Body

Queen's University has announced it is to lead a €6 million European study to find new treatments for bowel cancer.

The research, which involves 13 partners in eight different European countries, will look at two major genetic factors which make bowel cancer difficult to treat.

This news release is available in German.

Osteoporosis is one of the world's most widespread diseases, and intensive research is under way worldwide to identify its causes and to be able to prevent fractures.

In an extensive study, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg can now show that low levels of vitamin B12 in the blood increases the risk of fractures in older men.

ST. LOUIS, MO, December 9, 2013 – Scientists at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center have made several scientific discoveries demonstrating the significant roles Heterotrimeric G proteins play in plant development and yield. Sona Pandey, Ph.D., principal investigator at the Danforth Plant Science Center and her collaborators have published several papers on their research in recent months.

Pandey and collaborators showed that "G proteins" occur in a wide range of land plants and algae. This discovery was published in the October 2013 issue of Plant Physiology.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Research advances that have come to fruition over the past year demonstrate extraordinary progress in the fight against cancer, according to a new report released today by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). The report stresses, however, that recent budget cuts and years-long flat funding can only delay efforts to translate research into effective treatments for millions of individuals with cancer.

This news release is available in German.

SAN ANTONIO— In a new study, women with relatively small, HER2-positive breast tumors who received a combination of lower-intensity chemotherapy and a targeted therapy following surgery or radiation therapy were very unlikely to have the cancer recur within a few years of treatment, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other research centers will report at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

MAYWOOD, Ill. – A remarkable 98.7 percent of certain lower-risk breast cancer patients were cancer free for at least three years after taking a combination of the drugs Herceptin and Taxol, a study has found.

The study is the first major trial to examine the Herceptin-Taxol combination in patients who have a type of breast cancer with the biology known as small, node-negative, HER2+. Results were presented during the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Through lotions, shampoos and other personal care products (PCPs), infants and toddlers are likely becoming exposed to potentially harmful substances, called parabens, at an even higher level than adult women in the U.S., researchers have reported. They published their findings on parabens, which have been linked to reproductive and other health issues, in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The function of two tumor-suppressing genes could play a vital role in helping to control obesity and other diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, according to researchers in Temple University's Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine.

The researchers published their findings, "Silencing of RB1 and RB2/p130 during adipogenesis of bone marrow stromal cells results in dysregulated differentiation," in the Feb. 1, 2014, issue (online Nov. 25) of the journal Cell Cycle.

Scientists have used a new method to map the response of every salmonella gene to conditions in the human body, providing new insight into how the bacteria triggers infection.

In a world first, the scientists exposed salmonella to 22 lab environments that mimic conditions that the bacterium finds when it enters the human body and discovered the effects of these conditions on individual genes in the bacteria.

As more reports appear of a grim "post-antibiotic era" ushered in by the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, a new strategy for fighting infection is emerging that targets a patient's cells rather than those of the invading pathogens. The technique interferes with the way that the pathogens take over a patient's cells to cause infection. This approach, published in the journal ACS Chemical Biology, could help address the world's growing problem of antibiotic-resistant "super bugs."

A recent article by Norris Cotton Cancer Center researchers published in the January 2014 issue of the journal Clinical Chemistry reviews the scientific evidence that warrants screening all endometrial cancers for Lynch syndrome. Next to colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer is the most common form of cancer in women with Lynch syndrome. Currently at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, every colon cancer specimen is screened for Lynch syndrome via specialized tumor testing.

NEW YORK —With the holiday season upon us, companies across the country are excitedly coordinating holiday office parties to celebrate a year's worth of work and provide a social setting that can build stronger bonds among employees. But a Columbia Business School study reveals that these once-thought positive encounters may elicit serious unintended consequences: members of racially diverse groups are not only uncomfortable during the parties, they could feel even more disconnected from their colleagues once the party is over.

DURHAM, N.C. -- A prominent program that claims to reduce infant and maternal deaths in rural India by encouraging mothers to deliver in private hospitals has been unsuccessful, despite the investment of more than $25 million since 2005, a new Duke University study finds.

The Chiranjeevi Yojana program in Gujarat, a state in northwestern India, received the Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award in 2006 and has been hailed by some as a model for wide adoption throughout India.