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Certain children with the visual condition known as retinopathy of prematurity appear to see better at age 6 if they received treatment early, whereas others benefit more from observation than early treatment, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the June print issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A large genetic study of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has identified three new genes associated with this blinding eye disease—two involved in the cholesterol pathway. Results of this large-scale collaborative study, supported by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, were published online April 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Working in a rare, "natural seafloor laboratory" of hydrothermal vents that had just been rocked by a volcanic eruption, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and other institutions have discovered what they believe is an undersea superhighway carrying tiny life forms unprecedented distances to inhabit the post-eruption site.

Chapel Hill, NC - Important advances in the fight against cancer have come as researchers proved that viruses and cancers interact in ways that were previously unknown to scientists.

A new study led by UNC scientists shows that a common cancer drug can activate a viral infection that, paradoxically, can help anti-viral medications eradicate virus-associated cancer.

URBANA – According to a University of Illinois study, omega-3 fatty acids may be good for more than heart health. A little-known omega-3 may have implications for treating male infertility.

"In our experiment, we used 'knockout' mice that lacked the gene responsible for an enzyme important in making docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). In the absence of DHA, male mice are basically infertile, producing few if any misshaped sperm that can't get where they need to go," said Manabu Nakamura, a U of I associate professor of food science and human nutrition.

The Atomic Force Microscope depicts on its screen the few nanometer thick and few micrometer long fibers as white flexible sticks, crisscrossing the surface on which they are deposited. The very peculiar property of these proteins lies in fact that they can self assemble into complex ribbon-like twisted fibers.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Using a sensor that weighs cells with unprecedented precision, MIT and Harvard researchers have measured the rate at which single cells accumulate mass — a feat that could shed light on how cells control their growth and why those controls fail in cancer cells.

The research team, led by Scott Manalis, MIT associate professor of biological engineering, revealed that individual cells vary greatly in their growth rates, and also found evidence that cells grow exponentially (meaning they grow faster as they become larger).

Researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have discovered that breast stem cells are exquisitely sensitive to the female hormones oestrogen and progesterone, a finding that opens the way for the development of new preventions and treatments for breast cancer.

The discovery, by scientists in the institute's Stem Cells and Cancer and Bioinformatics divisions, also explains decades of evidence linking breast cancer risk to exposure to female hormones.

It has been published online today in the international journal Nature.

April 11, 2010 – (BRONX, NY) – In a step towards a possible treatment for Huntington's disease, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown for the first time that the accumulation of a mutated protein may explain damaging cellular behavior in Huntington's disease. Their research is described in the April 11 online edition of Nature Neuroscience.

Chapel Hill, NC – Scientists have shown in multiple contexts that DNA damage over our lifetimes is a key mechanism behind the development of cancer and other age-related diseases. Not everyone gets these diseases, because the body has multiple mechanisms for repairing the damage caused to DNA by aging, the environment and other human behaviors – but the mechanisms behind certain kinds of DNA repair have not been well-understood.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A team of MIT researchers has found a novel way to mimic the process by which plants use the power of sunlight to split water and make chemical fuel to power their growth. In this case, the team used a modified virus as a kind of biological scaffold that can assemble the nanoscale components needed to split a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new method for identifying genetic variation, including mutations, in active genes. Hopes are strong that the method represents an important research tool that will lead to the development of new diagnostic tests.

Particular components of inflammasomes—protein complexes needed for generating immune responses to pathogens and cellular damage—lessen the severity of colitis and colitis-associated colon cancer in mice, according to a study published online this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

A new study finds that Hispanics live in areas with more limited availability of colonoscopies and sigmoidoscopies for colorectal cancer screening. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that differences in areas' capacity for providing these procedures may explain why Hispanics are less likely to undergo colorectal cancer screening than non-Hispanic whites. Increasing screening may require efforts to improve the availability of endoscopy in areas with a high ethnic minority population.

A new analysis has found that a considerable proportion of patients with end-stage or terminal cancer do not benefit from palliative radiation therapy (radiotherapy) despite spending most of their remaining life undergoing treatments. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that greater efforts are needed to tailor appropriately palliative radiotherapy to patients with end-stage cancer.