MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- Kansas State University is helping the fight against Zika virus through mosquito research.
The university's Biosecurity Research Institute is taking a two-part approach: Researchers are studying mosquitoes to understand how they become infected with Zika virus and researchers are providing the virus to collaborative organizations for further study.
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (July 5, 2016) - A team of researchers at the University of Miami who examined the role of women in extreme networks or organizations, such as terrorist groups dispelled the common assumption that women are lured into these dangerous environments solely to offer support while men are recruited and tend to be the key players. Instead, the researchers found, women are better connected within the network, essentially becoming the glue holding the system together, fueling its vitality and survival.
The olive was one of the first trees to be domesticated in the history of mankind, probably some 6,000 years ago. A Mediterranean emblem par excellence, it is of vital importance to the Spanish and other regional economies (Italy, Greece and Portugal). In fact, Spain is the leading producer of olive oil in the world. Every year, nearly three million tons of oil are produced, for local consumption and export. Spain produces one third of this total.
When an immune T cell divides into two daughter cells, the activity of an enzyme called mTORC1, which controls protein production, splits unevenly between the progeny, producing two cells with different properties. Such "asymmetric division," uncovered by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers using lab-grown cells and specially bred mice, could offer new ways to enhance cancer immunotherapy and may have other implications for studying how stem cells differentiate.
BOSTON (July 1, 2016) -- Tuberculosis is one of the most common infectious diseases in the world, infecting almost 10 million people each year. Treating the disease can be challenging and requires a combination of multiple antibiotics delivered over several months. This is due, in part, to variations in antibiotic tolerance among subpopulations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that cause tuberculosis.
Changing just one seated meeting per week at work into a walking meeting increased the work-related physical activity levels of white-collar workers by 10 minutes, according to a new study published by public health researchers with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The study, published June 24, 2016 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's journal Preventing Chronic Disease, suggests a possible new health promotion approach to improving the health of millions of white-collar workers who spend most of their workdays sitting in chairs.
In the campy 1966 science fiction movie "Fantastic Voyage," scientists miniaturize a submarine with themselves inside and travel through the body of a colleague to break up a potentially fatal blood clot. Right. Micro-humans aside, imagine the inflammation that metal sub would cause.
Ideally, injectable or implantable medical devices should not only be small and electrically functional, they should be soft, like the body tissues with which they interact. Scientists from two UChicago labs set out to see if they could design a material with all three of those properties.
Though a variety of immunotherapy-based strategies are being used against cancer, they are often hindered by the inability of the immune response to enter the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and to effectively mount a response to cancer cells. Now, scientists from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences have developed a new vaccine that involves injecting cells that have been modified so that they can stimulate both an innate immune response and the more specific adaptive response, which allows the body to keep memories and attack new tumor cells as they form.
Bottom Line: Improved cancer detection and treatment efforts, combined with demographic trends, are creating larger numbers of older cancer survivors who are likely to have other health conditions that impact care and well-being.
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Author: Shirley M. Bluethmann, PhD, MPH, a cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
MADISON, Wis. -- Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have confirmed that a benign bacterium called Wolbachia pipientis can completely block transmission of Zika virus in Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species responsible for passing the virus to humans.
Matthew Aliota, a scientist at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) and first author of the paper -- published today (July 1, 2016) in the journal Scientific Reports -- says the bacteria could present a "novel biological control mechanism," aiding efforts to stop the spread of Zika virus.
In making tough, life-changing decisions, people often weigh the risks associated with the options before them and choose accordingly. Now researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 30 have found that pea plants also make choices about how to grow based on an assessment of risk.
Most adults carry multiple herpesviruses. Following the initial acute infection, these viruses establish life-long infections in their hosts and cause cold sores, keratitis, genital herpes, shingles, infectious mononucleosis, and other diseases. Some herpesviruses can cause cancer in man. During the latent phase of infection, the viruses remain dormant for long periods of time, but retain the capacity to cause occasional reactivations, that may lead to disease.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transmit dengue, chikungunya, and zika viruses. A study published in PLOS NTDs reports a new technique that could make one approach to mosquito control--using Wolbachia bacteria that reduce the mosquitos' ability to transmit viral pathogens--a whole lot easier and cheaper to implement and evaluate.
Regenerative therapies, based on cell replacement, hold promise for a wide range of age-related diseases, but efforts to bring the therapies to patients have not been very successful - in large part because the newly-derived replacement cells can't integrate efficiently into tissues affected by the ravages of aging. Publishing in Science, researchers at the Buck Institute harnessed a naturally-occurring and evolutionarily ancient anti-inflammatory mechanism that repaired the eye and significantly enhanced the success of retinal regenerative therapies in mice.