LOS ANGELES — Medical scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have bred a first-of-its-kind mouse model that possesses an immune response system more like a human's. The discovery makes way for quicker and more cost-effective development of next-generation drugs to treat human diseases like cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis. Medical researchers have long used mice and rats to help formulate new drugs and vaccines, in part because their genetic and biological characteristics closely parallel human physiology. But mice are not humans, and many experimental ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have identified a clutch of cells that — if seen in a male patient's blood after receiving a brand-new immune system in the form of a bone-marrow transplant from a female donor — herald the onset of chronic graft-versus-host disease, or cGVHD. In this devastating syndrome, the patient's tissues come under a vicious and enduring assault by the transplanted cells. "The overwhelming majority of patients who have these cells in their blood either have or will develop cGVHD within one to three months," ...

A team of researchers from Scotland has used a novel 3D printing technique to arrange human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for the very first time. It is hoped that this breakthrough, which has been published today, 5 February, in the journal Biofabrication, will allow three-dimensional tissues and structures to be created using hESCs, which could, amongst other things, speed up and improve the process of drug testing. In the field of biofabrication, great advances have been made in recent years towards fabricating three-dimensional tissues and organs by combining artificial ...

PHILADELPHIA – Advance care directives allow patients to provide instructions about their preferences for the care they would like to receive if they develop an illness or a life-threatening injury and lose the capacity to make decisions for themselves. While many people may assume that patients have strong preferences for the type and aggressiveness of care they wish to receive near life's end, a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that for many patients, preferences for end-of-life care are constructed ...

CINCINNATI – Researchers have overcome a major challenge to treating brain diseases by engineering an experimental molecular therapy that crosses the blood-brain barrier to reverse neurological lysosomal storage disease in mice. Posted online in PNAS Early Edition on Feb. 4, the study was led by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "This study provides a non-invasive procedure that targets the blood-brain barrier and delivers large-molecule therapeutic agents to treat neurological lysosomal storage disorders," said Dao Pan, PhD, principal investigator ...

To predict whether a problem drinker will hit the bottle again, ignore what they say and watch their body language for displays of shame, a University of British Columbia study finds. The study, which explored drinking and health outcomes in newly sober recovering alcoholics, is the first to show that physical manifestations of shame – from slumped shoulders to narrow chests – can directly predict a relapse in people who struggle with substances. "Our study finds that how much shame people display can strongly predict not only whether they will go on to relapse, but ...

Healthy young men who watch TV for more than 20 hours a week have almost half the sperm count of men who watch very little TV, indicates a study published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Conversely, men who do 15 or more hours of moderate to vigorous exercise every week have sperm counts that are 73% higher than those who exercise little, the findings show. Semen quality seems to have deteriorated over the past few decades, although it's not clear why, say the authors. To find out if an increasingly sedentary lifestyle might be a contributory ...

The theory that the last Neanderthals –Homo neanderthalensis– persisted in southern Iberia at the same time that modern humans –Homo sapiens– advanced in the northern part of the peninsula, has been widely accepted by the scientific community during the last twenty years. An international study, in which researchers of the Spanish National Distance Education University (UNED) participate, questions this hypothesis. "It is improbable that the last Neanderthals of central and southern Iberia would have persisted until such a late date, approximately 30,000 years ago, as ...

Mutations which affect the gene ASXL3 cause a novel syndrome similar to Bohring-Opitz syndrome, finds a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Medicine. This molecular definition distinguishes these children from those with Bohring-Opitz, and other similar syndromes, and highlights a technique able to help define rare diseases. When Dr Ropers from the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin found a child with non-specific symptoms, including small size at birth, difficulties with movement and feeding, severe intellectual disability, ...

Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a new way in which a very common childhood disease could be treated. In the first year of life, 65 per cent of babies get infected by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). This causes bronchiolitis, and is thought to kill nearly 200,000 children every year worldwide. In 1966 and 1967, vaccines were tested for RSV. These had disastrous effects on the immune response, leading to a worsening of the disease and, in many cases, death. Scientists have so far not been able to fully explain this effect, which continues to ...

A chance discovery that sea urchins use Nickel ions to harness carbon dioxide from the sea to grow their exoskeleton could be the key to capturing tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. Experts at Newcastle University, UK, have discovered that in the presence of a Nickel catalyst, CO2 can be converted rapidly and cheaply into the harmless, solid mineral, calcium or magnesium carbonate. This discovery, which is published today in the academic journal Catalysis Science & Technology, has the potential to revolutionise the way we capture and store carbon enabling us to significantly ...

A group of recipients of cadaver-derived human growth hormone (c-hGH) does not appear to be at increased risk for Alzheimer and Parkinson disease despite their likely exposure to neurodegenerative disease (ND)-associated proteins and elevated risk of infectious prion protein-related disease, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Neurology, a JAMA Network publication. David J. Irwin, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, and colleagues looked for evidence for human-to-human transmission of Alzheimer disease (AD), ...

Preliminary evidence from a clinical trial suggests that treatment with glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists was associated with reduced body mass index and body weight in adolescents with severe obesity, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. GLP-1 receptor agonist therapy, approved for adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus, reduces body weight by enhancing satiety and suppressing appetite, even in patients without diabetes, according to the study background. Aaron S. Kelly, Ph.D., of the University ...

[Frequent alcohol, nicotine, or cannabis use is common in young persons presenting for mental healthcare: a cross sectional study doi 10.1136/bmjopen-2012-002229] Around one in 10 young teens with mental health issues also drinks alcohol, smokes cigarettes, and uses cannabis on a weekly basis, indicates Australian research published in the online only fully journal BMJ Open. The prevalence of this pattern of substance use increased with age, the study found, prompting the authors to raise concerns that these behaviours are likely to worsen both mental and physical ...

[Exposure to ultraviolet-B and risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis among women in the Nurses' Health Study Online First doi 10.1136/annrheumdis-2012-202302] Regular exposure to sunlight—specifically ultraviolet B (UVB)—may reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, indicates a large long term study published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. But the effect of UVB exposure was only evident among older women, possibly because younger women are more aware of the hazards of sunlight and so cover up with sun block, suggest the authors. They ...

A high intake of supplemental calcium appears to be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) death in men but not in women in a study of more 388,000 participants between the ages of 50 and 71 years, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Calcium supplementation has become widely used, especially among the elderly population, because of its proposed bone health benefits. However, beyond calcium's established role in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis, its health effect on nonskeletal ...

PHILADELPHIA - Mounting evidence demonstrates that the pathological proteins linked to the onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorders are capable of spreading from cell-to-cell within the brains of affected individuals and thereby "spread" disease from one interconnected brain region to another. A new study found no evidence to support concerns that these abnormal disease proteins are "infectious" or transmitted from animals to humans or from one person to another. The study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, ...

UPTON, NY-Scientists studying an enzyme that naturally produces alkanes -- long carbon-chain molecules that could be a direct replacement for the hydrocarbons in gasoline -- have figured out why the natural reaction typically stops after three to five cycles. Armed with that knowledge, they've devised a strategy to keep the reaction going. The biochemical details -- worked out at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of February 4, 2013 -- renew interest in using the enzyme ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (February 4, 2013) – Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that DNA transcription, the process that produces messenger RNA (mRNA) templates used in protein production, also runs in the opposite direction along the DNA to create corresponding long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). Moreover, the mRNAs and lncRNAs are transcribed coordinately as stem cells differentiate into other cell types. This surprising finding could redefine our understanding of gene organization and its regulation. "It's a surprise to me that genes come in pairs," says Whitehead ...

Boston, MA — Men's sperm quality may be significantly affected by their levels of physical activity, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). They found that healthy young men who were sedentary, as measured by hours of TV viewing, had lower sperm counts than those who were the most physically active. "We know very little about how lifestyle may impact semen quality and male fertility in general so identifying two potentially modifiable factors that appear to have such a big impact on sperm counts is truly exciting," said ...

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 6, 2013) – As patients and physicians share decision-making in choices among treatment options, decision aids such as videos, websites, pamphlets or books are coming to play an important role. However, in some cases, it may be ethical for the decision aids to provide a "nudge" toward a particular option, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in a report that appears in the journal Health Affairs. In general, decision aids are meant ...

EUGENE, Ore. — When it comes to health care, patients with the motivation, knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their own health have better health outcomes and incur fewer health care costs. Those are the findings of a study led by Judith Hibbard, a professor emerita in the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the University of Oregon. Hibbard and co-authors found that patients with the lowest level of "activation"— that is, those most lacking in the skills and confidence to be actively engaged in their health care — had average costs that were ...

NEW YORK (February 4, 2013) -- A team of researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College has discovered that amyloid peptides are harmful to the blood vessels that supply the brain with blood in Alzheimer's disease -- thus accelerating cognitive decline by limiting oxygen-rich blood and nutrients. In their animal studies, the investigators reveal how amyloid-β accumulates in blood vessels and how such accumulation and damage might be ultimately prevented. Their study, published in the Feb. 4 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), ...

New Orleans, LA – Jennifer Lentz, PhD, Assistant Professor of Otorhinolaryngology & Biocommunications and a member of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, is the lead author of a paper reporting that hearing and balance can be rescued by a new therapy in a mouse model of Usher syndrome (Usher) that contains the mutation responsible for type 1C Usher. The results provide the first evidence that congenital deafness can be effectively overcome by treatment early in development to correct gene expression. The paper, Rescue of hearing ...

New research shows that male Eurasian Jays in committed relationships are able to share food with their female partner according to her current desire. The behaviour suggests the potential for 'state-attribution' in these birds – the ability to recognise and understand the internal life and psychological states of others. The research was carried out in Professor Nicola Clayton's Comparative Cognition lab at Cambridge University's Department of Psychology, and is published today in the journal PNAS. Researchers tested mated jays and separated males from females. ...