Body

Elderly patients with kidney failure get kidney transplants more often than they did a decade ago, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The results suggest that the chances of receiving a kidney transplant are better than ever for an older patient who needs one.

Green tea does not protect against breast cancer. A study of data from approximately 54,000 women, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, found no association between drinking green tea and breast cancer risk.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- A new study of an exotic, infectious virus that has caused three recent outbreaks in the United States reveals clues to how the virus might damage lungs during infection. The findings also suggest possible new ways to treat lung diseases in humans.

NEW YORK, October 28, 2010 – An international study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has identified genetic variants in women with BRCA2 mutations that may increase or decrease their risk of developing breast cancer. The study was published today online in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

The findings of the study suggest that genetic variants on chromosomes 10 and 20 may modify risk for breast cancer among women with a BRCA2 mutation.

SEATTLE – An international team of researchers led by an investigator from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has made a second critical advance in determining the cause of a common form of muscular dystrophy known as facioscapulohumeral dystrophy, or FSHD.

DURHAM, N.H. – A major new study that sounds a conservation alarm for the world's vertebrate species notes that the world's seagrass species are faring somewhat better, says a University of New Hampshire researcher who was a coauthor of the study.

Fred Short, UNH research professor of natural resources and director of the worldwide program SeagrassNet, was among the 174 scientists who contributed to "The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates," released online this week in the journal Science.

Strong immunity may play a key role in determining long life, but may do so at the expense of reduced fertility, a Princeton University study has concluded.

AURORA, Colo. (Oct. 28, 2010) - A study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows more than half of patients with a specific kind of lung cancer are responding positively to a treatment that targets the gene that drives their cancer.

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified a mechanism controlling the function of a protein that binds to DNA during embryonic development and may function to prevent abnormal tumor growth. When the protein, TCF3, is modified by a small molecule called a phosphate, it no longer binds DNA, changing the way the protein signals during development. This discovery identifies a new diagnostic marker (phosphorylated TCF3) that may be associated with cancer and could represent a potential drug target.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Mad Cow disease and its human variant Creutzfeldt—Jakob disease, which are incurable and fatal, have been on a welcome hiatus from the news for years, but because mammals remain as vulnerable as ever to infectious diseases caused by enigmatic proteins called prions, scientists have taken no respite of their own. In the Oct.

LIVERMORE, Calif. – Beta cells, which make insulin in the human body, do not replicate after the age of 30, indicating that clinicians may be closer to better treating diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is caused by a loss of beta cells by auto-immunity while type 2 is due to a relative insufficiency of beta cells. Whether beta cells replicate after birth has remained an open issue, and is critically important for designing therapies for diabetes.

Montreal, October 28, 2010 – A team of scientists at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) led by Dr. Jean-François Côté, Director of the Cytoskeletal Organization and Cell Migration research unit, identified a novel molecular mechanism in the control of cell motility. Their findings were published online today in Current Biology, a journal from the Cell Press group. This scientific breakthrough could eventually lead to the development of new cancer-treating drugs that could block the spread of tumours (metastasis).

La Jolla, CA, October 28, 2010 – For Immediate Release – A group of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and the Scripps Translational Science Institute has published a paper that reviews new strategies for identifying collections of rare genetic variations that reveal whether people are predisposed to developing common conditions like diabetes and cancer.

BOSTON – The discovery that a protein called Rictor plays a key role in destroying a close cousin of the AKT oncogene could provide scientists with a new molecular target for treating certain cancers, including breast cancer. Described in the September 2010 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, the study was led by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).