FRANKFURT. Not only humans but also each of their body cells must watch their fat balance. Fats perform highly specialised functions, especially in the cell membrane. A research group at the Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (BMLS) of Goethe University in Frankfurt, together with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, has now discovered how yeast cells measure the availability of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in foodstuffs and adapt their production of membrane lipids to it.
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AURORA, Colo. (June 23, 2016) - While the lure of academic medicine careers often lies in the promise of finding life-saving cures and new medical treatments, many young faculty leave the field in frustration after failing to win grants to fund their research. As a result, the best and brightest recruits are often lost to academic medicine.
But a new study at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus demonstrates that a program pairing junior faculty members with seasoned mentors can result in significantly more grants.
TORONTO -- An international team of researchers has discovered a simple, accurate new way to predict which women with gestational diabetes will develop type 2 diabetes after delivery. The discovery would allow health care providers to identify women at greatest risk and help motivate women to make early lifestyle changes and follow other strategies that could prevent them from developing the disease later in life.
Using an innovative approach to identify a cancer's genetic vulnerabilities by more swiftly analyzing human tumors transplanted into mice, researchers have identified a new potential target for pancreatic cancer treatment, published online in Cell Reports.
The team, led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, found the gene WDR5 protects pancreatic tumors from DNA damage, working with the previously known cancer-promoting gene called Myc to help tumors thrive.
Severe paleness and photosensitivity are two symptoms of a rare group of hereditary diseases that affect haem, a substance in the blood. While these metabolic disorders - known as the porphyrias - are extremely rare, a similar effect is often deliberately triggered by dermatologists in localised areas during the treatment of pre-cancerous skin lesions and skin cancers. This treatment is called photodynamic therapy and involves using a special cream which stimulates haem production in the diseased cells. This produces several photosensitive molecules known as porphyrins.
Traumatic experiences in childhood increase the risk of developing behavioral and psychiatric disorders later in life. It is also known that the consequences of a trauma can likewise be observed in the children of people affected even if those children have themselves not experienced any trauma. However, childhood trauma in some conditions can also help individuals deal better with difficult situations later in life. This ability, too, is passed onto following generations.
ATLANTA--Certain viruses, such as influenza, could survive on children's toys long enough to result in exposures, placing children at risk for getting infectious diseases, according to researchers at Georgia State University.
The researchers tested how long an enveloped virus could survive on pieces of a flexible plastic children's toy, a squeaking frog. They were able to recover infectious virions (complete viral particles) from the toy up to 24 hours after the toy's contamination at 60 percent relative humidity, and up to 10 hours at 40 percent relative humidity.
When you're a firefly, finding "the one" can change the world.
Literally.
A new study by UCSB evolutionary biologists Todd Oakley and Emily Ellis demonstrates that for fireflies, octopuses and other animals that choose mates via bioluminescent courtship, sexual selection increases the number of species -- thereby impacting global diversity. Their results appear in the journal Current Biology.
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS [1], in collaboration with Imperial College London and the University of Vienna, Austria, have identified antibodies that can efficiently neutralize both the dengue virus and the Zika virus. The description of the binding site for these antibodies on the viral envelope, identical for both viruses, could lead to the development of a universal vaccine that offers simultaneous protection against dengue and Zika virus disease. These results were published in the journal Nature on June 23, 2016.
DURHAM, N.C. -- The World Health Organization (WHO) violated sound standards of medical care and human rights by nudging poorer countries to follow less expensive, untested and largely ineffective treatment protocols for tuberculosis patients, a new paper by researchers at Duke, Brandeis and Harvard universities argues.
The authors say the WHO violated its own constitution and international law from 1993 to 2002 by recommending and supporting a double standard of care for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), an airborne infectious disease.
Philadelphia, PA, June 23, 2016 - Computed tomography (CT) scans are an invaluable diagnostic tool in modern medicine, but they do come at a price: exposing patients to potentially dangerous ionizing radiation. Doctors and other healthcare professionals may not be fully aware of a CT scan's effect on lifetime malignancy risk. A new study in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences surveyed doctors, radiologists, and imaging technologists regarding their beliefs about radiation exposure from CT.
Seoul, Republic of Korea - Today at the 94th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, researcher Angus Walls, Edinburgh Dental Institute, Scotland, UK, will give a Keynote Address titled "What is the Role of Diet in Caries Prevention?" The IADR General Session is being held in conjunction with the 3rd Meeting of the IADR Asia Pacific Region and the 35th Annual Meeting of the IADR Korean Division.
The discovery power of the gene chip is coming to nanotechnology. A Northwestern University research team is developing a tool to rapidly test millions and perhaps even billions or more different nanoparticles at one time to zero in on the best particle for a specific use.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have uncovered how changes in metabolism of human embryonic stem cells help coax them to mature into specific cell types -- and may improve their function in engineered organs or tissues.
"Pluripotent stem cells grow very quickly, and so they need to churn out large quantities of cellular building blocks to fuel their growth - proteins, lipids, sugars and other essential molecules," says Dr. Jalees Rehman, who led the study, published in the journal Cell Reports.
RENO, Nev. - An old technology that uses natural bacteria predators, called bacteriophages, is the focus of new research at the University of Nevada, Reno. The technique is being used to reduce salmonella bacteria in meat products.
Assistant Professor Amilton de Mello, from the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno, presented his research at the international American Meat Science Association's conference that ends today in Texas.