Body

Hoboken, NJ – Stevens Institute of Technology and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) have recently conducted joint experiments in the Dutch Navy Harbor of Den Helder, where passive acoustic systems from both parties were combined. Initial experimental results are presented at the Waterside Security (WSS) 2010 conference. This important experimental campaign was financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Defence.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Leeds have linked hundreds of federally approved drugs to more than 1,000 proteins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), opening new avenues to repurpose these drugs to treat TB.

The study was published Nov. 4 in PLoS Computational Biology.

New techniques now being used at UCLA allow doctors to more precisely target certain areas of the heart to stop ventricular arrhythmias — serious abnormal rhythms in the heart's lower chambers — in high-risk patients.

PHILADELPHIA — Gefitinib may be a promising chemoprevention agent for pancreatic cancer, according to a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The study is published in the November issue, and was discussed during a press conference at the Ninth Annual Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held here Nov. 7-10, 2010.

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have identified a possible biomarker for measuring progress in breast cancer chemoprevention trials, according to data presented at the Ninth Annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held here Nov. 7-10, 2010.

PHILADELPHIA — Allopurinol, a relatively inexpensive anti-gout medication that has been on the market for more than 20 years, may have some activity against colorectal adenomas, according to data presented at the Ninth Annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held here Nov. 7-10, 2010.

Specifically, the presence of a colorectal tumor tissue biomarker, Ki67, was markedly decreased in the preliminary results of a study of patients with colorectal polyps assigned to take allopurinol.

PHILADELPHIA — The use of statins among a group of postmenopausal women did not reduce the risk for colorectal cancer, according to the results of a prospective analysis of data from the large population-based Women's Health Initiative (WHI).

"The results of our study are consistent with the majority of the literature suggesting no significant reduction in colorectal cancer risk among users of statins," said Michael S. Simon, M.D., professor of oncology in the department of oncology at Wayne State University and Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit.

Saying goodbye to summer can be difficult for everybody. In some people the onset of winter triggers Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, a mood disorder in which sufferers experience symptoms of depression. Happily, a special kind of gerbil exhibits remarkably similar reactions to SAD treatments as humans, opening a promising new channel for study and treatment of the common complaint.

University of Toronto scientists have found that chemicals used to line junk food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags are migrating into food and being ingested by people where they are contributing to chemical contamination observed in blood.

Perfluorinated carboxylic acids or PFCAs are the breakdown products of chemicals used to make non-stick and water- and stain-repellant products ranging from kitchen pans to clothing to food packaging. PFCAs, the best known of which is perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), are found in humans all around the world.

CHICAGO --- Northwestern Medicine researchers at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University have found that a new, nontoxic drug made from a chemical in soy could prevent the movement of cancer cells from the prostate to the rest of the body.

These findings will be presented at the Ninth Annual American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference.

A new study shows how an amphibious fish stays alive for up to two months on land. It's all in the skin.

The messenger interleukin-27 plays an important role when the human body blocks inflammations. This was discovered by an international research team, of which the Kiel Professors Joachim Grötzinger and Stefan Rose-John, as well as the doctoral candidate, Björn Spudy, are a part of. The research findings of the scientists from Kiel, the US and Great Britain were published yesterday, Sunday (7 November 2010), in the online advance edition of Nature Immunology.

A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examines the burden of HIV and sexually transmitted disease among male clients of the commercial sex industry in China's Sichuan province. Since 2007, heterosexual transmission has replaced injecting drug use as the primary transmission mode of all HIV infections in China. The study is available online in advance of publication in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

BOSTON – Using a novel, real-time imaging system, scientists have tracked a group of near-infrared fluorescent nanoparticles from the airspaces of the lungs, into the body and out again, providing a description of the characteristics and behavior of these minute particles which could be used in developing therapeutic agents to treat pulmonary disease, as well as offering a greater understanding of the health effects of air pollution.