Body

A new study at Moffitt Cancer Center could offer hope to people with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Researchers are investigating whether an injectable known as PV-10 can shrink tumors and reduce the spread of cancer. PV-10 is a solution developed from Rose Bengal, a water-soluble dye commonly used to stain damaged cells in the eye. Early clinical trials show PV-10 can boost immune response in melanoma tumors, as well as the blood stream.

Volunteering may be good for your health, reveals a large systematic review and meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter Medical School.

Volunteering can improve mental health and help you live longer, finds the study which is published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A drug used to treat blood cancers may also stop the spread of invasive breast cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida have discovered.

Washington, DC (August 22, 2013) — Variants in a particular gene are linked with an increased risk for kidney complications in patients with lupus, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings could lead to better treatments to protect the kidney health of patients with the disease.

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. – August 22, 2013 – Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has emerged as a highly effective treatment for recurrent Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection, with very early experience suggesting that it may also play a role in treating other gastrointestinal (GI) and non-GI diseases.

New research led by scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine could aid efforts to diagnose and treat one of the most lethal and hard-to-treat types of cancer.

In the EMBO Molecular Medicine journal, the investigators report that they have identified a new molecular mechanism that contributes to the spread of malignant tumors in the pancreas. The hope is that drugs could one day be developed to block this pathway.

DALLAS, Aug. 22, 2013 — Smoking cigarettes may cause similar stroke risks for men and women, but women smokers may be at greater risk for a more deadly and uncommon type of stroke, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

When compared to non-smokers of the same gender, smoking increases the risk of having any type of stroke by 60 to 80 percent in women and men.

In a scientific first, Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists have successfully grown the cells that line the blood vessels—called vascular endothelial cells—from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), revealing new details about how these cells function. Using a unique approach, the researchers induced the differentiation of specific cell types by generating mechanical forces on the surface of the iPSC-derived endothelium mimicking the flow of blood. For example, cells that felt a stronger "flow" became artery cells, while those that felt a weaker "flow" became vein cells.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In an unexpected finding, scientists have linked the activation of a stress gene in immune-system cells to the spread of breast cancer to other parts of the body.

Researchers say the study suggests this gene, called ATF3, may be the crucial link between stress and cancer, including the major cause of cancer death – its spread, or metastasis. Previous public health studies have shown that stress is a risk factor for cancer.

A new study confirms that exposure to low to moderate amounts of arsenic in drinking water can impair lung function. Doses of about 120 parts per billion of arsenic in well water—about 12 times the dose generally considered safe—produced lung damage comparable to decades of smoking tobacco. Smoking, especially by males, made arsenic-related damage even worse.

This is the first population-based study to clearly demonstrate significant impairment of lung function, in some cases extensive lung damage, associated with low to moderate arsenic exposure.

A UCLA School of Nursing study has found that both healthy-weight and obese children who participated in an intensive lifestyle modification program significantly improved their metabolic and cardiovascular health despite little weight loss.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite detected hundreds of fires burning in central Africa on August 21, 2013. The fires are outlined in red. Most of the fires burn in grass or cropland which is obscured by the smoke in this image.

Computer simulations conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could help scientists make sense of a recently observed and puzzling wrinkle in one of nature's most important chemical processes. It turns out that calcium carbonate—the ubiquitous compound that is a major component of seashells, limestone, concrete, antacids and myriad other naturally and industrially produced substances—may momentarily exist in liquid form as it crystallizes from solution.

Since the 1960s, it has been known that groundwater resources in certain provinces of China are contaminated with arsenic. Estimates of the numbers of affected people have risen year by year. In the most recent survey – conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Health between 2001 and 2005 – more than 20,000 (5%) of the 445,000 wells tested showed arsenic concentrations higher than 50 µg/L.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Cells are very good at protecting their precious contents — and as a result, it's very difficult to penetrate their membrane walls to deliver drugs, nutrients or biosensors without damaging or destroying the cell. One effective way of doing so, discovered in 2008, is to use nanoparticles of pure gold, coated with a thin layer of a special polymer. But nobody knew exactly why this combination worked so well, or how it made it through the cell wall.