About 1 in 4 deaths in the United States are due to cancer, but primary tumors are rarely fatal. Instead, it's when tumors metastasize that cancer becomes so deadly. To help patients and physicians make treatment decisions, teams of researchers have been working on various methods to detect cancer's spread – via the bloodstream – before secondary tumors develop. Now, one team reports a nearly perfect method for separating breast cancer cells from blood.
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HEIDELBERG, 25 March 2013 – Researchers have used whole genome sequencing to reveal if drug-resistant bacteria are transmitted from animals to humans in two disease outbreaks that occurred on different farms in Denmark. The results, which are published today in EMBO Molecular Medicine, confirm animal-to-human transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a disease-causing bacterium that carries the recently described mecC gene. The mecC gene is responsible for resistance to the penicillin-like antibiotic methicillin.
When it comes to posting on social media, there are few areas of our lives that are off limits.
We post about eating, working, playing, hunting, quilting – you name it. Just about everything is up for public consumption … except our health.
A new study from BYU finds that while most of us go online regularly for help in diagnosing health issues, very few of us actually post information, questions or experiences on health topics.
The first multi-gene DNA sequencing test that can help predict cancer patients' responses to treatment has been launched in the National Health Service (NHS), thanks to a partnership between scientists at the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.
The test uses the latest DNA sequencing techniques to detect mutations across 46 genes that may be driving cancer growth in patients with solid tumours. The presence of a mutation in a gene can potentially determine which treatment a patient should receive.
CAPE TOWN – 25 March 2013 – At a time of growing global concern about the rising level of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis in South Africa and worldwide, the world's top TB vaccine experts are meeting this week, the first time this scientific forum has been held in Africa, where they will present new research aimed at advancing development of vaccines against the deadly airborne disease.
A new analysis has found that genetic alterations in a particular cellular pathway are linked with bladder cancer risk, recurrence, disease progression, and patient survival. Published early online in CANCER, a peer- reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings could help improve bladder cancer screening and treatment.
The harm done by konzo – a disease overshadowed by the war and drought it tends to accompany – goes beyond its devastating physical effects to impair children's memory, problem solving and other cognitive functions.
Even children without physical symptoms of konzo appear to lose cognitive ability when exposed to the toxin that causes the disease, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.
Getting enough to eat is a basic human need – but at what cost to the environment? Research published in BioMed Central's journal Agriculture & Food Security demonstrates that as their crops on higher ground fail due to unreliable rainfall, people in countries like Uganda are increasingly relocating to wetland areas. Unless the needs of these people are addressed in a more sustainable way, overuse of wetland resources through farming, fishing, and hunting will continue.
A female great tits' (Parus major) appearance is shown to signal healthy attributes in offspring in a paper in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology. The black stripe across her breast and white patches on her cheeks correlate to a chick's weight at two weeks and immune strength respectively – though the former seems to signal a genetic benefit and the latter can affect an 'adopted' chick's health, suggesting nurture is involved.
Stem cells taken from amniotic fluid were used to restore gut structure and function following intestinal damage in rodents, in new research published in the journal Gut. The findings pave the way for a new form of cell therapy to reverse serious damage from inflammation in the intestines of babies.
Rapidly growing trees like poplars and willows are candidate "biofuel crops" from which it is expected that cellulosic ethanol and higher energy content fuels can be efficiently extracted. Domesticating these as crops requires a deep understanding of the physiology and genetics of trees, and scientists are turning to long-domesticated fruit trees for hints.
BOSTON—During the past 30 years, the number of patients with cancers that originate near the junction of the esophagus and stomach has increased approximately 600 percent in the United States.
HOUSTON -- A key building block of life, actin is one of the most abundant and highly conserved proteins in eukaryotic cells.
First discovered in muscle cells more than 70 years ago, actin has a well-established identity as a cytoplasmic protein that works by linking itself in chains to form filaments. Fibers formed by these actin polymers are crucial to muscle contraction.
So it came as a surprise when scientists discovered actin in the nucleus. Labs have been working for the past few decades to figure out exactly what it's doing there.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Every time a cell divides it makes a carbon copy of crucial ingredients, including the histone proteins that are responsible for spooling yards of DNA into tight little coils. When these spool-like proteins aren't made correctly, it can result in the genomic instability characteristic of most birth defects and cancers.
Assessing the risks and benefits of antibiotic use in a large cohort of patients consulting their physicians for respiratory infections, researchers find a small reduction in subsequent hospitalization for pneumonia and no increase in severe adverse drug reactions for those prescribed antibiotics.