Body

DNA sequences from tumor cells can be used to direct the immune system to attack cancer, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The research, in mice, appears online Feb. 8 in Nature.

It's been more than 50 years since James Watson and Francis Crick showed that DNA is a double helix of two strands that complement each other. But how does a short piece of DNA find its match, out of the millions of 'letters' in even a small genome? New work by researchers at the University of California, Davis, handling and observing single molecules of DNA, shows how it's done. The results are published online Feb. 8 by the journal Nature.

Defects in DNA repair and copying are strongly linked to cancer, birth defects and other problems.

SAN FRANCISCO – Increased pain following surgery has long been linked to anxiety and "catastrophizing," an extreme response to stress.

In a new study presented today at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), 97 patients – men and women – who were about to undergo minimally invasive total knee replacement (TKR) surgery, completed a brief survey to quantify their level of anxiety, as well as their typical level of anxiety and potential for catastrophizing. Pain data was then collected for seven days following surgery.

SAN FRANCISCO – Patients taking antidepressants up to three years prior to undergoing a total hip replacement (THR) were more likely to report greater pain before and after surgery and less satisfaction with their procedure, according to new research presented today at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).

In the study, 1,657 patients (13 percent of the study population) used antidepressants up to three years before surgery.

TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 8, 2011) – A description of the projects and studies resulting from a research partnership initiated in 2005 between Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico, has been published in a recent issue of Health Promotion Practice. The partnership, which included three outreach cancer education projects and two pilot research studies aimed at reducing cancer health disparities in Hispanic populations in both Tampa and Ponce, was funded by the National Cancer Institute's Minority/Cancer Center Partnership Program.

Historians, archivists and experts in computer science from the Universities of York and Brighton are teaming up to develop new ways of exploring digital historical records.

Together with colleagues from Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands, the researchers will be developing tools to allow people to work effectively and efficiently with the vast amounts of historic material currently being digitized.

A study led by the University of Leicester has found that anti-obesity drugs coupled with lifestyle advice are effective in reducing weight and BMI.

Dr Laura Gray and colleagues from the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Leicester have published a paper in the journal Obesity Review which looks at the effectiveness of anti –obesity drugs and a modified lifestyle on weight loss and body mass index. The research was funded by an National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme.