Body

DURHAM, N.C. -- You might not think to look to a urine test to diagnose an eye disease.

But a new Duke University study says it can link what is in a patient's urine to gene mutations that cause retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, an inherited, degenerative disease that results in severe vision impairment and often blindness. The findings appear online in the Journal of Lipid Research.

WASHINGTON, DC—OCTOBER 8, 2013—A senior researcher who can't get an answer from a shutdown NIH about a proposed clinical trial on a neurodegenerative disease, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who fears that a generation of innovators will be lost, and a young investigator wearied at the lab by endless funding cuts and frustrated at home by the halt to promising research into a genetic disorder that affects her daughter—these are the leaders and members of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) who today told a press conference at the National Press Club that the "temporary" shutdown of

DETROIT – While women are far more likely to suffer urinary tract infections, men are more prone to be hospitalized for treatment, according to a study by Henry Ford Hospital urologists.

The first-of-its-kind research for the most common bacterial infection in the U.S. is important in providing predictors of hospital admission at a time when the health care industry is searching for ways to reduce costs.

NEW YORK (October 8, 2013) -- Damaged or diseased organs may someday be healed with an injection of blood vessel cells, eliminating the need for donated organs and transplants, according to scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College.

In studies appearing in recent issues of Stem Cell Journal and Developmental Cell, the researchers show that endothelial cells -- the cells that make up the structure of blood vessels -- are powerful biological machines that drive regeneration in organ tissues by releasing beneficial, organ-specific molecules.

DURHAM, N.C. – A new analysis of two HIV vaccine trials that involved pediatric patients shows that the investigational vaccines stimulated a critical immune response in infants born to HIV-infected mothers, researchers at Duke Medicine report.

The finding, reported Oct. 8, 2013, at the AIDS Vaccine 2013 meeting in Barcelona, Spain, examined samples from two previously completed pediatric HIV vaccine trials – called PACTG 230 and PACTG 326 - to determine whether they elicited a key immune response that has only recently been associated with reduced HIV infection.

NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. (October 8, 2013) – A recently published study suggests that exposure to social stress not only impairs a mother's ability to care for her children but can also negatively impact her daughter's ability to provide maternal care to future offspring.

Researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University conducted a transgenerational study with female rats, examining the behavioral and physiological changes in mothers exposed to chronic social stress early in life as a model for postpartum depression and anxiety.

WASHINGTON, DC—The chance of ending up in a nursing facility appears to be significantly lower for older patients who undergo a laparoscopic procedure than for those who have open surgical resection for colon cancer, according to a study presented during a scientific poster session at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

BINGHAMTON, NY – A Binghamton University scientist and his international colleagues report this week on the successful synthesis of the first superconductor designed entirely on the computer. Their findings were published in Physical Review Letters, the leading journal in the field.

Aleksey Kolmogorov, assistant professor of physics at Binghamton, proposed the new superconductor in Physical Review Letters in 2010 and then teamed up with European experimentalists to test the prediction.

Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are considered to be the result of genetic predisposition and environmental risk factors. Despite eating disorders being common to families, no definitive genetic basis for disease predisposition has been identified.

In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Michael Lutter and colleagues at the University of Iowa identified genetic mutations in two separate families affected by eating disorders that were linked to the same transcriptional pathway.

Lumbar disc degeneration (LDD) is characterized by pain in the lumbar region of the spine as a result of a compromised disc. LDD is fairly common and thought to be the result of both environmental and genetic risk factors; however, the genetic factors that promote LDD are largely unknown.

Pneumonia is the leading cause of death of young children around the world, and a study from an international group of researchers now finds that the risk of poor outcomes – including persistent pneumonia, secondary infections, organ failure or death – in children who contract pneumonia is four times higher in those who also have anemia and live at high altitudes (over 2,000 meters or about 6,500 feet). The report in the November issue of Pediatrics has been released online.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have found unexpected similarities between proteins that were thought to be fundamentally different.

Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital-The Neuro, McGill University, have made important discoveries about a cellular process that occurs during normal brain development and may play an important role in neurodegenerative diseases. The study's findings, published in Cell Reports, a leading scientific journal, point to new pathways and targets for novel therapies for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases that affect millions of people world-wide.

Cell division is an essential process for the development of an organism. This process, however, can cause tumour growth when it stops working properly. Tumour cells accumulate alterations in their genetic material, and this makes them divide in an uncontrolled fashion, thus encouraging growth of the tumour. Over the past few years, knowledge of the regulation of this process has led to the discovery of new therapeutic strategies based on blocking cell division or mitosis.

Professor Martin Richards, of the Archaeogenetics Research Group at the University of Huddersfield, has published a paper uncovering new information about how Ashkenazi Jewish men moved into Europe from the Middle East, and their marriage practices with European women.