Body

CHICAGO, IL—Muscle wasting that occurs as a result of cancer negatively impacts the well-being and recovery prospects of millions of patients, particularly the rapidly-growing elderly populations in Western societies. Drugs called selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) offer hope for these patients, and a new SARM for transdermal administration is promising excellent efficacy without harming liver function and HDL levels.

OAKLAND, Calif., June 24, 2014 — A 15-year study found that HIV-positive individuals had a 40 percent increased risk of ischemic stroke, however stroke rates were nearly the same for HIV-positive individuals with high CD4 cell counts as for HIV-negative subjects.

The study, published recently in AIDS, the official journal of the International AIDS Society, covered the years 1996 through 2011 and included nearly 25,000 HIV-positive individuals.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A gene known to control brain growth and development is heavily involved in promoting clear cell renal cell carcinoma, the most common form of kidney cancer, researchers from Mayo Clinic in Florida are reporting.

A virus not known to cause disease kills triple-negative breast cancer cells and killed tumors grown from these cells in mice, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Understanding how the virus kills cancer may lead to new treatments for breast cancer.

Massive sequencing of cancer genomes brings to light new genes every day that could be involved in the process of tumour formation. A good example of this is cohesin, a ring-shaped protein complex that embraces DNA to control cell division. Just a few months ago, and after several studies in the same direction, the sequencing of thousands of tumour samples identified the STAG2 gene—whose product forms part of cohesin—as one of the most frequently mutated genes in several types of cancer such as bladder cancer and melanoma.

Erythritol has many great advantages: it does not make you fat, it does not cause tooth decay, it has no effect on the blood sugar and, unlike other sweeteners, it does not have a laxative effect. In Asia it is already widely used and it is becoming more and more common in other parts of the world too. Up until now, erythritol could only be produced with the help of special kinds of yeast in highly concentrated molasses. At the TU Vienna, a method has now been developed to produce the sweetener from ordinary straw with the help of a mould fungus.

Every year around 450,000 people in Germany are diagnosed with cancer. Each one of them dreams of a victory in the battle against it. But can cancer ever be completely defeated? Researchers at Kiel University (CAU) have now reached a sobering conclusion: "cancer is as old as multi-cellular life on earth and will probably never be completely eradicated", says Professor Thomas Bosch in his latest research results. The study by an international team led by Bosch was published today (Monday, June 24) in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications.

Solving complex problems is rarely a straightforward process, there are often many variables and countless plausible solutions each one of which has its pros and cons. Mechanical engineers at the Babol University of Technology in Mazandaran, Iran, have turned to nature to devise an algorithm based on the survival trials faced by salmon swimming upstream to the spawning grounds to help them fish out the optimal solution to a given problem. They provide details in the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology.

Threatened animal species could cope better with the effects of climate change if competition from other animals for the same habitats is restricted, according to new research by Durham University.

The Durham team studied the impacts of climate on the Alpine Chamois, a species of mountain goat, and the effects that domestic sheep had on the goats' movements.

London (24 June 2014). A project has failed. So why continue to invest in it? This is a pertinent question for large organisations, like the UK National Health Service, which has a history of investing vast amounts of taxpayer's money into unrealistic and ultimately unsuccessful projects. According to business experts, organisations develop blind spots due to a perfect storm of unworkable policies and defensive behaviour. In fact, organisations and individuals have a few things in common, psychologically speaking, when it comes to throwing good money after bad, the experts say.

Research led by the University of Warwick's Systems Biology Centre and Medical School in collaboration with groups in Nice and Rotterdam has been able to demonstrate how the cycle of cell division in mammalian cells synchronises with the body's own daily rhythm, its circadian clock.

The study not only helps to explain why people with sustained disrupted circadian rhythms can be more susceptible to cancer, it may also help establish the optimal time of day to administer chemotherapy.

Exploiting individual genomes for personalized medicine may be more complicated than medical scientists have suspected, researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech have discovered.

A leading expert on reproductive health says young women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) have a startlingly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even if young and not overweight.

The research led by Professor Helena Teede and Dr Anju Joham, from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University analysed a large-scale epidemiological study, called the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health, which revealed the findings.

Singapore, 24 June 2014—Scientists at A*STAR's Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) have discovered a new class of lipids in the leukaemia cells that are detected by a unique group of immune cells. By recognising the lipids, the immune cells stimulate an immune response to destroy the leukaemia cells and suppress their growth. The newly identified mode of cancer cell recognition by the immune system opens up new possibilities for leukaemia immunotherapy .

Trillions of bacteria live in and on the human body; a few species can make us sick, but many others keep us healthy by boosting digestion and preventing inflammation. Although there's plenty of evidence that these microbes play a collective role in human health, we still know very little about most of the individual bacterial species that make up these communities.