Body

September 4, 2011 ─ (BRONX, NY) ─ Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University report in the September 4 online edition of Nature Medicine that they have developed a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidate that proved both potent and safe in animal studies.

A new genetic defect that predisposes people to acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplasia has been discovered. The mutations were found in the GATA2 gene. Among its several regulatory roles, the gene acts as a master control during the transition of primitive blood-forming cells into white blood cells.

The researchers started by studying four unrelated families who, over generations, have had several relatives with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer. Their disease onset occurred from the teens to the early 40s. The course was rapid.

Today results from a new sub-analysis of the EMPHASIS-HF study showed significant reductions in death and hospitalization for five pre-defined high-risk patient sub-groups with chronic heart failure (CHF) and mild symptoms treated with eplerenone in addition to standard therapy versus those treated with placebo and standard therapy.

Black bears hibernate, sleeping their way through winter, and who can blame them? New research in BMC Physiology shows that, despite low heart rates and respiration, hibernating black bears are always alert to danger and ready to act. Additionally, the heart rates of pregnant bears, which give birth during winter months, increase as the pregnancy progresses but return to hibernation levels after the cubs are born.

A new study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reveals that the WTC attacks affected the health of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) resulting in more post-9/11 retirements than expected.

Led by David J. Prezant, MD, Chief Medical Officer, FDNY, researchers assessed a total of 7,763 retired firefighters between September 11, 1994, and September 10, 2008, comparing the total number of retirements and the number and proportion of accidental disability retirements 7 years before and 7 years after the WTC attack.

Mummies from along the Nile are revealing how age-old irrigation techniques may have boosted the plague of schistosomiasis, a water-borne parasitic disease that infects an estimated 200 million people today.

An analysis of the mummies from Nubia, a former kingdom that was located in present-day Sudan, provides details for the first time about the prevalence of the disease across populations in ancient times, and how human alteration of the environment during that era may have contributed to its spread.

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have developed a formula to predict which heart transplant patients are at greatest risk of death in the year following their surgeries, information that could help medical teams figure out who would benefit most from the small number of available organs.

Researchers from the University of Alberta say that the antioxidant resveratrol, found in fruits, nuts and red wine, , prevents a syndrome in some offspring that could lead to later health issues such as diabetes.

Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine have discovered the mechanism by which a low dose of the opioid antagonist naltrexone (LDN), an agent used clinically (off-label) to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, exerts a profound inhibitory effect on cell proliferation. It has been postulated that opioid receptor blockade by LDN provokes a compensatory elevation in endogenous opioids and opioid receptors that can function after LDN is no longer available.

Northwestern University professor Dirk Brockmann and his group at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science have investigated the outcomes of a previously ignored mechanism in modeling how humans travel.

By challenging a long-held assumption, Brockmann, associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics, hopes to create models that can more accurately predict the spread of disease and the spread of human-mediated bioinvasions.

New research from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Colorado at Boulder puts an unexpected twist on how mitochondria, the energy-generating structures within cells, divide. The work, which could have implications for a wide range of diseases and conditions, was published today (Sept. 2) in the journal Science.

"It's a paradigm shift in cell biology," said Jodi Nunnari, professor and chair of molecular cell biology at UC Davis and a co-author of the paper.

Taking land-use models out of the lab for a test drive with the people who live the models gives scientists a new way to develop possible future scenarios.

James Millington, a former post-doctoral researcher at Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) and now a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King's College in London, has paired the relatively new use of agent-based land-use modeling with follow-up interviews with the stakeholders in those areas.

PHILADELPHIA – "You are what you eat" is familiar enough, but how deep do the implications go? An interdisciplinary group of investigators from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found an association between long-term dietary patterns and the bacteria of the human gut. In a study of 98 healthy volunteers, the gut bacteria separated into two distinct groups, called enterotypes, that were associated with long-term consumption of either a typical Western diet rich in meat and fat versus a more agrarian diet rich in plant material.

Every cell in the human body contains a complex system to transport essential cargoes such as proteins and membrane vesicles, from point A to point B. These tiny molecular motor proteins move at blistering speeds on miniature railways carrying components of the cell to their proper destinations.

WHAT: A new study reports that a drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in patients undergoing a bone marrow transplant may also have promise for treating people who have a rare immune deficiency known as WHIM syndrome. People with the syndrome are more susceptible to potentially life-threatening bacterial and viral infections, particularly human papillomavirus infections, which cause skin and genital warts and can lead to cancer.