LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Scientists at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) developed a new mouse model for studying a devastating childhood brain cancer called medulloblastoma. The animal model mimics the deadliest of four subtypes of human medulloblastoma, a tumor that is triggered by elevated levels of a gene known as Myc. The study, published February 13 in the journal Cancer Cell, also suggests a potential strategy for inhibiting the growth of this tumor type.
Body
Since Charles Darwin first put forth the theory of evolution, scientists have been trying to unlock the mysteries of genetics. But research on the genome — the organism's entire hereditary package encoded in DNA and RNA — has been less extensive. There is a tendency to think of the genome as a static and passive container of information, says Dr. Ehud Lamm of Tel Aviv University's Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas.
rtTitle>(WASHINGTON, February 13, 2012) – Two studies published today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), demonstrate preliminary success of an effective multiple myeloma (MM) regimen in patients with AL amyloidosis, a rare and devastating blood disease that results in deposition of damaging abnormal protein in critical organs of the body, including the kidneys, heart, liver, and intestines, and shares some characteristics with MM.
BOSTON -- A new study by researchers at Tufts Medical Center provides unique insight into factors that affect Medicare decisions on whether to pay for medical technologies. The study, published online by the journal Medical Care, underscores that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has incorporated evidence-based medicine into its decision making, highlighting the importance of the strength and quality of the supporting clinical evidence.
New Orleans, LA – Evaluating the Let's Move! Initiative, Dr. Melinda Sothern, Professor of Public Health and Jim Finks Chair of Health Promotion at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, calls First Lady Michelle Obama brave for taking on the challenge of childhood obesity and suggests that she now consider working to move it up to the policy level. Dr. Sothern, a national authority on childhood obesity, The issue includes a foreword by the First Lady and a guest editorial coauthored by New Orleans Saints quarterback and NFL Offensive Player of the Year Drew Brees.
Games and interactive media are powerful tools for health promotion and childhood obesity prevention
New Rochelle, NY -- Children are naturally drawn toward gaming and other types of technology, creating an ideal opportunity to design interactive media tools to encourage physical activity and promote healthy eating habits, according to an article in a special issue of the journal Childhood Obesity celebrating the second anniversary of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative. The issue includes a special Foreword by Mrs. Obama and is available free online at http://www.liebertpub.com/chi.
Children living near coal-tar-sealed pavement are likely to receive a far higher dose of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from incidental ingestion of house dust than do children living near unsealed pavement, and that dose is more than two times higher than the PAH dose children are estimated to receive from food.
Scientists from the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital and Antwerp University have tested a new 'therapeutic vaccine' against HIV on volunteers. The participants were so to say vaccinated with their own cells. The researchers filtered certain white blood cells out of the volunteer's blood, 'loaded' them outside the body and then gave them back. The immune system of the testees was better than before in attacking and suppressing the virus, the scientists reported in the top journal AIDS. But they still cannot cure the disease.
University of Granada researchers have developed a new forensic identification technique that compares the skull with one or several pictures of the subject while still alive. This system is based on the forensic identification technique known as craniofacial superimposition; this technique involves analysing the morphology of the face by locating a set of reference points either on the skull (craniometric points) and on a picture (somatometric points) of the subject alive.
Scientists at the University of Liverpool, working with international partners, have shown a rare genetic disease, that causes crippling osteoarthritis in the spine and major joints, is far more prevalent worldwide than previously thought.
The vast majority of men who have a prostate cancer operation can retain their ability to orgasm if the surgery is carried out without removing the nerves that surround the prostate gland like a hammock, according to a study in the February issue of the urology journal BJUI.
Usually, mould fungi are nothing to cheer about – but now they can be used as "chemical factories". Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have succeeded in introducing bacterial genes into the fungus Trichoderma, so that the fungus can now produce important chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry. The raw material used by the fungus is abundant - it is chitin, which makes up the shells of crustaceans.
Fifty Times More Expensive than Gold
ST. PAUL, Minn. – A larger waistline may be linked to an increased risk of decreased mental functioning in people infected with the AIDS virus HIV, according to research published in the February 14, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann, is a chronic insect pest within pine forests in the southeastern United States. Under favorable environmental and host conditions, it is an aggressive, primary bark beetle capable of killing large acreages of pines. Its principal range stretches from east Texas and Oklahoma to the east coast and north to southern New Jersey.
February 13, 2012 (Portland, Ore.) -- Teenage girls gained less weight, improved their body image, ate less fast food, and had more family meals after participating in a 6- month program that involved weekly peer meetings, consultations with primary care providers and separate meetings for parents. Those results from a study published online today in the journal Pediatrics.