Body

David H. Adams, MD, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, has performed the first implantation of the Medtronic Tri-Ad Semi-Flexible Tricuspid Annuloplasty Ring in the United States. Dr. Adams invented the ring, which was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

A group of children who underwent fusion surgery for spondylolisthesis in the lumbar spine 30 years ago showed a clear reduction in back pain when followed up seven years later. A new study of these patients as adults has found that the benefits have lasted, reveals research from the Sahlgrenska Academy and Sahlgrenska University Hospital presented this week at the International Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (SICOT) annual international conference in Gothenburg.

Although overall mortality from cancer is decreasing in the European Union, its incidence increased by almost 20%, from 2.1 million new cases in 2002 to 2.5 million in 2008, says a special issue [1] of the European Journal of Cancer (the official journal of ECCO – the European CanCer Organisation) on cancer prevention, published today (Monday 13 September).

LA JOLLA, CA – September 9, 2010 – Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have solved a long-standing mystery of how cells conduct "quality control" to eliminate the toxic effects of a certain kind of error in protein production. The findings may lead to a better understanding of a host of neurodegenerative diseases.

The research was published in an advance, online issue of the journal Nature on September 12, 2010.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Myopia (nearsightedness) is the most common eye disorder in the world and becoming more common, yet little is known about its genetic underpinnings.

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center, in conjunction with several other groups, have uncovered a gene associated with myopia in Caucasian people from several different regions, including Dutch, British and Australian subjects.

Their work was published in Nature Genetics online on Sunday, Sept. 12.

A MRSA infection with a reduced susceptibility to the potent antibiotic drug vancomycin is linked to high mortality, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.

Researchers found that patients who contracted a MRSA infection with heteroresistance, called hVISA, stayed in the hospital longer, were more likely to have the infection return after 90 days, and were twice as likely to die from it after 90 days than patients who do not have hVISA.

The study is being presented Sunday at the 50th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Boston.

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, has identified misfolding and other molecular anomalies in a key brain protein associated with autism spectrum disorders.

Cambridge, Mass. - September 9, 2010 - In a paper published as the cover story of the September 9, 2010 Nature, researchers from Harvard University and MIT have demonstrated that graphene, a surprisingly robust planar sheet of carbon just one-atom thick, can act as an artificial membrane separating two liquid reservoirs.

LAWRENCE — A drug developed at the University of Kansas has the potential to stop a debilitating condition of diabetes that often leads to pain in the extremities and even amputations, KU researchers have found.

The researchers recently published an article showing that KU-32 can stop and even reverse diabetic peripheral neuropathy, or DPN, in mice. The condition leads to death of nerves in the extremities of individuals with diabetes.

New Rochelle, NY, September 10, 2010—The glycome, encompassing all of the complex sugars produced by an organism, is comprised of multiple families of molecules whose function in the human body is often determined by the structure, composition, and placement of the attached sugars, as explored in a comprehensive look at the field of glycomics in a group of key articles in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com).

X-rays are the medium of choice for many scientific studies. When you shine them on a sample, they literally shed light on the material's structure, providing loads of information about it. Unfortunately, this mostly applies to solids only, since the sample has to be in a vacuum for the entire time it is being irradiated with soft X-rays. For liquids, that means you have to remove all the water. In the case of biological samples such as proteins, however, this destroys their natural environment. The solution to this problems has always been to measure liquids through membranes.

Small intravenous devices (IVDs) commonly used in the hand or arm do not need to be moved routinely every 3 days. A randomized controlled trial comparing regular relocation with relocation on clinical indication, published in the open access journal BMC Medicine, found that rates of complications were the same for both regimens.

The renowned Journal of Biological Chemistry has selected the report of these research findings as one of two "papers of the week" for its September 10, 2010 issue and has chosen the structural model as cover image.

New York, NY, September 9, 2010 – The use of stem cells for research and their possible application in the treatment of disease are hotly debated topics.