Most information about the cause of Alzheimer's disease is based on studies from animal models. Now, a study published by Cell Press on April 25th in the journal Cell examines the brain tissue of deceased human patients and sheds light on dysfunctions in molecular networks in the brain that are at the root of Alzheimer's disease. By showing that the TYROBP gene plays a key role in disrupting immune system pathways in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, the study reveals a potential therapeutic target for preventing brain damage caused by this debilitating disease. "Our ...

Cambridge, MA, April 25, 2013 --- Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans. The researchers believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes. The work was published today by the journal Cell as an early on-line release. It is scheduled for the May 9 print edition of the journal. The hormone, called betatrophin, causes mice to produce insulin-secreting ...

Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in collaboration with researchers from Icelandic Heart Association, Sage Bionetworks, and other institutions, have discovered that a network of genes involved in the inflammatory response in the brain is a crucial mechanism driving Late Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (LOAD). The findings, published online today in the journal Cell, provide new understanding of key pathways and genes involved in LOAD and valuable insights to develop potential therapies for the disease. To date, scientists have been challenged in ...

When galaxies form new stars, they sometimes do so in frantic episodes of activity known as starbursts. These events were commonplace in the early Universe, but are rarer in nearby galaxies. During these bursts, hundreds of millions of stars are born, and their combined effect can drive a powerful wind that travels out of the galaxy. These winds were known to affect their host galaxy -- but this new research now shows that they have a significantly greater effect than previously thought. An international team of astronomers observed 20 nearby galaxies, some of which ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have determined that one of the recently identified genes contributing to the risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease regulates the clearance of the toxic amyloid beta (A-beta) protein that accumulates in the brains of patients with the disease. In their report receiving advance online publication in Neuron, the researchers describe a protective variant of the CD33 gene that promotes clearance of A-beta from the brain. They also show that reducing expression of CD33 in immune cells called microglia enhances their ability ...

Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered a potential strategy for developing treatments to stem the disease process in Alzheimer's disease. It's based on unclogging removal of toxic debris that accumulates in patients' brains, by blocking activity of a little-known regulator protein called CD33. "Too much CD33 activity appears to promote late-onset Alzheimer's by preventing support cells from clearing out toxic plaques, key risk factors for the disease," explained Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, ...

Cancer is typically thought to develop after genes gradually mutate over time, finally overwhelming the ability of a cell to control growth. But a new closer look at genomes in prostate cancer by an international team of researchers reveals that, in fact, genetic mutations occur in abrupt, periodic bursts, causing complex, large scale reshuffling of DNA driving the development of prostate cancer. In the April 25 issue of Cell, the scientists, led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of ...

A collaboration of plant and soil scientists from across the UK has shown a grass hybrid species could help reduce the impact of flooding. The BBSRC-funded scientists, from Rothamsted Research, the James Hutton Institute, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University, Lancaster University and the University of Nottingham, used a hybridised species of grass called perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) with a closely related species called meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis). They hoped to integrate the rapid establishment ...

Blocking certain enzymes in the cell may prevent cancer cell division and growth, according to new findings from researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The discovery is published in the April 25, 2013 issue of the journal Molecular Cell. In order to divide, a cell needs to create copies of its genetic material to provide to the new cells, called the "daughter" cells. Several enzymes in the cells, called cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs), act as the traffic cops for this process, making sure that DNA is ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands,Thursday 25 April 2013: Probiotics could emerge as a treatment plan to manage hepatic encephalopathy (HE) therapy after a new study announced at the International Liver Congress™ 2013 found they significantly reduced development of the notoriously difficult-to-treat disease. The study analysed the efficacy of probiotics in preventing the development of HE in 160 cirrhotic patients over a period of approximately nine months and found significant improvements in reducing patients' arterial ammonia levels after three months of treatment with probiotics. ...

Researchers at Wake Forest University's Organic Electronics group have come up with a novel solution to one of the biggest technological barriers facing the organic semiconductor industry today. Oana Jurchescu, an assistant professor of physics, and a team of researchers developed a high performance organic semiconductor 'spray paint' that can be applied to large surface areas without losing electric conductivity. This is a potentially game changing technology for a number of reasons. Organic thin film transistors are currently deposited by one of three methods. Drop ...

Like musicians in an orchestra who have the same musical score but start and finish playing at different intervals, cells with the same genes start and finish transcribing them at different points in the genome. For the first time, researchers at EMBL have described the striking diversity of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that such start and end variation produces, even from the simple genome of yeast cells. Their findings, published today in Nature, shed new light on the importance of mRNA boundaries in determining the functional potential of genes. Hundreds of thousands of ...

Stenamma is a cryptic "leaf-litter" ant genus that occurs in moderately humid to wet forest habitats throughout the Holarctic region, Central America, and part of northwestern South America (Colombia and Ecuador). The genus was thought to be restricted primarily to the temperate zone, but recent collecting efforts have uncovered a large variety of Neotropical forms, which rival the Holarctic species in terms of morphological and behavioral diversity. The Middle American clade of Stenamma is revised in a paper published in the open access journal ZooKeys to recognize 40 ...

An international research consortium led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the CIBERER and the University of Wurzburg (Germany) has discovered a gene that can cause three totally different diseases, depending on how it is altered. The researchers, using next-generation massive ultrasequencing techniques, have sequenced the over 20,000 genes of a Fanconi anaemia patient's genome. By adopting this strategy they have succeeded in identifying pathogenic mutations responsible for this disease in the ERCC4 gene, which had already been linked to two other rare ...

Metabolic disorders, such as excess abdominal fat, raised blood pressure, higher levels of insulin, glucose and triglycerides and lower levels of the beneficial HDL cholesterol can be found in children as young as 6 to 8 years of age, according to a study carried out at the University of Eastern Finland. These metabolic risk factors often accumulate in overweight children and, in the newly published study, this accumulation was linked with mild artery wall stiffness. Of single disorders, higher levels of insulin, triglyceride and blood pressure were associated with artery ...

WASHINGTON, DC, April 25, 2013 — Global attitudes about domestic violence changed dramatically during the first decade of the 2000s, according to a new University of Michigan study that analyzes data from 26 low- and middle-income countries. Nigeria had the largest change, with 65 percent of men and 52 percent of women rejecting domestic violence in 2008, compared with 48 percent and 33 percent, respectively, in 2003. In the study, which appears in the April issue of the American Sociological Review, University of Michigan researcher Rachael Pierotti analyzes data ...

WORCESTER, Mass. -- It has co-existed quietly with humans for centuries, slurping up the spillage in beer halls and gorging on the sour paste used to bind books. Now the tiny nematode Panagrellus redivivus (P.redivivus) has emerged from relative obscurity with the publication of its complete genetic code. Further study of this worm, which is often called the beer-mat worm or, simply, the microworm, is expected to shed new light on many aspects of animal biology, including the differences between male and female organisms and the unique adaptations of parasitic worms. Using ...

PITTSBURGH—Researchers previously have shown that a depth camera system, such as Kinect, can be combined with a projector to turn almost any surface into a touchscreen. But now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have demonstrated how these touch-based interfaces can be created almost at will, with the wave of a hand. CMU's WorldKit system enables someone to rub the arm of a sofa to "paint" a remote control for her TV or swipe a hand across an office door to post his calendar from which subsequent users can "pull down" an extended version. These ad hoc interfaces ...

(WASHINGTON, April 25, 2013) – The increasing cost of treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in the United States has reached unsustainably high levels and may be leaving many patients under- or untreated because they cannot afford care, according to a Blood Forum article supported by nearly 120 CML experts from more than 15 countries on five continents and published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Blood Forum articles are a new feature in the journal that present well documented opinions on controversial topics and ...

After years of scientific uncertainty and speculation, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill show exactly how trees help create one of society's predominant environmental and health concerns: air pollution. It has long been known that trees produce and emit isoprene, an abundant molecule in the air known to protect leaves from oxygen damage and temperature fluctuations. However, in 2004, researchers, contrary to popular assumptions, revealed that isoprene was likely involved in the production of particulate matter, tiny particles that can get ...

VIDEO: This high speed video of a Trinidadian guppy's high jump records behavior not previously seen in fish: a backwards swim in preparation for a leap. Click here for more information. COLLEGE PARK, Md - If you've owned a pet guppy, you know they often jump out of their tanks. Many a child has asked why the guppy jumped; many a parent has been stumped for an answer. Now a study by University of Maryland biologist Daphne Soares reveals how guppies are able to jump so far, and ...

The Genomic Instability Group led by researcher Óscar Fernández-Capetillo at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), has for the first time obtained a panoramic photo of the proteins that take part in human DNA division, a process known as replication. The research article, published today in the journal Cell Reports, is the result of a collaborative study in which other CNIO groups have also participated, including the Proteomics Unit led by Javier Muñoz and the DNA Replication Group led by Juan Méndez. DNA replication is the chemical process that sustains ...

Detroit – Researchers at Wayne State University, in collaboration with Illinois Institute of Technology, recently published a study advising clinical gerontologists in the field to be aware of older adults' needs for assessment of financial exploitation or its potential when working with highly vulnerable individuals. Financial exploitation of the elderly is on the rise according to the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, and the numbers are expected to continue to grow as Baby Boomers age. This exploitation, which includes telemarketing scams, fake home ...

(Boston) – A study conducted by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) provides new evidence that longwave ultraviolet light (UVA) induces a protein that could result in premature skin aging. The findings demonstrate that aspects of photoaging, the process of skin aging by chronic exposure to ultraviolet radiation, could be linked to genetic factors that accelerate the aging process when induced by the environment. The study, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, was led by BUSM co-authors Thomas M. Ruenger MD, PhD, professor and ...

(Boston) - Physicians from the Departments of Pediatrics and Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) are proposing that current pediatric guidelines and practices could be implemented within a Patient Centered Medical Home model to address social determinants of health. The article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), also suggests that these guidelines could reduce socioeconomic disparities in health care for all patients. Arvin Garg, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics at ...