Body

The availability of more affordable drugs, vaccines and diagnostics that would help countless people worldwide is the foremost benefit expected from a growing number of collaborations between biotech firms in developing countries, according to a study to be published Mon. May 12 in the UK journal Nature Biotechnology.

Even healthy pregnant women can be at risk for pregnancy problems caused by oral bacteria. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University began to understand which bacteria from the 700 species living in the mouth are responsible for the growing health problem of preterm and stillbirths.

Widespread use of the Canadian C-spine rule by triage nurses in emergency departments would ease discomfort of trauma patients and improve patient flow in overcrowded emergency departments in Canada and abroad, according to a study (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj091430.pdf in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) www.cmaj.ca.

Mutations that cause Parkinson's disease prevent cells from destroying defective mitochondria, according to a study published online May 10 in the Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org).

New research in the Journal of Cell Biology helps explain how the toxic protein responsible for botulism can enter circulation from the digestive system. The study appears online May 10 (www.jcb.org).

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have applied advanced radiation techniques for head and neck cancer to avoid treating critical structures that affect swallowing and eating. A new study shows these principles and techniques treated the cancer effectively while greatly reducing long-term swallowing complications.

Saranac Lake, N.Y. – Inducing cellular immunity as a means to protect against influenza virus is the focus of several laboratories at the Trudeau Institute.Researchers here have recently identified two important signaling components required by the immune system that might allow us to pre-position our own virus-fighting T cells to the lungs, the site of initial infection.

In two new papers, Rice University researchers report using ultracentrifugation (UCF) to create highly purified samples of carbon nanotube species.

One team, led by Rice Professor Junichiro Kono and graduate students Erik Haroz and William Rice, has made a small but significant step toward the dream of an efficient nationwide electrical grid that depends on highly conductive quantum nanowire.

Increased cholesterol levels are being increasingly recognised as risk factors for the onset and progression of several cancers. Now researchers in Portugal show that high levels of cholesterol can affect the microenvironment of the bone marrow, so that more cells move from the bone marrow to peripheral, circulating blood. These findings, by Sergio Dias and his team, an external group of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, have implications for transplantation and further understanding bone marrow malignancies, are to appear in the next issue of the journal Blood.

Rockville, Md., May 10, 2010 — To promote the establishment of universal standards for prescription medication labels—and to address the widespread problem of patient misinterpretation of medication instructions—an advisory panel formed by the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) recently issued a set of recommendations to bring consistency to labeling on dispensed prescription packaging. The recommendations are patient-centered, and were developed following a call for such standards by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the issue of health literacy.

By using entire islands as experimental laboratories, two Dartmouth biologists have performed one of the largest manipulations of natural selection ever conducted in a wild animal population. Their results, published online on May 9 by the journal Nature, show that competition among lizards is more important than predation by birds and snakes when it comes to survival of the fittest lizard.

In the first study of its type, Australian researchers have shown that healthy people with a genetic predisposition to Type 2 diabetes gain more weight overeating over the short term than their non-genetically-prone counterparts.

In a 28-day study undertaken at Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, scientists set out to mimic the kind of overfeeding that typically takes place during feasting periods like Christmas.

More individualized therapy and better supportive care helped push the survival for children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to 71 percent three years after diagnosis, according to new research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators and reported in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology. The survival rate of 71 percent is 20 percent better than previously reported U.S. rates and is similar to the success achieved in a 2009 Japanese study, said Jeffrey Rubnitz, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Oncology department.

The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) has released a new position statement on Vitamin D for older adults which makes important recommendations for vitamin D nutrition from an evidence-based perspective.

Vitamin D is important for bone and muscle development, function and preservation. For this reason it is a vital component in the maintenance of bone strength and in the prevention of falls and osteoporotic fractures.