Body | Page 690 | Science Codex

Nanotechnology and math deliver two-in-one punch for cancer therapy resistance

Math, biology and nanotechnology are becoming strange, yet effective bed-fellows in the fight against cancer treatment resistance. Researchers at the University of Waterloo and Harvard Medical School have engineered a revolutionary new approach to cancer treatment that pits a lethal combination of drugs together into a single nanoparticle.

Their work, published online on June 3, 2016 in the leading nanotechnology journal ACS Nano, finds a new method of shrinking tumors and prevents resistance in aggressive cancers by activating two drugs within the same cell at the same time.

Effectiveness of SDF in arresting root caries in different fluoridated areas

Seoul, Republic of Korea - On June 24, 2016, at the 94th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, researcher Edward Lo, University of Hong Kong, SAR, China, will present a study titled "Effectiveness of SDF in Arresting Root Caries in Different Fluoridated Areas." 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.

Proteins put up with the roar of the crowd

HOUSTON - (June 23, 2016) - It gets mighty crowded around your DNA, but don't worry: According to Rice University researchers, your proteins are nimble enough to find what they need.

Rice theoretical scientists studying the mechanisms of protein-DNA interactions in live cells showed that crowding in cells doesn't hamper protein binding as much as they thought it did.

Researchers investigate prevalence of gingivitis during 1st/2nd trimesters of pregnancy

Seoul, Republic of Korea - Today at the 94th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, researcher Michael Reddy, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, will present a study titled "Gingivitis During the First/Second Trimesters of Pregnancy." 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.

Researchers discover how faulty genetic instructions drive a deadly blood cancer in adults

Scientists have previously identified a series of genetic errors that commonly occur inside cancerous blood cells, but it hasn't been clear exactly how those genetic malfunctions create immature blood cells that overpopulate, crowd out healthy cells and spread in patients with acute myeloid leukemia or AML. Now, researchers at the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered how a set of faulty genetic instructions keep blood stem cells from maturing, a finding that further explains the development of AML.

Further characteristics of jaw injury and TMD: The OPPERA study

Seoul, Republic of Korea - Today at the 94th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, researcher Sonia Sharma, University at Buffalo, N.Y., USA, will present a study titled "Further Characteristics of Jaw Injury and TMD: The OPPERA Study." 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.

Development of drugs for local treatment of oral conditions

Seoul, Republic of Korea - On June 24, 2016, at the 94th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, researcher W. Peter Holbrook, University of Iceland, will present a study titled "Development of Drugs for Local Treatment of Oral Conditions." 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.

Overweight and obesity impact on periodontitis: A Brazilian birth cohort

Seoul, Republic of Korea - Today at the 94th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research, researcher Marco Peres, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, will present a study titled "Overweight and Obesity Impact on Periodontitis: A Brazilian Birth Cohort." 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.

Researchers discover oldest evidence of 'farming' -- by insects

Scientists have discovered the oldest fossil evidence of agriculture -- not by humans, but by insects.

The team, led by Eric Roberts of James Cook University along with researchers from Ohio University, discovered the oldest known examples of "fungus gardens" in 25 million-year-old fossil termite nests in East Africa.

The results are published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

Chemical signal can make it easier to personalize medication

Common diseases like allergy, diabetes and other immune diseases have increased dramatically in recent decades. This indicates that the environment may have a more important role than genes in explaining this increase.

An international research team led by the Centre for personalized medicine at Linköping University has therefore searched for possible non-genetic causes of common immune diseases. They examined the chemical signals that regulate how DNA is converted into protein.

Zika warnings lead to 'significant' increase in demand for abortion in Latin America

Health warnings about complications related to Zika virus significantly increased demand for abortions in Latin American countries, according to a new study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

However, in many of these countries, abortion is either illegal or highly restricted, leaving pregnant women with few options and potentially driving women to use unsafe methods, access abortion drugs without medical supervision or visit underground providers.

Revealed: New insights on causes of sudden cardiac death in the young

Genetic testing has shed new light on the deaths of nearly 500 young Australians and New Zealanders who died from sudden cardiac death in a 3-year period, the New England Journal of Medicine reports today.

"Sudden cardiac death in children and young adults has a devastating impact on families, care providers and the community," says the University of Sydney's Professor Chris Semsarian, who led the multinational study.

"It's a tragedy that claims the lives of two to three young Australians each week.

High-tech scans can spare lymphoma patients intensive chemo

HODGKIN lymphoma patients can be spared the serious side effects of chemotherapy thanks to high-tech scans that can predict the outcome of treatment, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine*.

Doctors - funded by Cancer Research UK and international partners in Europe and Australasia - used positron emission tomography (PET)** to scan more than 1200 patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma after they had been given two cycles of standard chemotherapy.

Rates of nonmedical prescription opioid use and opioid use disorder double in 10 years

Nonmedical use of prescription opioids more than doubled among adults in the United States from 2001-2002 to 2012-2013, based on a study from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Nearly 10 million Americans, or 4.1 percent of the adult population, used opioid medications in 2012-2013 a class of drugs that includes OxyContin and Vicodin, without a prescription or not as prescribed (in greater amounts, more often, or longer than prescribed) in the past year.

The call of the sea: Mammalian evolutionary transitions back to the sea

Though mammals adapted on land, a new study by Maria Chikina and Nathan Clark has shown that during three major independent evolutionary events, a number of mammals harkened back to the sea.

For the manatee, walrus, dolphin, and killer whale, the return to the sea involved many evolutionary trade-offs amongst hundreds of genes: a general loss of the number of sensory genes for smell and taste, new functions for genes forming skin and connective tissue, and genes involved in muscle structure and metabolism.