Combined research efforts by scientists involved in the Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX) project, funded by NOAA's Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) program, and administered by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), have led to enhanced understanding of toxic algal blooms on Georges Bank. This new information, coupled with an at-sea and dockside testing protocol developed through collaboration between GOMTOX and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigators, has allowed fishermen to harvest ocean quahogs and surf clams ...

New Orleans, LA – New discoveries by a team of scientists at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans for the first time reveal the inner workings of a master regulator that controls functions as diverse as the ability of nerve cells to "rewire" themselves in response to external stimuli and the mechanism by which certain viruses hijack normal cellular processes to facilitate their replication that can ultimately lead to cancer. The research will be published in the April 12, 2013 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The complex genetic programs controlling the ...

In almost 90 per cent of cases, novel drugs tested on humans by pharmaceutical companies do not work as intended and must be scrapped. Often the drugs do not work, while at worst, test subjects die. New research from the University of Southern Denmark now shows that this number can be reduced. The secret is to test the drug on cells grown as 3D structures. In 1993, five out of 15 liver patients who participated in a medical trial following the American Federal Drug Administration's (FDA's) instructions died. The patients had been treated with the substance fialuridin ...

As if trapped in a never-ending B movie about evil invaders, Cincinnatians have been tormented by a six-legged scourge for years. To the chagrin of many throughout the Queen City, this monster isn't an actor in a rubber alien costume; it's the real thing – Cimex lectularius, better known as the common bed bug. The tiny, bloodsucking arthropods have burrowed so deeply and so broadly into the cracks, crevices and cushions of Greater Cincinnati's households, they've literally given the city an itch it can't scratch enough to make it go away. But there's hope. Regina Baucom, ...

CHICAGO --- Systemic sclerosis, also known as scleroderma, is a rare autoimmune connective tissue disorder that's difficult to treat. However, thanks to new research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, doctors may be able to treat some patients more effectively. Characterized by thickening of the skin, scleroderma can also cause significant complications in the joints and internal organs—particularly the esophagus, lower gastrointestinal tract, lungs, heart and kidneys. There is no cure—and the one drug commonly ...

WASHINGTON – Effective leaders' brains may be physically "wired" to lead, offering the promise of more precise identification and training, according to studies of U.S. Army officers published by the American Psychological Association. Researchers have linked adaptive leadership skills with brain functioning and psychological complexity measures among active leaders. Those leaders who were found to be more adaptable and complex in psychological studies appeared to have brains that function differently from those of less adaptable leaders, according to an article published ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— With nearly one billion users worldwide, Facebook has become a daily activity for hundreds of millions of people. Because so many people engage with the website daily, researchers are interested in how emotionally involved Facebook users become with the social networking site and the precursors that lead to Facebook connections with other people. Russell Clayton, now a doctoral student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, found that anxiety and alcohol use significantly predict emotional connectedness to Facebook. Clayton's master's thesis, ...

Cambridge, Mass. – April 10, 2013 – New research from Harvard University helps to explain how waterborne bacteria can colonize rough surfaces—even those that have been designed to resist water. A team of materials scientists and microbiologists studied the gut bacterium Escherichia coli, which has many flagella that stick out in all directions. The researchers found that these tails can act as biological grappling hooks, reaching far into nanoscale crevices and latching the bacteria in place. The scourge of the health care industry, bacteria like E. coli are adept at ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Translating a Mayo Clinic stem-cell discovery, an international team has demonstrated that therapy with cardiopoietic (cardiogenically-instructed) or "smart" stem cells can improve heart health for people suffering from heart failure. This is the first application in patients of lineage-guided stem cells for targeted regeneration of a failing organ, paving the way to development of next generation regenerative medicine solutions. Results of the clinical trial appear online of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The multi-center, randomized ...

WASHINGTON, DC (April 9, 2013)—Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have identified a host of small molecules critical to metabolism in cells of triple-negative breast cancer—one of the least understood groups of breast cancer. These molecules, called metabolites, include key players in energy regulation and lipid synthesis. They could help pave the way for helping researchers differentiate among different forms of the disease and ultimately point to new targets for treatment. Jeffrey Peterson, PhD, a cancer biologist at Fox Chase, led the new studies, which also included ...

WASHINGTON, DC (April 9, 2013)—A new preclinical technology enables researchers to quickly determine if a particular treatment is effective against gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), providing a boost to animal research and possibly patient care, according to new findings presented by Fox Chase Cancer Center at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 on Tuesday, April 9. The advantage of the tool, explains study author Lori Rink, PhD, assistant research professor at Fox Chase, is that it tells researchers if a particular compound is killing tumor cells in mice as early as ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — There is no specific drug to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a family of motor neuron diseases that in its most severe form is the leading genetic cause of infant death in the United States and affects one in 6,000 people overall. But a new multispecies study involving a drug that treats amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has pinpointed a mechanism of SMA that drug developers might be able to exploit for a new therapy. The research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, reports that the drug Riluzole advanced neural cell ...

Hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, is the primary cause of heart disease. It is caused by calcium accumulation in the blood vessels, which leads to arteries becoming narrow and stiff, obstructing blood flow and leading to heart complications. Although many risk factors for atherosclerosis have been identified, the cause is not known and there is currently no way to reverse it once it sets in. In a new study published 9th April in the open access journal PLOS Biology, researchers have characterized the cells responsible for driving this calcium build-up in vessel ...

Irvine, Calif. – Inspired by a traditional Balkan bedbug remedy, researchers have documented how microscopic hairs on kidney bean leaves effectively stab and trap the biting insects, according to findings published online today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Scientists at UC Irvine and the University of Kentucky are now developing materials that mimic the geometry of the leaves. Bedbugs have made a dramatic comeback in the U.S. in recent years, infesting everything from homes and hotels to schools, movie theaters and hospitals. Although not known to transmit ...

NEW YORK – African-Americans with a variant of the ABCA7 gene have almost double the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease compared with African-Americans who lack the variant. The largest genome-wide search for Alzheimer's genes in the African-American community, the study was undertaken by the Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium and led by neurologists from Columbia University Medical Center. It will be published in the April 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health ...

In a meta-analysis of data from nearly 6,000 African Americans, Alzheimer disease was significantly associated with a gene that have been weakly associated with Alzheimer disease in individuals of European ancestry, although additional studies are needed to determine risk estimates specific for African Americans, according to a study in the April 10 issue of JAMA, a Genomics theme issue. "Late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD) is the most common cause of dementia, increasing in frequency from 1 percent at age 65 years to more than 30 percent for people older than 80 years," ...

Researchers have been able to reconstruct the genome sequence of an outbreak strain of Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) using metagenomics (the direct sequencing of DNA extracted from microbiologically complex samples), according to a study in the April 10 issue of JAMA, a Genomics theme issue. The findings highlight the potential of this approach to identify and characterize bacterial pathogens directly from clinical specimens without laboratory culture. "The outbreak of Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli, which struck Germany in May-June 2011, illustrated the ...

In a molecular genetic evaluation involving 91 cases of intrauterine fetal death, mutations associated with susceptibility to long QT syndrome (LQTS; a heart disorder that increases the risk for an irregular heartbeat and other adverse events) were discovered in a small number of these cases, preliminary evidence that may provide insights into the mechanism of some intrauterine fetal deaths, according to a study in the April 10 issue of JAMA, a Genomics theme issue. "Intrauterine fetal death is a major public health problem. About 1 million fetal deaths occur in the ...

Presence of the genetic mutation BRAF V600E was significantly associated with increased cancer-related death among patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC); however, because overall mortality in PTC is low and the association was not independent of tumor characteristics, how to use this information to manage mortality risk in patients with PTC is unclear, according to a study in the April 10 issue of JAMA, a Genomics theme issue. "Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy and accounts for 85 percent to 90 percent of all thyroid cancers," according ...

In South Africa, people with HIV who start treatment with anti-AIDS drugs (antiretroviral therapy) have life expectancies around 80% of that of the general population provided that they start treatment before their CD4 count drops below 200 (cells per microliter), according to a study by South African researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. These findings are encouraging and show that with long-term treatment, HIV can be managed as a chronic illness in middle- and low-income settings, and also suggest that the estimates used by life insurance companies and ...

Shingles vaccine is associated with reduction in both postherpetic neuralgia and herpes zoster, but uptake in the US is low A vaccine to prevent shingles may reduce by half the occurrence of this painful skin and nerve infection in older people (aged over 65 years) and may also reduce the rate of a painful complication of shingles, post-herpetic neuralgia, but has a very low uptake (only 4%) in older adults in the United States, according to a study by UK and US researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers, led by Sinéad Langan from the London ...

New guidelines for writing abstracts will help authors summarise their research A new extension to the PRISMA guideline on reporting systemic reviews and meta-analyses (types of studies that analyse information from many studies) will help authors to give a more robust summary (abstract) of their study and is detailed by an international group of researchers in this week's PLOS Medicine. These guidelines for abstracts of systemic reviews and meta-analyses are important, as the abstract is the most frequently read part of most papers and these types of studies are ...

An irregularity within many neuroblastoma cells may indicate whether a neuroblastoma tumor, a difficult-to-treat, early childhood cancer, is vulnerable to a new class of anti-cancer drugs known as BET bromodomain inhibitors, Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center scientists will report at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington, April 6-10. The findings (abstract 4622) will be discussed in a minisymposium on Tuesday, April 9, 3:50 - 4:05 p.m., ET, in Room 147, in the Washington Convention Center. The work was published in ...

PHILADELPHIA - A variation in the gene ABCA7 causes a twofold increase in the risk of late onset Alzheimer disease among African Americans, according to a meta-analysis by a team of researchers including experts from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This is the largest analysis to date to determine genetic risk associated with late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD) specifically in African American individuals. The study appears in the April 10 issue of JAMA, a genomics theme issue. The Alzheimer Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) – led ...

A paper published today on bmj.com suggests a strong association between population-wide weight change and risk of death from type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Variation in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes across populations can be largely explained by obesity. However, it is unclear as to what extent weight loss would lower cardiovascular disease prevalence. Whole population trends in food consumption and transportation policies linked to physical activity could reduce the burden of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease at the population level. Following ...