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HIV care centers are an important and highly accessed point of care for HIV-infected children and their families in sub-Saharan Africa, but opportunities to address other health issues are being missed. Proven interventions, including routine deworming among young children, could be effectively integrated into HIV care according to a newly published article in PLoS by University of Washington researchers.

Johns Hopkins scientists have decoded for the first time the "stability blueprint" of an enzyme that resides in a cell's membrane, mapping which parts of the enzyme are important for its shape and function. These studies, published in advance online on June 14 in Structure and on July 15 in Nature Chemical Biology, could eventually lead to the development of drugs to treat malaria and other parasitic diseases.

Kyoto, Japan, Aug. 1, 2012 - A research group at the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Japan's Kyoto University has successfully recapitulated amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-associated abnormalities in motor neurons differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) obtained from patients with familial ALS, a late-onset, fatal disorder which is also known for Lou Gehrig's disease. In a drug screening assay using the disease model, the team further found that the chemical compound anacardic acid can rescue some ALS phenotypes in vitro.

While fear of terrorist attacks overshadows the Olympic Games, the "lone wolf" terrorist is a cause for concern: one who is almost impossible to track by means of the "usual" intelligence and tracking tools. Prof. Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa, who has been monitoring terrorism on the Internet for over a decade, has found that most of these individuals do find a "virtual wolfpack" to belong to on the net.

, August 2, 2012 – In 2010, 59% of the U.S. population used internet searches for health information, and parents searching for information regarding their children were among the top users. In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published recommendations for infant sleep safety to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), suffocation, strangulation, and other accidental sleep-related deaths.

Rochester, MN, August 2, 2012 – Many health care systems across the US have declined to participate in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMMS) Accountable Care Organization (ACO) program, developed under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), to improve efficiency and quality of health care delivery. In a groundbreaking collection of commentaries in the current issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, representatives of six leading health care organizations write about the challenges of reducing health care costs while improving health care quality.

Proteins do not need to be surrounded by water to carry out their vital biological functions, according to scientists from the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS) in Grenoble, the University of Bristol, the Australian National University, the Institut Laue Langevin and the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science.

Widespread skin cancer has been identified for the first time in wild marine fish populations, new research has shown.

A collaborative study between Newcastle University, UK, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science published today in the academic journal PLoS ONE - reveals the incidence of melanoma in the coral trout, a species found on the Great Barrier Reef and directly beneath the world's largest hole in the ozone layer.

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ANN ARBOR, MICH. – Results of a SWOG clinical trial published August 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine show the combination of anastrozole and fulvestrant extended the median survival time of women with hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer by more than six months compared to women treated with a standard therapy of anastrozole alone (47.7 months vs 41.3 months).

The death toll of the 2009 influenza pandemic in equatorial climates may have been much lower than originally thought, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center. The paper, published in PLoS ONE, challenges the idea that the pandemic was deadlier in the tropics, which harbor nearly half of the world's population and which have the highest burden of infectious disease.

Some young people's expectations that they will not live long, healthy lives may actually foreshadow such outcomes.

New research published August 1 in the open access journal PLOS ONE reports that, for American teens, the expectation of death before the age of 35 predicted increased risk behaviors including substance abuse and suicide attempts later in life and a doubling to tripling of mortality rates in young adulthood.

The introduction of a pet can have a positive effect on autistic children's behavior, as reported in research published Aug. 1 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

A study co-authored by a Loyola researcher and published in the New England Journal of Medicine is offering new hope to women with advanced breast cancer.

The study found that combing two drugs that normally are each given as single agents significantly extended the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer. Kathy Albain, MD, a breast cancer specialist at Loyola University Medical Center, is among the main authors of the study.

Irvine, Calif. — Postmenopausal women with the most common type of metastatic breast cancer now have a new treatment option that lengthens their lives, according a study led by UC Irvine oncologist Dr. Rita Mehta and conducted by the Southwest Oncology Group. The findings appear in the Aug. 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.