Body

CINCINNATI—With the discovery of a RNA nano-scaffold that remains unusually stable in the body, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have overcome another barrier to the development of therapeutic RNA nanotechnology.

Peixuan Guo, PhD, Dane and Mary Louise Miller Endowed Chair and professor of biomedical engineering, and his colleagues in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences report the construction of a thermodynamically stable RNA nanoparticle online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

HOUSTON -- Gene therapy delivered directly to a particularly stubborn type of breast cancer cell causes the cells to self-destruct, lowers chance of recurrence and helps increase the effectiveness of some types of chemotherapy, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in the Sept. 13 edition of Cancer Cell.

PHILADELPHIA - It's no secret that a high-fat diet isn't healthy. Now researchers have discovered a molecular clue as to precisely why that is.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There are many old wives' tales about what determines a baby's sex, yet it is the tight controls at the gene level that determine an organism's sex in most species. Researchers at Michigan State University have found that even when genetic and genomic mechanisms are disrupted, organisms quickly evolve ways to compensate.

A study published in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, uses a famous case of international intrigue and murder to shed new light on the risks health care workers face while treating patients with radiation poisoning.

Flitting among the cool slopes of the Appalachian Mountains is a tiger swallowtail butterfly that evolved when two other species of swallowtails hybridized long ago.

It's a rarity in the animal world, biologists have found.

They discovered that the Appalachian tiger swallowtail, Papilio appalachiensis, evolved from mixing between the Eastern tiger swallowtail, P. glaucus, and the Canadian tiger swallowtail, P. canadensis.

PHILADELPHIA (September 12, 2011) – The Academy of Natural Sciences today announcedthe discovery of a new species of large predatory fish that prowled ancient North Americanwaterways during the Devonian Period, before backboned animals existed on land.

Drs. Edward "Ted" Daeschler and Jason Downs of the Academy and colleagues fromthe University of Chicago and Harvard University describe the new denizen of the Devonianthey named Laccognathus embryi in the current issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Exposure to the light of white LED bulbs, it turns out, suppresses melatonin 5 times more than exposure to the light of High Pressure Sodium bulbs that give off an orange-yellow light. "Just as there are regulations and standards for 'classic' pollutants, there should also be regulations and rules for the pollution stemming from artificial light at night," says Prof. Abraham Haim of the University of Haifa.

A common chemotherapy drug has been successfully delivered to cancer cells inside tiny microparticles using a method inspired by our knowledge of how the human immune system works. The drug, delivered in this way, reduced ovarian cancer tumours in an animal model by 65 times more than using the standard method. This approach is now being developed for clinical use.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---People who give, live longer, studies have shown. Now, a new study shows that why people volunteer---not whether they volunteer---is what really counts.

People who volunteer because they want to help others, live longer than people who don't volunteer at all, University of Michigan researchers found. But those who volunteer mainly for some sort of personal benefit live no longer than non-volunteers, on average.

A new analysis has found that women who develop certain hereditary cancers develop them at earlier ages than women in the previous generation. Published early online in CANCER, the results point to the importance of tracking younger ages of cancer diagnosis to determine when to provide counseling, screening, and treatment services.

New research shows that febrile seizures in children may be linked to respiratory alkalosis, indicated by elevated blood pH and low carbon dioxide levels caused by hyperventilation, and independent of the underlying infection severity. Febrile seizures were not observed in susceptible children with fevers brought on by gastroenteritis, suggesting that low blood pH levels (acidosis) may have a protective effect. Full findings now appear in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE).

Houston, TX – Women with a deleterious gene mutation are diagnosed with breast cancer almost eight years earlier than relatives of the previous generation who also had the disease and/or ovarian cancer, according to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Scientists report a major advance in our understanding of the inherited influences on blood pressure and offer new potential therapeutic targets for prevention of heart disease and stroke – the biggest cause of death worldwide.

Research published in Nature has discovered 16 new gene regions that influence blood pressure.