The immune system can run awry in many ways. Some examples of undesirable immune responses include those directed against the host (autoimmunity), transplanted organs (transplant rejection), or a harmless substance (allergies). In each case, the immune system is reacting to the presence of a molecule known as an antigen. Currently, the best treatment options involve broad spectrum suppression of the immune system, which increases susceptibility to infection. A preferable solution would be to specifically turn off the immune cells that respond to non-threatening objects. ...

The risk of acute kidney disease is doubled for people taking oral fluoroquinolone antibiotics, according to a study of published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Fluoroquinolones, including ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin, are common broad-spectrum antibiotics most often used to treat respiratory and urogenital infections. Case reports have indicated acute kidney injury with use, and prescription labels carry a warning of kidney failure. However, when oral fluoroquinolones are prescribed in clinical practice, kidney injury is usually not considered. Researchers ...

The world can only meet its future food needs through innovation, including the use of agricultural biotechnology, a Harvard development specialist said today. Since their commercial debut in the mid-1990s, genetically-designed crops have added about $100 billion to world crop output, avoided massive pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions, spared vast tracts of land and fed millions of additional people worldwide, said Professor Calestous Juma of the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Speaking to graduates of McGill University, ...

Final analysis of the EORTC 10981-22023 AMAROS (After Mapping of the Axilla: Radiotherapy Or Surgery?) trial has shown that both axillary lymph node dissection and axillary radiotherapy provide excellent regional control for breast cancer patients with a positive sentinel node biopsy. The AMAROS trial also found that axillary radiotherapy reduces the risk of short term and long-term lymphoedema as compared to axillary lymph node dissection. Prof. Emiel J. Rutgers of The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni Van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis in Amsterdam, the EORTC Breast Cancer ...

VIDEO: This is the article as it appears in JoVE Behavior. Click here for more information. On June 3rd, JoVE will publish a research technique that allows neural imaging of auditory stimuli in songbirds via MRI. The technique, developed by Dr. Annemie Van der Linden and her laboratory at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, will be one of the first published in JoVE Behavior, a new section of the video journal that focuses on observational and experimental techniques that ...

LA JOLLA, CA – June 3, 2013 – The human immune system is remarkably efficient, but sometimes its attack is misdirected, leading to allergies, autoimmune diseases and rejection of transplant organs and therapeutic drugs. Current immune suppressants have major drawbacks, but a team from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has demonstrated a new technique that may lead to a better way to selectively repress unwanted immune reactions without disabling the immune system as a whole. As a proof of principle, the study, reported online ahead of print on June 3, 2013, by the ...

Although nearly a thousand exoplanets have been detected indirectly — most using the radial velocity or transit methods [1] — and many more candidates await confirmation, only a dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged. Nine years after ESO's Very Large Telescope captured the first image of an exoplanet, the planetary companion to the brown dwarf 2M1207 (eso0428 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0428/), the same team has caught on camera what is probably the lightest of these objects so far [2][3]. "Direct imaging of planets is an extremely challenging technique that ...

Improving data quality in large online data access facilities depends on a combination of automated checks and capturing expert knowledge, according to a paper published in the open-access journal Zookeys. The authors, from the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) welcome a recent paper by Mesibov (2013) highlighting errors in millipede data, but argue that addressing such issues requires the joint efforts of 'aggregators' and the wider expert community. The paper notes that aggregations of data openly exposed in facilities ...

Lignocellulosic waste such as sawdust or straw can be used to produce biofuel – but only if the long cellulose and xylan chains can be successfully broken down into smaller sugar molecules. To do this, fungi are used which, by means of a specific chemical signal, can be made to produce the necessary enzymes. Because this procedure is, however, very expensive, Vienna University of Technology has been investigating the molecular switch that regulates enzyme production in the fungus. As a result, it is now possible to manufacture genetically modified fungi that produce the ...

AURORA, Colo. (June 3, 2013) – Clinicians often wait too long before talking to elderly patients about giving up driving even though many may be open to those discussions earlier, according to a new study from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the CU College of Nursing. "These conversations often don't happen until clinicians see a 'red flag' which could mean an accident or some physical problem that makes driving more difficult for the elderly," said Marian Betz, MD, MPH, at the CU School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "But what's interesting ...

VIDEO: Baby Logan shows off his healthy development by rolling from his tummy to his back. University of Alberta researcher Johanna Darrah, a professor of physical therapy, says infants develop the ability... Click here for more information. (Edmonton) Baby, keep on rolling. A campaign to put babies to bed on their backs to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome has not impaired infants' rolling abilities, according to University of Alberta research. Johanna Darrah, ...

It's time to expand the models for blood pressure regulation, according to clinical pharmacologist Jens Titze, M.D. Titze and his colleagues have identified a new cast of cells and molecules that function in the skin to control sodium balance and blood pressure. "Hypertension research has traditionally focused on the kidney, blood vessels and brain," said Titze, associate professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. "But despite massive research efforts, we still do not understand in more than 90 percent of our patients why their blood pressure is elevated. We thought ...

(Lebanon, NH, 5/24/13) — Researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center will present a poster on a phase I clinical trial of Nivolumab, a PD-1 receptor blocking antibody, being used in combination with other drugs in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) at the ASCO Annual Meeting on June 3, 2013. Metastatic renal cell carcinoma or kidney cancer is the seventh most common cancer, leading to approximately 116,000 deaths annually worldwide. In roughly one-quarter of those with mRCC, the cancer has already spread or metastasized at diagnosis. Nivolumab ...

CHICAGO – Eighty-three percent of cancer doctors report that they've faced oncology drug shortages, and of those, nearly all say that their patients' treatment has been impacted, according to a study from researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that will be presented today at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Abstract #CRA6510). The results showed that shortages – which have hit especially hard among drugs to treat pediatric, gastrointestinal and blood cancers – have ...

Baltimore - The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) is advising anyone with Type 2 diabetes or hypertension to be evaluated for sleep apnea by a board-certified sleep medicine physician. The recommendation comes as the group of international clinicians and researchers meets in Baltimore for SLEEP 2013, the foremost gathering of sleep experts annually. Overwhelming clinical evidence has shown that patients suffering from two very common illnesses – Type 2 diabetes and hypertension – are at much higher risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a dangerous condition ...

A high percentage of African-American women with breast cancer who were evaluated at a university cancer-risk clinic were found to carry inherited genetic mutations that increase their risk for breast cancer. The finding suggests that inherited mutations may be more common than anticipated in this understudied group and may partially explain why African-Americans more often develop early onset and "triple-negative" breast cancer, an aggressive and difficult-to-treat form of the disease. It also demonstrates the potential benefits of increased access to genetic counseling ...

What treatment a doctor recommends for advanced cancer not only depends on medical aspects. His relationship to the individual patients and his own view of their life situation at their age play a role. This was found out by a research team led by Dr. Jan Schildmann of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) together with colleagues from the University of Oxford. The RUB researchers also explored how patients perceive and evaluate the information they receive for clarification and decision making. The medical ethicists report in the journals "The Oncologist" and "Annals of Oncology". One ...

A new study reveals that Southeast Asian monitor lizards, representing the world's largest lizards, are harvested and traded for their skins and as pets in intangible volumes despite existing legislation – and much of this trade is illegal. Germany plays a major role in the international trade with live reptiles. On June 8th, 2013, the world's largest reptile fair will take place in Germany (Hamm, Westphalia). A team of German and Indonesian scientists recently published a first comprehensive study on the conservation and threat status of all SE-Asian species of monitor ...

The European Perinatal Health Report released by the EURO-PERISTAT project is the most comprehensive report on the health and care of pregnant women and babies in Europe and brings together data from 2010 from 26 European Union member states, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. EURO-PERISTAT takes a new approach to health reporting. Rather than simply comparing countries on single indicators such as infant mortality, our report paints a fuller picture by presenting data about mortality, low birthweight and preterm birth alongside data about health care and maternal characteristics ...

If the climate continues to evolve as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United States stands little to no chance of satisfying its current biofuel goals, according to a new study by Rice University and the University of California at Davis. The study published online in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology suggests that in 40 years, a hotter planet would cut the yield of corn grown for ethanol in the U.S. by an average of 7 percent while increasing the amount of irrigation necessary by 9 percent. That ...

Scientists have taken a vital step forward in understanding how cells from skin tissue can be reprogrammed to become stem cells. New research could pave the way to generate these stem cells efficiently to better understand and develop treatments for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and muscular degeneration. The study of how these cells – known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) – were reprogramed was led by the University of Edinburgh and is published in the journal Nature. Scientists found that the process by which iPSCs are created ...

Intestinal bacteria may have a greater influence on us than was previously thought. In a study published in the prestigious journal Nature on 29 May, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, show that patients with type 2 diabetes have an altered gut microbiota. Their findings have led to a new model to identify patients at increased risk of developing diabetes. The human body contains ten times more bacteria than human cells. Most of these bacteria comprise the normal gut microbiota. Our bodies ...

This news release is available in German. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany, discovered that the ability of Manduca sexta moths to recognize changes in the profile of volatile compounds released by plants being attacked by Manduca caterpillars allows them to lay their eggs on plants that are less likely to be attacked by insects and other predators, and to avoid competing against other caterpillars of the same species for resources. The results of field experiments and neurobiological studies were now published in the open ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Lindsay Ellsworth is prescribing a new, mood-boosting therapy for teenagers in drug and alcohol treatment: shelter dogs. On Friday afternoons, about four dogs from the Spokane Humane Society take a field trip to Excelsior Youth Center as a group of teenage boys eagerly await their arrival. Ellsworth, a doctoral candidate in animal sciences at Washington State University, organizes the meet-ups where participants can help brush, feed and play with the dogs. "We found one of the most robust effects of interacting with the dogs was increased joviality," ...

Some research has shown that the effects of changes in the climate may be weak or even non-existent. This makes it easy to conclude that climate change will ultimately have less impact than previous warnings have predicted. But it could also be explained as direct and indirect effects cancelling each other out, as scientists from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, show in a paper recently published in PNAS, the esteemed US scientific journal. To investigate how different climate impacts interact, an experiment was conducted at Kristineberg Marine Research Station. ...