ...

VIDEO: The TRMM satellite flew above tornado spawning thunderstorms in the southern United States on May 9, 2014 at 0115 UTC. This simulated 3-D TRMM animation shows the location of intense... Click here for more information. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite captured rainfall and cloud height information about the powerful thunderstorms and severe weather that affected the Great Plains over May 8 and 9. Severe weather extended from Minnesota to southern ...

TORONTO – A new drug approach has been developed for safer clean-up of deformed blood vessels in the eye by a research team at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. The growth of malformed blood vessels that can burst is a leading cause of vision loss in North America. Retinopathy and retina degeneration are associated with premature birth, with diabetes, and with increasing age. Research just published by Dr. Andras Nagy and co-authors shows both safety and effectiveness in their bioengineered compound when treating retinopathy ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have discovered a fossil of a newly discovered organism from the "Ediacara Biota" — a group of organisms that occurred in the Ediacaran period of geologic time. Named Plexus ricei and resembling a curving tube, the organism resided on the Ediacaran seafloor. Plexus ricei individuals ranged in size from 5 to 80 centimeters long and 5 to 20 millimeters wide. Along with the rest of the Ediacara Biota, it evolved around 575 million years ago and disappeared from the fossil record around 540 million ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 9, 2014) St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists studying two rare, inherited childhood neurodegenerative disorders have identified a new, possibly common source of DNA damage that may play a role in other neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and aging. The findings appear in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience. Researchers showed for the first time that an enzyme required for normal DNA functioning causes DNA damage in the developing brain. DNA is the molecule found in nearly every cell that carries the instructions ...

Scientists showed that people who have a variant of a longevity gene, called KLOTHO, have improved brain skills such as thinking, learning and memory regardless of their age, sex, or whether they have a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Increasing KLOTHO gene levels in mice made them smarter, possibly by increasing the strength of connections between nerve cells in the brain. The study was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health. "This could be a major step toward helping millions around the world who are suffering from Alzheimer's disease and ...

BELMONT - In a paper published in the latest issue of the neuroscience journal Neuron, McLean Hospital investigators report that a gene essential for normal brain development, and previously linked to Autism Spectrum Disorders, also plays a critical role in addiction-related behaviors. "In our lab, we investigate the brain mechanisms behind drug addiction – a common and devastating disease with limited treatment options," explained Christopher Cowan, PhD, director of the Integrated Neurobiology Laboratory at McLean and an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical ...

A few minutes spent filling out a widely accepted mental health assessment in a health care provider's waiting room could make a big difference for some teenagers suffering from depression, according to new study from a nursing researcher at The University of Texas at Arlington. Sharolyn Dihigo, a nurse practitioner and clinical assistant professor in the UT Arlington College of Nursing, recently examined available research to determine whether nurse practitioners and others in primary care settings should add a mental health screening to well visits for teenage patients. ...

The ability to create conducting polymer films in a variety of shapes, thicknesses and surface properties rapidly and inexpensively will make growing and testing cells easier and more flexible, according to a team of Penn State bioengineers. "The ultimate goal of this collaborative project is to be able to create a substrate for growth and manipulation of cells," said Sheereen Majd, assistant professor of bioengineering. "Cells on a surface need to recognize biomolecules like extracellular matrix proteins to be able to adhere and grow. We ultimately would like to be able ...

Fresno, CA – New research presented last week at the Experimental Biology conference in San Diego, California, suggests that regular grape consumption may help alleviate pain associated with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee, and improve joint flexibility and overall mobility. Researchers attribute these potential benefits to the polyphenols found in grapes. The sixteen week clinical study, undertaken by Texas Woman's University, was designed to investigate the benefits of grape consumption on inflammation and osteoarthritis outcomes. 72 men and women with knee ...

Boston, MA – Calcium supplements are widely taken by women for bone health. Previous studies have suggested that calcium supplements may increase risk of cardiovascular disease, but the data has been inconsistent. A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) did not find that calcium supplement intake increases risk of cardiovascular disease in women. The study is published online this month in Osteoporosis International. Researchers examined supplemental calcium use and incident cardiovascular disease in a prospective cohort study of 74,245 women ...

ST. LOUIS – Air and surface sampling techniques currently used by the US government are effective in fighting bioterrorism and potentially saving lives, a Saint Louis University researcher finds. Results published in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism by Alexander Garza, M.D., MPH, former chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security and a team of researchers from Los Alamos National Lab reviewed the data from a series of experiments simulating a bioterrorism attack against the Pentagon. Garza is now the associate dean for public health practice and associate ...

Scientists from the University of the Philippines, Los Baños have discovered a new plant species with an unusual lifestyle — it eats nickel for a living — accumulating up to 18,000 ppm of the metal in its leaves without itself being poisoned, says Professor Edwino Fernando, lead author of the report. Such an amount is a hundred to a thousand times higher than in most other plants. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The new species is called Rinorea niccolifera, reflecting its ability to absorb nickel in very high amounts. Nickel hyperaccumulation ...

UPTON, NY-Plant scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have found that certain enzymes responsible for desaturating fatty acids, the building blocks of oils, can link up to efficiently pass intermediate products from one enzyme to another. "Engineering these enzyme interactions to channel metabolites along desired metabolic pathways could be a new approach for tailoring plants to produce useful products," said Brookhaven biochemist John Shanklin, lead author on a paper reporting the results in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Getting ...

Vivek Reddy, MD, Director of Arrhythmia Services for The Mount Sinai Hospital, reported his promising12-month follow-up data showing the world's first leadless pacemaker is demonstrating overall device performance comparable to conventional pacemakers. Dr. Reddy presented the one-year LEADLESS study data findings during his late-breaking clinical trial presentation on May 9 at Heart Rhythm 2014, the Heart Rhythm Society's 35th Annual Scientific Sessions in San Francisco, CA. The LEADLESS study's long-term follow-up has evaluated 32 patients with a slowed heartbeat, bradycardia, ...

Researchers at Dartmouth's Norris Cotton Cancer Center have published results from a study in Cell Reports that discovers a new mechanism that distinguishes normal blood stem cells from blood cancers. "These findings constitute a significant advance toward the goal of killing leukemia cells without harming the body's normal blood stem cells which are often damaged by chemotherapy," said Patricia Ernst, PhD, co-director of the Cancer Mechanisms Program of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and an associate professor in Genetics at the Geisel School of Medicine. The study ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have identified the mechanism by which an enzyme produced in the intestinal lining helps to maintain a healthy population of gastrointestinal microbes. In their report in American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, the research team describes finding that intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP) promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria by blocking the growth-inhibiting action of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – an action first described in this paper – within the intestine. "We found that ATP ...