New research at the University of Chicago is laying the groundwork for touch-sensitive prosthetic limbs that one day could convey real-time sensory information to amputees via a direct interface with the brain. The research, published early online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marks an important step toward new technology that, if implemented successfully, would increase the dexterity and clinical viability of robotic prosthetic limbs. "To restore sensory motor function of an arm, you not only have to replace the motor signals that the brain ...

AURORA, Colo. (Oct. 11, 2013) Researchers at the University of Colorado have new insight into the age-old question of why maximum heart rate (maxHR) decreases with age. This decrease in maxHR not only limits the performance of aging athletes but it is also a leading cause for nursing home admittance for otherwise-healthy elderly individuals who no longer have the physical capacity required for independent living. We say we're just getting old and slowing down, but exactly what is it that is slowing down? Everybody knows that aerobic capacity decreases with age. You ...

MADISON, Wis. – Faced with news of suicides and brain damage in former professional football players, geneticist Barry Ganetzky bemoaned the lack of model systems for studying the insidious and often delayed consequences linked to head injuries. Then he remembered an unexplored observation from nearly 40 years ago: a sharp strike to a vial of fruit flies left them temporarily stunned, only to recover a short time later. At the time he had marked it only as a curiosity. Now a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Ganetzky is turning his accidental ...

PHILADELPHIA — An optical imaging technique that measures metabolic activity in cancer cells can accurately differentiate breast cancer subtypes, and it can detect responses to treatment as early as two days after therapy administration, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "The process of targeted drug development requires assays that measure drug target engagement and predict the response (or lack thereof) to treatment," said Alex Walsh, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering ...

Researchers in Norway found that negative affectivity is linked to light alcohol use and binge drinking during pregnancy. Results published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, a journal of the Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology, show 16% of women had light alcohol use in the first trimester and 10% in the second trimester. Binge drinking occurred in 12% of women during their first trimester and 0.5% in the second trimester. Experts describe negative affectivity as the tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety and ...

NEW YORK – OCTOBER 15, 2013 – A new randomized controlled trial conducted by Baylor College of Medicine researchers and published today as an Article in Press in The American Journal of Medicine finds that overweight and obese adults following a community-based weight loss intervention, namely Weight Watchers, lost significantly more weight than those who tried to lose weight on their own (10.1 lbs. vs. 1.3 lbs. at six months). Those in the Weight Watchers group were provided with three access routes – group meetings, mobile applications, and online tools – and further ...

Neurons that process sensory information such as touch and vision are arranged in precise, well-characterized maps that are crucial for translating perception into understanding. A study published by Cell Press on October 14 in the journal Developmental Cell reveals that the actual act of birth in mice causes a reduction in a brain chemical called serotonin in the newborn mice, triggering sensory maps to form. The findings shed light on the key role of a dramatic environmental event in the development of neural circuits and reveal that birth itself is one of the triggers ...

New research on the reproductive habits of zebrafish offers an explanation as to why some animals' bodies repair tissues. The research team previously noticed that male zebrafish regenerate their pectoral fins poorly, as compared to females. Their latest findings, publishing in the October 14 issue of the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell, reveal the basis for this sex-specific regenerative deficiency: structures that are used to improve reproductive success. The scenario represents an example of the tradeoffs between reproduction and survival. Led by first author ...

AURORA, Colo. (Oct. 14, 2013) -- A new study explores why girls in minority groups and low-income families, who are most at risk for cervical cancer, may not be getting the human papillomavirus or HPV vaccine. Researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children's Hospital Colorado interviewed 41 low-income parents of girls ages 12-15 to determine why they didn't get the vaccine or finish the course, and included both English speakers and Spanish speakers in the study. English-speaking parents expressed concerns over the need and safety of the ...

WORCESTER, MA – Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have shown that diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) may be susceptible to treatment by re-activating the normal aging program in tumor cells so they can no longer divide. The study, published in Nature Communications, details a novel, tumor-suppressive role for the Smurf2 protein—which typically plays an "enforcer" role in cellular aging, also called senescence —in a subset of DLBCL. Identification of this novel function for Smurf2 provides a new therapeutic target for treating this cancer. ...

New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) suggests that lifestyle advice for people with diabetes should be no different from that for the general public, although those with diabetes may benefit more from that same advice. The research is by Dr Diewertje Sluik, Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany, and colleagues. In this new study, the researchers investigated whether the associations between lifestyle factors and mortality risk differ ...

WASHINGTON — An international research team led by scientists from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center has discovered a genetic mutation linked to low-risk bladder cancer. Their findings are reported online today in Nature Genetics. The investigators identified STAG2 as one of the most commonly mutated genes in bladder cancer, particularly in tumors that do not spread. The finding suggests that checking the status of the gene may help identify patients who might do unusually well following cancer treatment, says the study's senior investigator, cancer geneticist ...

SEATTLE – An international consortium co-led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia has identified four genetic variants associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer and its precursor, a condition called Barrett's esophagus. The findings, by corresponding author Thomas L. Vaughan, M.D., M.P.H., a member of the Epidemiology Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch, are published online ahead of the December print issue of Nature Genetics. Vaughan co-led the project ...

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a massive online database that matches thousands of genes linked to cancer and other diseases with drugs that target those genes. Some of the drugs are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while others are in clinical trials or just entering the drug development pipeline. The database was developed by identical twin brothers, Obi Griffith, PhD, and Malachi Griffith, PhD, whose interest in pairing drugs with genes is as much personal as it is scientific. Their mother died of ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new way to parse and understand how special proteins called "master regulators" read the genome, and consequently turn genes on and off. Writing in the October 13, 2013 Advance Online Publication of Nature, the scientists say their approach could make it quicker and easier to identify specific gene mutations associated with increased disease risk – an essential step toward developing future targeted treatments, preventions and cures for conditions ranging from diabetes to neurodegenerative ...

Hamilton, ON (Oct. 13, 2013) -- Researchers at McMaster University are addressing the crisis in drug resistance with a novel approach to find new antibiotics. "We have developed technology to find new antibiotics using laboratory conditions that mimic those of infection in the human body," said Eric Brown, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences. He is the lead author of the paper published in the online edition of Nature Chemical Biology today. Brown is also a member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR). The ...

Bladder cancer represents a serious public health problem in many countries, especially in Spain, where 11,200 new cases are recorded every year, one of the highest rates in the world. The majority of these tumours have a good prognosis -- 70-80% five-year survival after diagnosis -- and they do not infiltrate the bladder muscle at the time of diagnosis -- in around 80% of cases. Despite this, many of the tumours recur, requiring periodic cytoscopic tumour surveillance. This type of follow-up affects patients' quality of life, at the same time as incurring significant ...

Overweight adolescents were twice as likely as their normal weight peers to later develop esophageal cancer in a recent study from Israel. The study, which is published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, also found that lower socioeconomic status as well as immigration from higher risk countries were important determinants of gastric cancer. Zohar Levi, MD, MHA, of the Rabin Medical Center in Israel, and his colleagues measured body mass index in one million Israeli adolescent males who underwent a general health examination ...

Researchers from UCL have found that children with irregular bedtimes are more likely to have behavioural difficulties. The study, which is published in the journal Pediatrics, found that irregular bedtimes could disrupt natural body rhythms and cause sleep deprivation, undermining brain maturation and the ability to regulate certain behaviours. Professor Yvonne Kelly (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health), said: "Not having fixed bedtimes, accompanied by a constant sense of flux, induces a state of body and mind akin to jet lag and this matters for healthy development ...

Children who undergo transplants of solid organs have a high risk of developing advanced kidney disease, according to a new national study. Among these children, the highest risk is in those receiving lung or intestinal transplants, followed by heart and then liver transplants. The researchers say their findings reinforce the importance of continued screening of kidney function in pediatric transplant recipients. "We found that the risk patterns for kidney disease are different among patients who receive solid-organ transplants as children, compared to adult transplant ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have succeeded in making flattened, football-shaped artificial particles that impersonate immune cells. These football-shaped particles seem to be better than the typical basketball-shaped particles at teaching immune cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells in mice. "The shape of the particles really seems to matter because the stretched, ellipsoidal particles we made performed much better than spherical ones in activating the immune system and reducing the animals' tumors," according to Jordan Green, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical ...

An important step in building ribosomes – the cell's protein factories – is like a strictly choreographed dance, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have discovered. To build these factories, other 'machines' inside the cell have to produce specific RNA molecules and fold them into the right shape, then combine the folded RNA with proteins to form a working ribosome. Like a budding origami artist pencilling in the folds, the cell uses tags called methyl groups to help mark where and how an RNA molecule should be folded. ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Madrid, Spain – 13 October 2013: Psychological interventions halve deaths and cardiovascular events in heart disease patients, according to research from Athens, Greece, presented at the Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013. The Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 is the annual meeting of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). It takes place 12-14 October in Madrid, Spain. Dr Zoi Aggelopoulou, a nurse and one of the study authors, said: "The nurses on our coronary ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Madrid, Spain – 12 October 2013: System delay in treating patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) postpones their return to work and increases early retirement, according to research presented at the Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 by Kristina Laut, PhD student from Aarhus, Denmark. The Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 is the annual meeting of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and is held 12-14 October in Madrid, Spain. Ms Laut said: "System ...

Drug abuse and alcohol are some of the most frequent causes of liver damage, particularly in developed countries. Such kind of liver damage can cause irreversible liver failure and even cancer. Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have discovered an important new protective role of the Fra-1 protein, which neutralizes the damage caused by agents, such as the analgesic drug acetaminophen (Paracetamol). This is the first study to reveal a function of Fra-1 in protecting this important organ. The study is published today in the journal Hepatology. The ...