Body

New Rochelle, NY, May 3, 2011—Researchers at last month's AACR conference in Orlando demonstrated that they are intensifying their efforts to identify and validate various types of biomarkers that are detectable in readily accessible bodily fluids such as blood and urine, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN).

An ancient, bipedal hominid needs a new nickname. Paranthropus boisei, a 2.3 million to 1.2 million-year-old primate, whom researchers say is an early human cousin, probably didn't crack nuts at all as his common handle suggests.

"Nutcracker Man" most likely ate grass and possibly sedges, said geochemist Thure Cerling, lead author of a study published in the May 2 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A small Johns Hopkins Children's Center study of children and teens with cystic fibrosis (CF) shows that simple exercise, individually tailored to each patient's preference and lifestyle, can help improve lung function and overall fitness.

Frequent lung infections, breathing problems and decreased lung function are the hallmark symptoms of CF, a genetic disorder marked by a disruption in the body's ability to transport chloride in and out of cells that leads to the buildup of thick mucus in the lungs and other organs.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT chemical engineers have designed a new type of drug-delivery nanoparticle that exploits a trait shared by almost all tumors: They are more acidic than healthy tissues.

Such particles could target nearly any type of tumor, and can be designed to carry virtually any type of drug, says Paula Hammond, a member of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the particles in the journal ACS Nano.

Drugs known as thiazolidinediones, or TZDs for short, are widely used in diabetes treatment, but they come with a downside. The drugs have effects on the kidneys that lead to fluid retention as the volume of plasma in the bloodstream expands.

"TZDs usually increase body weight by several kilograms," said George Seki of the University of Tokyo. "However, TZDs sometimes cause massive volume expansion, resulting in heart failure."

HOUSTON (May 2, 2011) – Colorectal cancer screening rates increased for Medicare beneficiaries when coverage was expanded to average-risk individuals, but racial disparities still exist, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

NEW YORK – May 3, 2011 –A study by Columbia Business School Professors Amit Khandelwal, a Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business senior scholar and assistant professor, Finance and Economics, and Shang-Jin Wei, director, Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business, and N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy, Finance and Economics, alongside JaeBin Ahn, a Ph.D.

WASHINGTON, DC (May 3, 2011) – A coalition of 30 leading global health organizations that work on vaccines, drugs, and other tools and technologies that save lives today released a list of recommendations for US policymakers and regulators, calling for acceleration of scientific innovations and streamlining the approval of safe and affordable inventions in order to save more lives around the world.

PHILADELPHIA — Biophysicists at the University of Pennsylvania have helped develop a new technique for studying how proteins respond to physical stress and have applied it to better understand the stability-granting structures in normal and mutated red blood cells.

The research was conducted by Dennis Discher and Christine Krieger in the Molecular and Cell Biophysics Lab in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, along with researchers from the New York Blood Center and the Wistar Institute.

Montreal, May 3, 2011 – Most Canadian teenagers are expected to make their own decisions, while Chinese adolescents are still heavily influenced by their parents, according to a study published in the Journal of Business Research.

Led by Concordia University and the University of Texas at Arlington researchers, the investigation found child-rearing practices appear to impact teen outlooks and decision-making patterns differently across cultures. Why? Parenting varies in both countries, since Canada is an individualist culture and China is a collectivist society.

SEATTLE – Many patients who undergo bone marrow or blood stem cell transplantation to treat blood cancers or a "pre-leukemic" condition called myelodysplasia experience a decline in mental and fine motor skills due to the toll of their disease and its treatment.

Many people reach toward the back of the fresh-produce shelf to find the freshest salad greens with the latest expiration dates. But a study led by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists may prompt consumers to instead look for packages that receive the greatest exposure to light--usually those found closest to the front.

Stem cells extracted from body fat may pave the way for the development of new regenerative therapies including soft tissue reconstruction following tumor removal or breast mastectomy surgery, the development of tissue-engineered cartilage or bone, and the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new experimental drug selectively kills the cancerous cells that cause chronic lymphocytic leukemia, according to a new study by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).

The study shows that the experimental agent PCI-32765 selectively kills the malignant B lymphocytes that cause chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Jerusalem, May 3, 2011 – Damage to normal DNA is a hallmark of cancer cells. Although it had previously been known that damage to normal cells is caused by stress to their DNA replication when cancerous cells invade, the molecular basis for this remained unclear.