CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 3, 2013) – In a discovery that sheds new light on the aggressiveness of certain breast cancers, Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a transcription factor, known as ZEB1, that is capable of converting non-aggressive basal-type cancer cells into highly malignant, tumor-forming cancer stem cells (CSCs). Intriguingly, luminal breast cancer cells, which are associated with a much better clinical prognosis, carry this gene in a state in which it seems to be permanently shut down. The researchers, whose findings are published this week ...

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch, and the same may be true of certain proteins in the brain. Studies have suggested that just one rogue protein (in this case, a protein that is misfolded or shaped the wrong way) can act as a seed, leading to the misfolding of nearby proteins. According to an NIH-funded study, various forms of these seeds — originating from the same protein — may lead to different patterns of misfolding that result in neurological disorders with unique sets of symptoms. "This study has important implications for Parkinson's disease and other ...

Tweezers are a handy instrument when it comes to removing a splinter or plucking an eyebrow. In new research, Hao Yan and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute describe a pair of tweezers shrunk down to an astonishingly tiny scale. When the jaws of these tools are in the open position, the distance between the two arms is about 16 nanometers—over 30,000 times smaller than a single grain of sand. The group demonstrated that the nanotweezers, fabricated by means of the base-pairing properties of DNA, could be used to keep biological molecules ...

Lugano-Barcelona, 3 July 2013 -- For patients with advanced gastric cancer, treatment with chemotherapy after surgery can reduce the risk of cancer related death by 34% over five years compared to surgery alone, researchers said at the 15th ESMO World Congress in Gastrointestinal Cancer. At the meeting Prof Sung Hoon Noh, a gastric surgeon from Yonsei University College of Medicine, Korea, presented 5-year follow-up from the phase III CLASSIC trial, which added combination chemotherapy to a standard surgical procedure called D2 gastrectomy. The chemotherapy regimen studied ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 3, 2013) – Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that the transcription factor Nanog, which plays a critical role in the self-renewal of embryonic stem cells, is expressed in a manner similar to other pluripotency markers. This finding contradicts the field's presumptions about this important gene and its role in the differentiation of embryonic stem cells. A large body of research has reported that Nanog is allelically regulated—that is, only one copy of the gene is expressed at any given time—and fluctuations in its expression are responsible ...

BOSTON -- A mere 25 years ago, noncoding RNAs were considered nothing more than "background noise" in the overall genomic landscape. Now, two new studies reveal that one of these tiny noncoding molecules – microRNA-22 – plays an outsized role in two types of cancer. Reported on-line today in the journals Cell and Cell Stem Cell, the two papers demonstrate in mouse models that miR-22 drives both the onset and spread of breast cancer, as well as the onset of blood cancer. The findings, led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), further suggest ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (July 3, 2013)—Women with HIV are living longer, so more are entering menopause. As they do, they suffer more severe hot flashes than women without HIV, and their hot flashes take a heavier toll on their quality of life and daily functioning, found researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital. Their study was published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society. That toll has the potential to undermine an already shaky foundation for their lives, compromising their health, HIV treatment, and ability to abstain from ...

Lugano-Barcelona-- New data on an emerging treatment that aims to fight colorectal cancer by stimulating the immune system have been presented at the ESMO 15th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer. The findings confirm the biological action of the drug called MGN1703 and suggest it may be possible to identify which gastrointestinal cancer patients will benefit most from the treatment, reported Prof Hans-Joachim Schmoll from Martin Luther University, Halle, Germany. MGN1703 is a small DNA molecule recognised by a receptor --called toll-like receptor 9-- that is ...

Millions more people could get access to life-saving HIV drug therapy, following a landmark study led by Australian researchers based at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). The researchers have found a lower daily dose of an important HIV drug therapy is safe and as effective in suppressing the virus as the standard recommended dose. The findings have been presented at the International AIDS Society Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "This has the potential to affect the treatment of millions of HIV positive people," says UNSW Professor ...

New research shows that existing copper resources can sustain increasing world-wide demand for at least a century, meaning social and environmental concerns could be the most important restrictions on future copper production. Researchers from Monash University have conducted the most systematic and robust compilation and analysis of worldwide copper resources to date. Contrary to predictions estimating that supplies of this important metal would run out in around 30 years, the research has found there are plenty of resources within the reach of current technologies. ...

Jena (Germany) Spain, France and Great Britain – these are the favourite countries of young Germans who study abroad under the ERASMUS programme. More and more German students consider one or two terms at a university abroad an essential part of their CVs. As a consequence, the number of students who spent some time at a foreign university has more than doubled over the last few years and it is estimated that about a quarter of all German students have gained some form of international experiences. And that is worth it – not only in terms of university and career success. ...

According to the new research results of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, lignocellulosic biomass can be used in the production of high-quality biofuels for the price of less than one euro per litre. A new technology developed in Finland allows the transfer of more than half the energy of wood raw materials to the end-product. The technology is considered ready for the construction of a commercial-scale production plant in Europe. VTT has assessed the techno-economics of the production of renewable liquid transportation fuels from forest residues. The case ...

The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) has released updated recommendations for the management of RA. According to this latest guidance, treatment with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) should be initiated as soon as a diagnosis of RA is made, with the aim of reaching a target of remission or low disease activity in every patient. As first-line treatment, EULAR recommends rheumatologists administer methotrexate (MTX) or combination therapy of MTX with other conventional synthetic DMARDs. Low-dose glucocorticoids should also be considered in combination ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that young people who show impulsive tendencies are more prone to drinking heavily at an early age. The research suggests that targeting personality traits, such as impulsivity, could potentially be a successful intervention in preventing adolescent drinking from developing into problems with alcohol in later life. Studies in the UK show that approximately 24% of 12 year olds have reported at least one episode of alcohol consumption, rising to 77% of 15 year olds. Previous research has suggested that impulsive ...

Amsterdam, July 3, 2013 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a recent retrospective study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online to better understand treatment considerations and outcomes for same-sex male couples and single men when using assisted reproduction treatment. The number of same-sex male couples and single men using assisted reproduction assistance to have a family has been increasing over time (since 2003 a 21-fold increase has been reported). However, there ...

Exercise, even in small doses, changes the expression of our innate DNA. New research from Lund University in Sweden has described for the first time what happens on an epigenetic level in fat cells when we undertake physical activity. "Our study shows the positive effects of exercise, because the epigenetic pattern of genes that affect fat storage in the body changes", says Charlotte Ling, Associate Professor at Lund University Diabetes Centre. The cells of the body contain DNA, which contains genes. We inherit our genes and they cannot be changed. The genes, however, ...

Working in a team is not always easy, and achieving our aims often turns out to be much harder than we thought it would be. What can we do to increase our chances of gaining ultimate success? A new study from Aarhus University's transdisciplinary Interacting Minds Centre (IMC) provides insight into how to improve productivity when members of a group share a clearly identifiable goal. "Our study focused on how to improve levels of cooperation. What we found was that when people know exactly what they're supposed to be doing as members of a team, they are more willing ...

WASHINGTON D.C., June 28, 2013 -- A new method for creating thin films of diamonds, which is described in the journal Applied Physics Letters, produced by AIP Publishing, may allow manufacturers to enhance future electronics. In industrial and high-tech settings, diamonds are particularly valued for their hardness, optical clarity, smoothness, and resistance to chemicals, radiation and electrical fields. For electronics applications, researchers "dope" diamonds in order to make them conductive, introducing the semiconductor boron into the diamond manufacturing process. ...

Subjectivity is problematic when evaluating fingerprints, and quality is in the eye of the examiner. But three computer programs used together can give fingerprint grading unprecedented consistency and objectivity, according to Penn State researchers. "People leave behind all kinds of fingerprints, and the job of a forensic examiner is then to look at a fingerprint and identify a person who could have left it," said Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Penn State. "Various scenarios can be envisioned where a fingerprint ...

Two Brazilian physicists have now devised a method to automatically elucidate the meaning of words with several senses, based solely on their patterns of connectivity with nearby words in a given sentence – and not on semantics. Thiago Silva and Diego Amancio from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, reveal, in a paper about to be published in EPJ B, how they modelled classics texts as complex networks in order to derive their meaning. This type of model plays a key role in several natural processing language tasks such as machine translation, information retrieval, content ...

(Boston)--Despite it being more than 30 years since the "fountain of youth drug" Gerovital H3 was banned in the United States, it may be making a comeback. In an editorial published in this month's Journal of the American Geriatrics Society BUSM researcher Thomas Perls, MD, points out that a few U.S.-based anti-aging and longevity clinics have begun to advertise Gerovital H3 in pill form and as intravenous infusions despite the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned it in 1982. Gerovital H3 is the dental anesthetic procaine hydrochloride (novocaine), ...

The wasp family Platygastridae is a large group of tiny, exclusively parasitoid wasps distributed worldwide. The genera Odontacolus and Cyphacolus, belonging to this family, are among the most distinctive wasps because of the peculiar hump-like formation on the rear part of their bodies. Despite their intriguing body shape, the generic status of these two groups has remained unclear. A new extensive study published in the open access Zookeys presents a morphological phylogenetic analysis including an astonishing 32 new species. The peculiar shape of the so called horn ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Using a unique data set spanning 40 years of dengue fever incidence in Thailand, an international team led by biostatistician Nicholas Reich at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has for the first time estimated from data that after an initial dengue infection, a person is protected from infection with other strains for between one and three years. Their results have implications for designing more effective vaccine studies, say Reich and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Michigan and the Armed ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Some blue whales off the coast of California change their behavior when exposed to the sort of underwater sounds used during U.S. military exercises. The whales may alter diving behavior or temporarily avoid important feeding areas, according to new research. The Southern California Behavioral Response Study exposed tagged blue whales in the California Bight to simulated mid-frequency (3.5-4 kHz) sonar sounds significantly less intense than the military uses. "Whales clearly respond in some conditions by modifying diving behavior and temporarily avoiding ...

This news release is available in German. Malignant tumours often spread to remote areas of the body. In the majority of cases, metastases formation develops via the blood vascular system. The blood platelets thereby provide invaluable help to the tumour cells in penetrating new organs. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have identified the P2Y2 receptor molecule on the cells of the blood platelet wall as the gateway that allows the cancer cells to enter the organs. They now aim to prevent the formation of metastases ...