Body

Parents are strong influences in the lives of young children, with patterns of behaviour established in the early years laying the foundation for future choices. A new study suggests that, when it comes to levels of physical activity, it is mothers who set (or don't set) the pace.

PITTSBURGH, March 24, 2014 – Brief behavioral and mental health programs for children can be effectively provided within pediatric practices as an alternative to being referred to a community specialist, University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences researchers found in a National Institutes of Health-funded randomized trial.

A new study indicates that a commonly used mood stabilizing drug may help prevent head and neck cancer. The study is published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

Valproic acid (VPA) is currently prescribed as an anti-seizure medication and mood stabilizer, but it is also being studied as an anticancer agent because it inhibits histone acetyl transferases, which help control gene expression by changing DNA structure.

New consensus statements have been developed to help tackle the growing threat of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB).

Published online today (24 March 2014) in the European Respiratory Journal¸ the statements mark the first time that physicians who treat patients with multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant TB have reached a consensus on important areas of patient management where scientific evidence is inconclusive.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators may have found a way to solve a problem that has plagued a group of drugs called ligand-mimicking integrin inhibitors, which have the potential to treat conditions ranging from heart attacks to cancer metastasis. In a Nature Structural & Molecular Biology paper receiving advance online publication, the researchers provide a structural basis for the design of new and safer integrin inhibitors.

Researchers have found that people born with a rare abnormality of their chromosomes have a 2,700-fold increased risk of a rare childhood leukaemia. In this abnormality, two specific chromosomes are fused together but become prone to catastrophic shattering.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins report that compounds they hoped would "wake up" dormant reservoirs of HIV inside immune system T cells — a strategy designed to reverse latency and make the cells vulnerable to destruction — have failed to do so in laboratory tests of such white blood cells taken directly from patients infected with HIV.

PHOENIX, Ariz. — March 23, 2014 — The cause of a rare type of ovarian cancer that most often strikes girls and young women has been uncovered by an international research team led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), according to a study published online today by the renowned scientific journal, Nature Genetics.

This alternative approach to creating artificial organic molecules, called bioretrosynthesis, was first proposed four years ago by Brian Bachmann, associate professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt University. Now Bachmann and a team of collaborators report that they have succeeded in using the method to produce the HIV drug didanosine.

The proof of concept experiment is described in a paper published online March 23 by the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

(March 23, 2014, Beaverton, OR) Treating cervical cancer cells with AHCC led to the eradication of HPV, human papillomavirus, as well as a decrease in the rate of tumor growth in-vitro and in-vivo, in research presented at the Society of Gynecological Oncology 45th Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer in Tampa, Florida. The study was led by Dr. Judith A. Smith, Pharm.D., at the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth) Medical School at Houston.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center report that bariatric surgery resulting in dramatic weight loss in formerly severely obese women reduces the risk of endometrial (uterine) cancer by 71 percent and as much as 81 percent if normal weight is maintained after surgery.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — For the first time, scientists have succeeded in coaxing laboratory cultures of human stem cells to develop into the specialized, unique cells needed to repair a patient's defective or diseased bladder.

New research by USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists demonstrates that measuring circulating tumor cells (CTCs) – the cells that spread cancer through the body – may be a better predictor of patient survival than the prostate specific antigen (PSA).

NEW YORK, NY (March 21, 2014) — Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have devised a new system for classifying periodontal disease based on the genetic signature of affected tissue, rather than on clinical signs and symptoms. The new classification system, the first of its kind, may allow for earlier detection and more individualized treatment of severe periodontitis, before loss of teeth and supportive bone occurs. The findings were published recently in the online edition of the Journal of Dental Research.

MADISON, Wis. – As stem cells continue their gradual transition from the lab to the clinic, a research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered a new way to make large concentrations of skeletal muscle cells and muscle progenitors from human stem cells.