A large international study analyzing genes in tens of thousands of individuals has discovered 11 new genetic signals associated with blood pressure levels. Ten of those signals are in or very near genes encoding proteins that appear to be likely targets for drugs already in existence or in development. "The fact that most of these new gene signals are 'druggable' targets offers the possibility of expedited pharmaceutical development of therapeutics for high blood pressure, a serious risk factor for cardiovascular diseases," said geneticist Brendan J. Keating, D. Phil., ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—February 20, 2014—The power of regenerative medicine appears to have turned science fiction into scientific reality—by allowing scientists to transform skin cells into cells that closely resemble beating heart cells. However, the methods required are complex, and the transformation is often incomplete. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have devised a new method that allows for the more efficient—and, importantly, more complete—reprogramming of skin cells into cells that are virtually indistinguishable from heart muscle cells. These findings, ...

JUPITER, FL, February 20, 2014 – The use of antibiotics is often considered among the most important advances in the treatment of human disease. Unfortunately, though, bacteria are finding ways to make a comeback. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than two million people come down with antibiotic-resistant infections annually, and at least 23,000 die because their treatment can't stop the infection. In addition, the pipeline for new antibiotics has grown dangerously thin. Now, a new study by scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research ...

ANN ARBOR—An ancient chemical, present for billions of years, appears to have helped proteins function properly since time immemorial. Proteins are the body's workhorses, and like horses they often work in teams. There exists a modern day team of multiple chaperone proteins that help other proteins fold into the complex 3D shapes they must achieve to function. This is necessary to avert many serious diseases caused when proteins misbehave. But what happened before this team of chaperones was formed? How did the primordial cells that were the ancestors of modern life ...

New research from Queen Mary University of London has discovered 11 new DNA sequence variants in genes influencing high blood pressure and heart disease. Identifying the new genes contributes to our growing understanding of the biology of blood pressure and, researchers believe, will eventually influence the development of new treatments. More immediately the study highlights opportunities to investigate the use of existing drugs for cardiovascular diseases. The large international study, published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, examined the DNA ...

In the battle against infection, immune cells are the body's offense and defense—some cells go on the attack while others block invading pathogens. It has long been known that a population of blood stem cells that resides in the bone marrow generates all of these immune cells. But most scientists have believed that blood stem cells participate in battles against infection in a delayed way, replenishing immune cells on the front line only after they become depleted. Now, using a novel microfluidic technique, researchers at Caltech have shown that these stem cells might ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Congenital heart disease is the most common form of birth defect, affecting one out of every 125 babies, according to the National Institutes of Health. Researchers from the University of Missouri recently found success using a drug to treat laboratory mice with one form of congenital heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — a weakening of the heart caused by abnormally thick muscle. By suppressing a faulty protein, the researchers reduced the thickness of the mice's heart muscles and improved their cardiac functioning. Maike Krenz, M.D., has been ...

A study co-published in Nature Medicine this week by University of Toronto researcher Penney Gilbert has determined a stem cell based method for restoring strength to damaged skeletal muscles of the elderly. Skeletal muscles are some of the most important muscles in the body, supporting functions such as sitting, standing, blinking and swallowing. In aging individuals, the function of these muscles significantly decreases. "You lose fifteen percent of muscle mass every single year after the age of 75, a trend that is irreversible," cites Gilbert, Assistant Professor ...

In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, MIT researchers propose an experiment that may close the last major loophole of Bell's inequality — a 50-year-old theorem that, if violated by experiments, would mean that our universe is based not on the textbook laws of classical physics, but on the less-tangible probabilities of quantum mechanics. Such a quantum view would allow for seemingly counterintuitive phenomena such as entanglement, in which the measurement of one particle instantly affects another, even if those entangled particles are ...

A new study by a Wits University scientist has overturned a long-standing hypothesis about plant speciation (the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution), suggesting that agricultural crops could be more vulnerable to climate change than was previously thought. Unlike humans and most other animals, plants can tolerate multiple copies of their genes – in fact some plants, called polyploids, can have more than 50 duplicates of their genomes in every cell. Scientists used to think that these extra genomes helped polyploids survive in new and extreme ...

To remain healthy, the body's cells must properly manage their waste recycling centers. Problems with these compartments, known as lysosomes, lead to a number of debilitating and sometimes lethal conditions. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified an unusual cause of the lysosomal storage disorder called mucolipidosis III, at least in a subset of patients. This rare disorder causes skeletal and heart abnormalities and can result in a shortened lifespan. ...

Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is finally unearthing some of the ancient mysteries behind leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, which has plagued mankind throughout history. The new research findings appear in the current edition of journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. According to this new hypothesis, the disease might be the oldest human-specific infection, with roots that likely stem back millions of years. There are hundreds of thousands of new cases of leprosy worldwide each year, but the disease is rare in the United States, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Engineers at Oregon State University have developed a new approach toward "sustainable manufacturing" that begins on the factory floor and tries to encompass the totality of manufacturing issues – including economic, environmental, and social impacts. This approach, they say, builds on previous approaches that considered various facets of sustainability in a more individual manner. Past methods often worked backward from a finished product and rarely incorporated the complexity of human social concerns. The findings have been published in the Journal ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new high-accuracy calibration of the LUX (Large Underground Xenon) dark matter detector demonstrates the experiment's sensitivity to ultra-low energy events. The new analysis strongly confirms the result that low-mass dark matter particles were a no-show during the detector's initial run, which concluded last summer. The first dark matter search results from LUX detector were announced last October. The detector proved to be exquisitely sensitive, but found no evidence of the dark matter particles during its first 90-day run, ruling ...

URBANA, Ill. – While researching methods to increase the already well-recognized anti-cancer properties of broccoli, researchers at the University of Illinois also found a way to prolong the vegetable's shelf life. And, according to the recently published study, the method is a natural and inexpensive way to produce broccoli that has even more health benefits and won't spoil so quickly on your refrigerator shelf. Jack Juvik, a U of I crop sciences researcher, explained that the combined application of two compounds, both are natural products extracted from plants, increased ...

URBANA, Ill. – Just as with people, feline obesity is most often linked to excessive food intake or not enough physical activity. Attempts to cut back on calories alone often result in failed weight loss or weight regain in both people and their pets. So how do you encourage your cat to get more exercise? Researchers from the University of Illinois interested in finding a method to maintain healthy body weight in cats, looked at a previously suggested claim that increased meal frequency could help to increase overall physical activity. The idea is to feed cats the ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (February 20, 2014) - Abnormal color vision increases significantly with aging—affecting one-half or more of people in the oldest age groups, reports a study in Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. While few people younger than 70 have problems with color vision, the rate increases rapidly through later decades of life, according to the new research by Marilyn E. Schneck, PhD, and colleagues of The Smith-Kettlewell ...

Plant growth is orchestrated by a spectrum of signals from hormones within a plant. A major group of plant hormones called cytokinins originate in the roots of plants, and their journey to growth areas on the stem and in leaves stimulates plant development. Though these phytohormones have been identified in the past, the molecular mechanism responsible for their transportation within plants was previously poorly understood. Now, a new study from a research team led by biochemist Chang-Jun Liu at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory identifies ...

The next time you want to turn down the emotional intensity before making an important decision, you may want to dim the lights first. A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough shows that human emotion, whether positive or negative, is felt more intensely under bright light. Alison Jing Xu, assistant professor of management at UTSC and the Rotman School of Management, along with Aparna Labroo of Northwestern University, conducted a series of studies to examine the unusual paradox of lighting and human emotion. "Other evidence shows that on sunny days people ...

People with late-stage cancer at the back of the mouth or throat that recurs after chemotherapy and radiation treatment are twice as likely to be alive two years later if their cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), new research led by a Johns Hopkins scientist suggests. Previous studies have found that people with so-called HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers are more likely to survive than those whose cancers are related to smoking or whose origins are unknown. The new study, scheduled to be presented Feb. 20 at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Patients who received daily humidification of the mouth and throat region beginning from day one of radiation therapy treatment spent nearly 50 percent fewer days in the hospital to manage their side effects, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The study was conducted by the Trans Tasman Radiation Oncology Group and evaluated 210 head and neck cancer patients in New Zealand and Australia from June 2007 through June 2011. Patients in this Phase III trial were randomized ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—A retrospective analysis of oropharyngeal patients with recurrence of disease after primary therapy in the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) studies 0129 or 0522 found that HPV-positive patients had a higher overall survival (OS) rate than HPV-negative patients (at two years post-treatment, 54.6 percent vs. 27.6 percent, respectively), according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The analysis included 181 patients with stage III-IV oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Patients with HPV-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx (SCCOP) had a longer time to development of distant metastasis (DM) after initial treatment, and had more metastatic sites in more atypical locations compared to HPV-negative patients, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. Culled from records of an IRB-approved registry, the study reviewed 285 patients with stage III-IV SCCOP (originally thought to be a smoking-related head and neck cancer) treated with ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Avoiding the contralateral submandibular gland during radiation therapy is feasible and safe with advanced stage, node positive head and neck cancers and base of tongue lesions, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of 71 patients from two facilities—the University of Colorado Cancer Center and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The median patient age was 55, and about 50 percent of the patients were current or former ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Oropharyngeal cancer patients treated with combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy reported a decrease in their voice and speech quality (VSQ) for up to one year after the completion of treatment, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The study further shows that limiting the dose of radiation to the glottic larynx (GL) to less than 20 Gy resulted in a decrease in post-treatment VSQ problems, and that patient-reported VSQ indicated more adverse effects from treatment compared ...