Body

Barcelona, Spain: Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer in the 12 months after they have completed a pregnancy are 48% more likely to die than other young women with breast cancer according to new research to be presented at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona today (Friday). [1]

Barcelona, Spain: Women who discover they have breast cancer while they are pregnant can be treated with chemotherapy without endangering the health of their unborn baby, according to research to be presented at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona today (Friday).

Barcelona, Spain: Women who have been treated for breast cancer can choose to become pregnant and have babies, without fears that pregnancy could put them at higher risk of dying from their cancer, according to a major, new study.

In a meta-analysis of 14 trials, presented today (Friday) at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7), researchers from Belgium and Italy found that, not only was pregnancy safe for breast cancer survivors, but, in fact, it could improve their chances of survival.

Most kidney transplant candidates are willing to receive a kidney from a donor at increased risk of viral infection, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The results suggest that kidney disease patients can make rational tradeoffs between the virtues and risks conferred by donated kidneys.

Mexican Americans are 40 percent less likely than non-Hispanic whites to call 9-1-1 and be taken to the hospital via ambulance for stroke — resulting in medical treatment delays — according to a new study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Forget top-to-bottom only. New Cornell University evolutionary biology research shows how plants at the bottom of the food chain have evolved mechanisms that influence ecosystem dynamics as well. (Science, March 26, 2010.)

"The ecology and interactions of most organisms is dictated by their evolutionary history," said Anurag Agrawal, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), the study's senior author.

Boston, Mass. – About 40 percent of children and up to 70 percent of adults in remission from acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) will have a relapse. In recent years, doctors have come to believe that this is due to leukemia stem cells, endlessly replicating cancer cells that generate the immature blood cells characteristic of leukemia and are resistant to typical cancer treatments. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have found a possible way to kill off these cells, and prevent them from initiating a relapse.

Scientists from Cambridge, London and Melbourne have found the first ever evidence that tyrannosaur dinosaurs existed in the southern continents. They identified a hip bone found at Dinosaur Cove in Victoria, Australia as belonging to an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The find sheds new light on the evolutionary history of this group of dinosaurs. It also raises the crucial question of why it was only in the north that tyrannosaurs evolved into the giant predators like T. rex.

Irvine, Calif., March 25, 2010 – There's a war occurring each day in our backyards – plant versus plant-eating insect versus insect-eating insect. Research by UC Irvine's Kailen Mooney suggests the outcome – of interest to farmers – is a stalemate.

For a study published online Friday, March 26, in the journal Science, Mooney and colleagues studied 16 species of milkweed, a group of flowering plants found throughout the Western hemisphere.

A new test developed by Japanese scientists may revolutionize how and when physicians diagnose Alzheimer's disease. According to a research report published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), the new test measures proteins in the spinal fluid known to be one of the main causes of brain degeneration and memory impairment in Alzheimer's patients: high molecular weight A-Beta oligomers.

It frequently happens in science that what you throw away turns out to be most valuable. It happened to Deepak Nagrath, but not for long.

The Rice assistant professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering was looking for ways to grow cells in a scaffold, and he discarded the sticky substance secreted by the cells.

"I thought it was contamination, so I threw the plates away," said Nagrath, then a research associate at Harvard Medical School.

A protein discovered in fruit fly eyes has brought a Johns Hopkins team closer to understanding how the human heart and other organs automatically "right size" themselves, a piece of information that may hold clues to controlling cancer.

The protein, named Kibra, is linked to a relay of chemical signals responsible for shaping and sizing tissue growth by coordinating control of cell proliferation and death, according to research published Feb. 16 in Developmental Cell by teams at Johns Hopkins and Florida State University.

A team from the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (Neiker-Tecnalia) has questioned the generally held belief that the quality of tomatoes depends primarily on their exposure to natural light and states that the most determining factor is temperature. The research was drawn up by the Institute's Department of Agricultural Production and Protection and opens up great possibilities for starting new plantations in zones where light intensity is low due to weather conditions.

CINCINNATI – Identification of two new proteins in the Fanconi anemia DNA repair pathway may help explain genetic instability in people with Fanconi anemia and how otherwise healthy people are susceptible to cancer from environmentally triggered DNA damage.

A study in the March 26 Molecular Cell adds another layer of complexity to the multifaceted Fanconi anemia (FA) pathway. The research was led by scientists in the division of Experimental Hematology and Cancer Biology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Millions of patients with high blood pressure and heart failure take a class of drugs known as ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors. These drugs prevent the body from processing angiotensin II, a hormone that constricts blood vessels.