Body

For the first time, researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, in collaboration with Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, have protected nonhuman primates against Marburg virus – Angola hemorrhagic fever. Their treatment was shown to be effective at a point when animals have detectable levels of the virus in their system and begin to show symptoms of the disease. The study appears in the August 20 edition of the journal Science Translational Medicine.

NEW YORK, NY (August 20, 2014) — Research from Columbia University Medical Center shows that nerves may play a critical role in stomach cancer growth and that blocking nerve signals using surgery or Botox® (onabotulinumtoxinA) could be an effective treatment for the disease. The study was conducted by the laboratory of Timothy C. Wang, MD, in collaboration with Duan Chen, MD, PhD, in Norway and is published in today's issue of Science Translational Medicine.

TEMPE, Ariz. – By understanding the secret of how lizards regenerate their tails, researchers may be able to develop ways to stimulate the regeneration of limbs in humans. Now, a team of researchers from Arizona State University is one step closer to solving that mystery. The scientists have discovered the genetic "recipe" for lizard tail regeneration, which may come down to using genetic ingredients in just the right mixture and amounts.

Advances in the treatment of muscular dystrophy: For the first time, a research team has succeeded in restoring a missing repair protein in skeletal muscle of patients with muscular dystrophy. Researchers from the University and the University Hospital of Basel, Department of Biomedicine and Clinic of Neurology, report their recent findings in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine.

NEW YORK -- The most common cause of endophthalmitis, a potentially blinding condition that can occur after eye trauma, eye surgery, and eye injections, are the well-known staphylococci ("staph") and streptococci ("strep") bacterial strains, according to a study published in the August issue of Ophthalmology and based on a review of 25 years of cases at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE).

BOZEMAN, Mont. – The first breakthrough paper to come out of a massive U.S. expedition to one of Earth's final frontiers shows that there's life and an active ecosystem one-half mile below the surface of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, specifically in a lake that hasn't seen sunlight or felt a breath of wind for millions of years.

For most people, mere mention of the word Jurassic conjures up images of huge dinosaurs chomping their way through lush vegetation – and each other. However, mammals and their immediate ancestors were also around in the Jurassic period (201-145million years ago), albeit as rather less spectacular creatures.

Tuberculosis is one of the most persistent and deadliest infectious diseases in the world, killing one to two million people each year.

Scientists who study tuberculosis have long debated its origins. New research shows that tuberculosis likely spread from humans in Africa to seals and sea lions that brought the disease to South America and transmitted it to Native people there before Europeans landed on the continent.

The paper, "Pre-Columbian Mycobacterial Genomes Reveal Seals as a Source of New World Human Tuberculosis," was published in Nature.

Grade school history lessons often have it that American Indians largely were wiped out by diseases such as whooping cough, chicken pox, influenza and tuberculosis brought to the New World by European explorers.

One report says, while estimates vary, about 20 million people lived in the Americas shortly before Europeans arrived, and roughly 95 percent of them were killed by European diseases.

Scientists from the University of Tübingen, Arizona State University, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) isolated Mycobacterium pinnipedii from skeletons found in Peru which are at least 1000 years old. The pathogen is a relative of the TB bacterium that affects seals but only occasionally causes disease in humans today. These researchers assume that seals carried the pathogens from Africa to the Peruvian coast.

(Boston) – Some infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) secondary to in-utero opioid exposure have a more difficult time going through withdrawal than others, but the underlying reasons are not well understood. While genetic and epigenetic (when genes are turned on or off) changes have recently been identified as potential factors, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) conducted a first of its kind study to identify some of these epigenetic changes that may influence symptom severity.

Experts writing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Molecular Medicine on August 20th call for an end to clinical trials of "highly implausible treatments" such as homeopathy and reiki. Over the last two decades, such complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments have been embraced in medical academia despite budget constraints and the fact that they rest on dubious science, they say.

Cancer Research UK scientists have discovered that acral melanomas – the rare type of skin cancer that caused reggae musician Bob Marley's death – are genetically distinct from other more common types of skin cancer, according to a study (link is external) published in the journal Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research.

Acral melanoma most often affects the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, nail-beds and other hairless parts of the skin. Unlike other more common types of melanoma, it's not caused by UV damage from the sun.

From management consulting projects to research and development laboratories to hospital trauma centers, organizations of all types are increasingly creating teams whose members have diverse professional backgrounds. While the allure of these cross-functional teams is their ability to use their diverse knowledge to solve complex problems, not all such teams are able to reach their full potential.

New York, NY, August 20, 2014 – Transrectal ultrasound guided biopsy is the gold standard for detecting prostate cancer, but international reports have suggested that the number of risks associated with the procedure is increasing. In a new nationwide population-based study, Swedish researchers found that six percent of men filled a prescription for antibiotics for a urinary tract infection within 30 days after having a prostate biopsy, with a twofold increase in hospital admissions over five years, reports The Journal of Urology®.