Body

Colorectal cancer has been linked to carbohydrate-rich western diets, but the underlying mechanisms have been unclear. A study published by Cell Press July 17th in the journal Cell shows that gut microbes metabolize carbohydrates in the diet, causing intestinal cells to proliferate and form tumors in mice that are genetically predisposed to colorectal cancer. Treatment with antibiotics or a low-carbohydrate diet significantly reduced tumors in these mice, suggesting that these easy interventions could prevent a common type of colorectal cancer in humans.

Many patients with advanced stages of cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases die from a condition called cachexia, which is characterized as a "wasting" syndrome that causes extreme thinness with muscle weakness. Cachexia is the direct cause of roughly 20% of deaths in cancer patients. While boosting food intake doesn't help, and no effective therapies are available, new research in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism points to a promising strategy that may stimulate weight gain and muscle strength.

Scientists have identified a crucial molecular key to healthy embryo implantation and pregnancy in a study that may offer new clues about the medical challenges of infertility/subfertility, abnormal placentation, and placenta previa.

Researchers have created the first comprehensive library of genetic switches in plants, setting the stage for scientists around the globe to better understand how plants adapt to environmental changes and to design more robust plants for future food security.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 17, 2014) – From fertilized egg to adult, the cells of the human body go through an astronomical number of divisions. During division of any of the body's roughly 30 trillion cells, DNA from the initial cell must be split precisely between the two resulting cells. Critical to successful cell division is the integrity of the centromere—a region of DNA on each chromosome where the cell division machinery attaches to segregate the chromosomes. For the segregation machinery to recognize this region, it must contain many copies of a pivotal protein known as CENP-A.

The importance of the transformation process of white fat into brown fat in humans was only discovered a couple of years ago. Most fat in adult humans is white—white adipose tissue—and we know that its main function, but not its only function, is to store energy (those love handles). Brown fat, however, is burned to produce heat; baby fat and the fat of hibernating animals is like that. In the context of the current obesity epidemic, white fat has been labelled bad fat, while brown fat is the good one.

La Jolla, Calif., July 17, 2014 - A new study by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) has identified a new signal that triggers the events leading to insulin resistance in obesity. The signal causes inflammation in adipose tissue and leads to metabolic disease. The study, published July 17 in Cell Metabolism, suggests that blocking this signal may protect against the development of metabolic disease, type 2 diabetes, and other disorders caused by obesity-linked inflammation.

In addition to different cancers being able to manipulate these anchors, it was also known that about a fifth of lung cancer cases are missing an anti-cancer gene called LKB1 (also known as STK11). Cancers missing LKB1 are often aggressive, rapidly spreading through the body. However, no one knew how LKB1 and focal adhesions were connected.

Now, the Salk team has found the connection and a new target for therapy: a little-known gene called DIXDC1. The researchers discovered that DIXDC1 receives instructions from LKB1 to go to focal adhesions and change their size and number.

(TORONTO, Canada – July 17, 2014) – The journal Cancer Cell today published research led by Dr. Tak Mak mapping the path of discovery to developing a potential anticancer agent.

Toronto – Quotas probably won't get more women into the boardroom in places like the U.S. and Canada.

They have a better chance however in countries such as China or Germany where people place a higher value on obeying authority and conforming to cultural norms, say a pair of researchers at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Their conclusions are published in the journal Organizational Dynamics and in a blog for the Harvard Business Review.

(PHILADELPHIA) – Research derived from early national experience of liver transplantation has shown that deceased donor liver transplants offered recipients better survival rates than living donor liver transplants, making them the preferred method of transplantation for most physicians. Now, the first data-driven study in over a decade disputes this notion. Penn Medicine researchers found that living donor transplant outcomes are superior to those found with deceased donors with appropriate donor selection and when surgeries are performed at an experienced center.

WASHINGTON (July 17, 2014) — The road to finding a cure for HIV-1 is not without obstacles.

A novel, First Nations-led research collaboration has revealed a previously undocumented grizzly bear aggregation in coastal British Columbia, one of the most southerly aggregations of salmon-feeding grizzlies in North America. Using non-invasive DNA analysis, the authors describe a grizzly bear "highway," identifying nearly 60 individual bears, many who travelled hundreds of miles from surrounding areas to feed on autumn-spawning salmon in the Koeye River.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have discovered a possible explanation for the surprisingly large range of biological effects that are linked to a micronutrient called lipoic acid: It appears to reset and synchronize circadian rhythms, or the "biological clock" found in most life forms.

The ability of lipoic acid to help restore a more normal circadian rhythm to aging animals could explain its apparent value in so many important biological functions, ranging from stress resistance to cardiac function, hormonal balance, muscle performance, glucose metabolism and the aging process.

University of Delaware researchers have identified a protein, hiding in plain sight, that acts like a bodyguard to help protect and stabilize another key protein, that when unstable, is involved in Crohn's disease. The fundamental research points to a possible pathway for developing an effective therapy for the inflammatory bowel disease.