CHICAGO, IL (May 29, 2013)—A high-dose of ultrasound targeted to painful bone metastases appears to quickly bring patients relief, and with largely tolerable side effects, according to new research presented by Fox Chase Cancer Center scientists at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Monday, June 3. During the procedure, known as MR-guided focused ultrasound, doctors direct a concentrated beam of energy to specific nerve endings that are causing pain in bone metastases. These patients typically have a significant amount of discomfort—half ...

CHICAGO, IL (May 29, 2013)—Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center will present data at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Saturday, June 1, which shows the discovery of potential biomarkers that may be used to identify patients with head and neck cancer whose tumors are unlikely to respond to treatment by the targeted therapy cetuximab—a type of monoclonal antibody. The FDA approved the drug, in combination with radiation or as a second-line drug after chemotherapy had failed, in 2006. In 2011, the drug was approved as a first-line ...

CHICAGO, IL (May 29, 2013)—Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center and other institutions have completed a phase II clinical trial that may help identify those patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer who do not require the full radiation dose given in a standard regimen of Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT). Preliminary findings will be presented by Shanthi Marur, first author on the study and an oncologist at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Sunday, ...

CHICAGO, IL (May 28, 2013)—A promising new therapy for the most common form of lung cancer appears to produce largely manageable side effects, and an ongoing clinical trial is determining whether the compound treats tumors more effectively than what's on the market, according research that scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center will present at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Saturday, June 1. "We're very excited about this drug," says Hossein Borghaei, DO, chief of thoracic medical oncology at Fox Chase. "I think if we learn how ...

CHICAGO, IL (May 28, 2013)—Nearly two-thirds of solid tumors carry at least one mutation that may be targeted, or medicated, by an existing compound, according to new findings from researchers Fox Chase Cancer Center that will be presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on June 3. The results suggest that it may one day become commonplace for doctors to sequence tumors before deciding on a treatment regimen. "Extended sequencing of a patient's tumor is not something that's routinely done now," says study author Patrick Boland, ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that bright light therapy may improve sleep, cognition, emotion and brain function following mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Results show that six weeks of morning bright light therapy resulted in a marked decrease in subjective daytime sleepiness. This improvement was further associated with improvements in the propensity to fall asleep and nighttime sleep quality. Bright light therapy also affected depressive symptoms. "Our preliminary data suggests that morning bright light therapy might be helpful to reduce subjective daytime ...

A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society's Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development (AHEAD) Program, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and regional partners finds that a new approach to beef production in southern Africa could positively transform livelihoods for farmers and pastoralists, while helping to secure a future for wildlife and wildlife-based tourism opportunities. Market access for livestock and livestock products from Africa is constrained by the presence of foot and mouth disease (FMD). Fear of the FMD virus largely precludes large-scale ...

FINDINGS: Cushing disease is a life-threatening disorder most commonly triggered by tumors, often benign, in the pituitary glands, resulting in excess production of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH). The condition is marked by progressive weight gain, excessive fatty tissue deposits and a rounding of facial features, known as "moon face," and can lead to diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, obesity and psychological disturbances. Cushing disease, which is more common in women than men, is also associated with a three- to four-fold increase ...

WASHINGTON—Scientists have long suspected that a flourishing of green foliage around the globe, observed since the early 1980s in satellite data, springs at least in part from the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. Now, a study of arid regions around the globe finds that a carbon dioxide "fertilization effect" has, indeed, caused a gradual greening from 1982 to 2010. Focusing on the southwestern corner of North America, Australia's outback, the Middle East, and some parts of Africa, Randall Donohue of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial ...

Taking an image of an individual molecule while it undergoes a chemical reaction has been deemed one of the holy grails of chemistry. Scientists at the University of Berkeley and the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) have managed, for the very first time, to take direct, single-bond-resolved images of individual molecules just before and immediately after a complex organic reaction. The images enable appreciating the processes of the rupture and creation of links between the atoms making up a molecule. The article, entitled Direct Imaging of Covalent Bond Structure ...

Gastrointestinal bacteria are important for digestion, immune functions and general health. Wouter van Dongen and colleagues from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology of the Vetmeduni Vienna have collaborated with scientists from the Laboratoire Évolution & Diversité Biologique (EDB), Toulouse and from the US Geological Survey, Anchorage to study the cloacal bacterial assemblies of black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla). The bacteria in the cloaca are known to be similar to assemblages deeper within the gastrointestinal tract, so the researchers examined samples ...

This news release is available in German. A protein called c-FLIP-R is critical to immune cell survival: If this molecule is missing, the cells kill themselves – and are thus no longer able to perform their job fighting off invaders. Now, scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) Braunschweig and at the Otto von Guericke University (OvGU) Magdeburg have published their findings in the renowned European Journal of Immunology. Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is a kind of cellular suicide program. If something triggers it, the cells perish ...

This news release is available in German. A physical particle postulated 80 years ago could provide a decisive step toward the realization of novel, highly efficient data storage devices. Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), the Technische Universitaet Dresden and the University of Cologne found that with magnetic monopoles in magnetic vortices, called skyrmions, information can be written and erased. Iron filings strewn on a sheet of paper trace the field lines of a bar magnet below the paper, thereby showing the magnet's north and south poles. ...

Jena (Germany) Entrepreneurship plays an important role for the prosperity of today's modern societies. Those who want to found a company under their own steam and who want to make it an economic success, need more than a good idea and the necessary expertise. Business founders usually are characterized by a quite specific entrepreneurial personality structure. Great companies with long traditions are proof of this, as well as numerous scientific studies. "People with an entrepreneurial personality structure are more open to new experience, more extravert and conscientious. ...

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 ...

Rapid expansion of programs to prevent HIV transmission to babies and vaccinate children show how results can be achieved in relatively little time Some of the world's poorest countries have managed to cut maternal and young child mortality rates by half or more, according to a new report from Countdown to 2015. The report, Accountability for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival, highlights successes in improving maternal health and reducing child mortality in some countries, while pointing out where progress has been lagging in others. There has been remarkable ...

MADISON – A Facebook profile is an ideal version of self, full of photos and posts curated for the eyes of family, friends and acquaintances. A new study shows that this version of self can provide beneficial psychological effects and influence behavior. Catalina Toma, a UW-Madison assistant professor of communication arts, used the Implicit Association Test to measure Facebook users' self-esteem after they spent time looking at their profiles, the first time the social psychology research tool has been used to examine the effects of Facebook. The test showed that after ...

HEIDELBERG, 31 May 2013 – Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom have determined the crystal structure of Parkin, a protein found in cells that when mutated can lead to a hereditary form of Parkinson's disease. The results, which are published in The EMBO Journal, define the position of many of the mutations linked to hereditary Parkinson's disease and explain how these alterations may affect the stability and function of the protein. The findings may in time reveal how the activity of Parkin is affected in patients with this rare but ...

Researchers have determined the precise chemical structure of the HIV capsid, a protein shell that protects the virus's genetic material and is a key to its ability to infect and debilitate the human body's defense mechanism. Detailed simulations were achieved with the use of a supercomputer on a 64 million atom sample. The capsid has become an attractive target for the development of new antiretroviral drugs that suppress the HIV virus and stop the progression of AIDS. The research paper describing these results is the cover story of this week's journal Nature (May 30, ...

New York, NY—May 31, 2013—In a new study, published in Science May 31, 2013, Columbia Engineering researchers demonstrate that graphene, even if stitched together from many small crystalline grains, is almost as strong as graphene in its perfect crystalline form. This work resolves a contradiction between theoretical simulations, which predicted that grain boundaries can be strong, and earlier experiments, which indicated that they were much weaker than the perfect lattice. Graphene consists of a single atomic layer of carbon, arranged in a honeycomb lattice. "Our first ...

Mice engineered with a human gene for schizophrenia and exposed to lead during early life exhibited behaviors and structural changes in their brains consistent with schizophrenia. Scientists at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say their findings suggest a synergistic effect between lead exposure and a genetic risk factor, and open an avenue to better understanding the complex gene-environment interactions that put people at risk for schizophrenia and other mental disorders. Results appear online ...

PHILADELPHIA—HIV-positive transgender people are just as likely to stay in care, take their medication and have similar outcomes as other men and women living with the disease, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published online May 30 in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The study—which looked at almost 37,000 patients at 13 HIV clinics from 2001 to 2011 in the US—suggests an encouraging shift from earlier work documenting poor retention in care and drug adherence in transgender people, a high risk group for ...

Irvine, Calif., May 31, 2013 — Circadian rhythms can boost the body's ability to fight intestinal bacterial infections, UC Irvine researchers have found. This suggests that targeted treatments may be particularly effective for pathogens such as salmonella that prompt a strong immune system response governed by circadian genes. It also helps explain why disruptions in the regular day-night pattern – as experienced by, say, night-shift workers or frequent fliers – may raise susceptibility to infectious diseases. UC Irvine's Paolo Sassone-Corsi, one of the world's leading ...

Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that testing cervical tumors before treatment for vulnerability to chemotherapy predicts whether patients will do well or poorly with standard treatment. The study supports the future possibility of personalized medicine for cervical cancer, a tumor normally addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. "Even though this is a small study, its strength is that it links a lab test of the tumor's chemotherapy response to survival outcomes for the patients," said Julie K. Schwarz, MD, PhD, assistant ...

Human-produced noises from sources such as traffic and trains can substantially impact animals, affecting their ability to communicate, hunt, or even survive. But can the noise made by another animal have the same detrimental effects? A new study presented at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013) examines the calls made by an invasive species of tree frog and suggests the answer is yes. Ecologist Jennifer Tennessen, a graduate student at The Pennsylvania State University, and her colleagues recorded the calls of the Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) ...