Body

NEW YORK, October 11, 2012 – Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have discovered the protein product of a little-known gene may one day prove useful in identifying and monitoring the development of mesothelioma in early stages, when aggressive treatment can have an impact on the progression of disease and patient prognosis.

An international team of scientists led by Indiana University chemist Michael S. VanNieuwenhze and biologist Yves Brun has discovered a revolutionary new method for coloring the cell wall of bacterial cells to determine how they grow, in turn providing a new, much-needed tool for the development of new antibiotics.

Discovery of the new method is expected to broadly impact both basic and applied research tied to understanding, controlling or preventing bacterial cell growth in specific environments, said the two scientists in IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences.

MAYWOOD, Il. - When hospital patients have to be readmitted soon after discharge, hospitals look bad.

And in addition to reflecting poorly on a hospital's quality of care, a high readmission rate also can result in reduced Medicare reimbursements, under provisions now taking effect under the 2010 health care law.

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified a six-gene signature that can be used in a test to predict survival in men with aggressive prostate cancer, according to new research published in the October issue of The Lancet Oncology. This is the first study to demonstrate how prognostic markers may be useful in a clinical setting.

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- In an effort to identify the thousands of John/Jane Doe cold cases in the United States, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher and a team of international collaborators have found a multidisciplinary approach to identifying the remains of missing persons.

Using "bomb pulse" radiocarbon analysis developed at Lawrence Livermore, combined with recently developed anthropological analysis and forensic DNA techniques, the researchers were able to identify the remains of a missing child 41 years after the discovery of the body.

Researchers have published the first highly detailed description of how neurotensin, a neuropeptide hormone which modulates nerve cell activity in the brain, interacts with its receptor. Their results suggest that neuropeptide hormones use a novel binding mechanism to activate a class of receptors called G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs).

A workshop sponsored by NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has produced a set of consensus recommendations to improve the design and reporting of animal studies. By making animal studies easier to replicate and interpret, the workshop recommendations are expected to help funnel promising therapies to patients.

An Australian research team has discovered how specialised immune cells recognise products of vitamin B synthesis that are unique to bacteria and yeast, triggering the body to fight infection.

The finding opens up potential targets to improve treatments or to develop a vaccine for tuberculosis.

Melanoma is so dangerous because it tends to metastasize early on. New treatment approaches utilize, among other things, the ability of the immune defense to search out and destroy malignant cells. Yet this strategy is often only temporarily effective. A research team under the direction of Bonn University has discovered why this is the case: In the inflammatory reaction caused by the treatment, the tumor cells temporarily alter their external characteristics and thus become invisible to defense cells.

From politics to finance, government to education, ethics-related scandals seem to crop up with considerable regularity. As whistleblowers and investigative journalists bring these scandals to light, one can't help but wonder: Are there specific character traits that predispose people to unethical behavior?

Converging evidence suggests that the answer could be guilt proneness.

October 10, 2012 (Toronto) – Mental illnesses and addictions take more of a toll on the health of Ontarians than cancer or infectious diseases, according to a new report by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Public Health Ontario – yet this burden could be reduced with treatment, say scientists from Canada's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Three thousand new cases of Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL), a form of blood cancer, appear in the United States each year. With a median survival span of only five to seven years, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, this disease is devastating, and new therapies are sorely needed.

New Georgia Tech research shows that cell stiffness could be a valuable clue for doctors as they search for and treat cancerous cells before they're able to spread. The findings, which are published in the journal PLoS One, found that highly metastatic ovarian cancer cells are several times softer than less metastatic ovarian cancer cells.

People who live near livestock or in livestock farming communities may be at greater risk of acquiring, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to a new study led by an international team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Dutch Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.

The American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) is pleased to announce the collaborative development of the AIUM Practice Guideline for the Performance of a Focused Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Scan. Indications for an ultrasound examination for a focused reproductive endocrinology and infertility scan include but are not limited to monitoring of ovulation induction and ovarian stimulation.