A scientific technique that rapidly increases the body’s production of anti-inflammatory cells promoted healing from heart attacks in mice, according to a new study by investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai. Once adapted to treat humans, the technique could potentially be used to repair heart muscle damage after a heart attack and be applied to a variety of inflammatory disorders. The investigators’ findings were published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Investigation. Heart attacks occur when the heart muscle is damaged by reduced blood flow from one or more arteries. They strike more than ...

The sugar glucose, which is the main source of energy in almost every living cell, has been revealed in a Stanford Medicine study to also be a master regulator of tissue differentiation — the process by which stem cells give rise to specialized cells that make up all the body’s tissues. It does so not by being catabolized, or broken down, to release the energy sequestered in its chemical bonds, but instead by binding in its intact form to proteins that control which genes in the genome are made into proteins and when. The discovery of glucose’s undercover double life was so surprising the researchers ...

Women affected by premenstrual syndrome (PMS) appear to experience less intense and debilitating symptoms after taking placebo pills even when told they do not contain any active medication, suggests a study published in the open-access journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. PMS can result in significant distress for women of reproductive age and cause psychological symptoms such as irritability, depressed mood, and mood swings as well as physical symptoms including breast tenderness, bloating, and joint pain. Women ...

New mums should be strongly encouraged to begin clocking up at least two hours of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity such as brisk walking and muscle strengthening exercises each week in the first three months after birth, when physically able, to improve health and well-being, say experts in a new guideline published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine.   They also strongly recommend daily pelvic floor muscle training to reduce the risk of urinary incontinence, and taking steps to improve sleep ...

OKLAHOMA CITY – In 2010, University of Oklahoma researcher David Fields, Ph.D., was pouring over research data when he discovered something he thought was odd: His data showed that at 6 months of age, formula-fed babies born of mothers who were categorized as medically obese weighed about 5% units less fat than breastfed babies in the same dataset. That discovery struck him as unusual and led him on a research journey to better understand breast milk. Now, he’s studying the connections between maternal gestational diabetes, breastfeeding and infant health. Fields is part of the research team behind a recent study ...

Researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Center have solved a cellular mystery that may lead to better therapies for colorectal and other types of cancer. Peter Dempsey, PhD, professor of pediatrics–developmental biology in the CU School of Medicine, and Justin Brumbaugh, PhD, assistant professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at CU Boulder, recently published a paper in the journal Nature Cell Biology showing the importance of the H3K36 methylation process in regulating plasticity and regeneration in intestinal cells. “The intestine has an ...

Des Plaines, IL — Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM), has published its March issue dedicated to the topic of errors in emergency care, with a strong emphasis on diagnostic error. This special issue, supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), brings together leading scholars and clinicians to discuss aspects of errors relevant to emergency care and propose actionable solutions.  Following the landmark 2015 National Academies report, “Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare,” national awareness of diagnostic errors has increased significantly. Errors—ranging from ...

A new study in the peer-reviewed journal Stem Cells and Development describes the development of a co-culture system of neural organoids generated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) fused with fetal leptomeninges from mice with fluorescently labeled meninges, called leptomeningeal neural organoid (LMNO) fusions. Click here to read the article now. Vivian Gama, PhD, from Vanderbilt University, Julie Siegenthaler, PhD, from University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and coauthors, present a proof-of-concept study that tests the stability of the different cell types in the leptomeninges (fibroblasts and macrophages) and the fused neural organoid ...

Interferometers, devices that can modulate aspects of light, play the important role of modulating and switching light signals in fiber-optic communications networks and are frequently used for gas sensing and optical computing. Now, applied physicists at the Harvard  John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have invented a new type of interferometer that allows precise control of light’s frequency, intensity and mode in one compact package.   Called a cascaded-mode interferometer, it is a single waveguide on a silicon-on-insulator ...

OKLAHOMA CITY – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 7 adults in the United States will experience a substance use disorder during their lifetime. University of Oklahoma College of Medicine faculty member Brandi Fink, Ph.D., is working with primary care clinics and health care systems to identify people with an alcohol use disorder and intervene early before the problem worsens. Fink, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, created an assessment for patients to fill out on an iPad while waiting for an appointment ...

Businesses invest billions in marketing automation, and many assume that Automated Lead Nurturing (ALN) is a proven driver of sales. However, a new Journal of Marketing study reveals that ALN is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The research finds that while ALN improves engagement and enhances salesperson–lead interactions, its impact on sales conversions varies significantly across industries and customer segments. Authored by Johannes Habel (University of Houston), Nathaniel Hartmann (University of South Florida), Phillip Wiseman (Texas Tech University), Michael Ahearne (University of ...

Until the 1990s, Venezuela was home to one of the most established democracies in Latin America. Today, however, it stands as one of the region’s most firmly entrenched authoritarian regimes. How did this shift occur, and what can other countries learn from Venezuela’s transformation? A new paper from political scientist Laura Gamboa at the University of Notre Dame chronicles the country’s 25-year evolution, during which Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, destroyed ...

TOOELE, UTAH, USA -- Wildlife conservation is critical to sustaining the planet’s biodiversity and health. But putting together a conservation plan is a tall order. First of all, you need to determine what species you’re conserving, along with their numbers, habitat needs, threats and how they fit into a complex ecosystem. As pollinators for native plants and food crops, bees play a pivotal role in our ecosystem, according to Utah State University ecologist Joseph Wilson. He and undergraduate researcher Anthony Hunsaker took on the herculean task of documenting Utah’s bee species using online occurrence records from the Symbiota Collection of Arthropods ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- In his home office in Durham, Duke neuroscientist Richard Mooney shows a series of images of a bird’s brain on song. In one, what looks like a pointillist painting illustrates a young zebra finch’s myriad attempts to sound more like an adult, capable of wooing a mate. In another, squiggly lines trace the ebb and flow of chemical signals in the reward circuit of the bird’s brain. “Their songs don’t sound like much at first,” said Mooney, who has studied birdsong for four decades. That’s because some things take considerable practice to master. Nobody walks onto a tennis court for the first time and plays ...

If you filled out a March Madness bracket this month, you probably faced the same question with each college match-up: What gives one team an edge over another? Is it a team’s record through the regular season? Or the chemistry among its players? Maybe it’s the experience of its coaching staff or the buzz around a top scorer.  All of these factors play some role in a team’s chance to advance. But according to a new study by MIT researchers, there’s one member who consistently ...

Relations between Europe and South America – and especially with Brazil - are at a favorable moment, due to factors such as the free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, signed in December 2024 and currently being approved. However, in order to take advantage of this window of opportunity and be competitive, Brazil must continue to expand scientific and technological cooperation with European partners.   This assessment was made by the Brazilian Ambassador to Germany, Roberto Jaguaribe, ...

The Food and Drug Administration has approved more than 100 monoclonal antibodies to treat a range of diseases. Other antibodies are used by physicians to diagnose conditions or by scientists to advance research projects. Even with significant expansion in the global market for antibodies used in clinical care and research, scientists recognize that there is still untapped potential for finding new antibodies. Many proteins group together in what are called protein complexes to carry out biological functions. The traditional method of generating antibodies by immunizing animals struggles to make antibodies related to these protein complexes. The conventional ...

NEW ORLEANS - Ochsner Health Medical Director for Cardiac Rehabilitation and Preventive Cardiology, Carl J. “Chip” Lavie, Jr., MD, recently co-authored a groundbreaking research study featured in the prestigious Mayo Clinic Proceedings highlighting the comparative efficacy of lipid-lowering therapies for reducing cardiovascular risks and led by Maciej Banach, MD,PhD from Poland and leader of the International Lipid Expert Panel ( ILEP). Impact of Lipid-Lowering Combination Therapy With Statins ...

Scientists from around the world specializing in motor control and neuroscience will travel to the University of Rhode Island this summer as the university hosts the international XV Progress in Motor Control Conference. The university’s Department of Physical Therapy, its George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at URI, will host the biennial meeting of the International Society of Motor Control (ISMC) June 30 to July 2. This year’s conference will be held in the Center for ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Zika virus and dengue virus are very close relatives. Both are mosquito-borne flaviviruses, and both specialize in infecting a host's dendritic cells. But a new Nature Communications study, led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and UC San Diego shows that these two viruses have vastly different ways of making us sick.  Zika virus uses stealth. Zika virus slips into dendritic cells and blocks the dendritic cells from alerting nearby T cells to danger. It's the classic horror movie cliche—the creeper is already in the house, and ...

MADISON — A drug typically prescribed for arthritis halts brain-damaging seizures in mice that have a condition like epilepsy, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The drug, called tofacitinib, also restores short-term and working memory lost to epilepsy in the mice and reduces inflammation in the brain caused by the disease. If the drug proves viable for human patients, it would be the first to provide lasting relief from seizures even after they stopped taking it. “It ticks all the boxes ...

SCAI Announces 2025-26 Recipients of JSCAI Editorial Fellowship Program WASHINGTON — The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) is pleased to announce the selection of 10 outstanding early-career interventional cardiologists for the 2025-26 JSCAI Editorial Fellowship Program cohort.  The JSCAI Editorial Fellowship Program provides fellows-in-training and early-career interventionalists with a unique opportunity to develop their skills as peer reviewers and gain firsthand experience in the editorial process. Participants are paired with JSCAI Deputy or Associate ...

For organs to develop, grow and regenerate, cells must proliferate. But when that process goes awry, leading to uncontrolled cell growth, cancer can emerge.  New CU Boulder research, published in the journal Science Advances, offers unprecedented insight into how an enigmatic enzyme, known as CDK7, drives this complex process. The research shows that novel cancer drugs designed to inhibit CDK7 can, within minutes, shut down gene expression pathways that drive cell proliferation in dozens of different ...

New Haven, Conn. — Yale scientists have discovered a promising way to trigger immune responses against certain tumors, using a lupus-related antibody that can slip, undetected, into “cold” tumors and flip on an immune response that has been turned off by cancer. The research, published in Science Signaling on March 25, offers new findings that could help improve therapies for glioblastoma and other aggressive cancers that are difficult to treat. “It turns out when this antibody gets into the cell’s cytoplasm [the liquid material inside the cell, excluding the nucleus] and it binds ...

A flower-shaped structure only a few micrometres in size made of a nickel-iron alloy can concentrate and locally enhance magnetic fields. The size of the effect can be controlled by varying the geometry and number of 'petals'. This magnetic metamaterial developed by Dr Anna Palau's group at the Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB) in collaboration with her partners of the CHIST-ERA MetaMagIC project, has now been studied at BESSY II in collaboration with Dr Sergio Valencia. Such a device can be used to increase the sensitivity of magnetic sensors, to reduce the energy required for creating local magnetic fields, but also, at ...