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The scientists of Kiel University, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Technische Universität München (TUM) have published their results in the current issue of the journal Advanced Materials.

CALGARY – A three-month-old Winnipeg girl has become the first patient in Canada to receive an experimental and potentially life-saving form of therapy to improve the function of her liver.

Physicians at Alberta Children's Hospital, led by medical geneticist Dr. Aneal Khan, successfully completed a series of liver cell transplants earlier this month on patient Nazdana Ali.

Vigorous exercise is good for health, but only if it's limited to a maximum daily dose of between 30 and 50 minutes, say researchers in an editorial published online in Heart.

The idea that more and more high intensity exercise, such as marathons, can only do you good, is a myth say the US cardiologists, and the evidence shows that it's likely to more harm than good to your heart.

"If you really want to do a marathon or full distance triathlon, etc, it may be best to do just one or a few and then proceed to safer and healthier exercise patterns," they warn.

New Rochelle, NY, November 29, 2012—Osteoporosis, or reduced bone mineral density that can increase the risk of fractures, may affect as many as 30% of women and 12% of men worldwide. One risk factor for osteoporosis is vitamin D deficiency. A modified form of the vitamin D receptor present in some individuals may lower their risk for developing osteoporosis, according to an article in Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Following a divorce or separation, many people are encouraged by loved ones or health-care professionals to keep journals about their feelings. But for some, writing in-depth about those feelings immediately after a split may do more harm than good, according to new research.

Now, scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have looked into the origin of Tregs and uncovered a central role played by the protein IkBNS. Armed with this knowledge, the researchers hope to manipulate Tregs in order to either inhibit or activate the immune system. Biochemist Prof. Ingo Schmitz and his team have now published their findings in the scientific journal Immunity.

MADISON – In efforts to understand what influences life span, cancer and aging, scientists are building roadmaps to navigate and learn about cells at the molecular level.

To survey previously uncharted territory, a team of researchers at UW-Madison created an "atlas" that maps more than 1,500 unique landmarks within mitochondria that could provide clues to the metabolic connections between caloric restriction and aging.

A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has shown for the first time how cancer cells control the ON/OFF switch of a program used by developing embryos to effectively metastasize in vivo, breaking free and spreading to other parts of the body, where they can proliferate and grow into secondary tumors.

The findings are published in the December 11 issue of the journal Cancer Cell.

A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is particularly devastating since the prognosis for recovery is usually poor, with the cancer most often not detected until late stages.

Research led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego and UC San Francisco Schools of Medicine examined the tumor-initiating events leading to pancreatic cancer (also called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma or PDA) in mice. Their work, published on line November 29 in the journal Cancer Cell, may help in the search for earlier detection methods and treatments.

Bethesda, MD—If you're looking to get some of the benefits of exercise without doing the work, here's some good news. A new research report published online in The FASEB Journal shows that low-intensity vibrations led to improvements in the immune function of obese mice. If the same effect can be found in people, this could have clinical benefits for obese people suffering from a wide range of immune problems related to obesity.

Bethesda, MD—Physicians may now be better at detecting breast cancer than ever before, but much more work remains to ensure accurate diagnosis is possible and especially to assess future risk. That's why researchers from Germany have been working to develop a new test of gene action to predict cancer risk both at first diagnosis and into the future.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Bacteria that cause the tick-borne disease anaplasmosis in humans create their own food supply by hijacking a process in host cells that normally should help kill the pathogenic bugs, scientists have found.

This bacterium, Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Ap), secretes a protein that can start this process. The protein binds with another protein produced by white blood cells, and that connection creates compartments that siphon host-cell nutrients to feed the bacteria, enabling their growth inside the white blood cells.

Bethesda, MD—As insects evolve to become resistant to insecticides, the need to develop new ways to control pests grows. A team of scientists from Leuven, Belgium have discovered that the sea anemone's venom harbors several toxins that promise to become a new generation of insecticides that are environmentally friendly and avoid resistance by the insects. Since these toxins disable ion channels that mediate pain and inflammation, they could also spur drug development aimed at pain, cardiac disorders, epilepsy and seizure disorders, and immunological diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

As a result of field work by associate professor James Davis Reimer and two graduate students from the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan has found two new species of encrusting anemones, or colonial zoanthids, in unexpected locations. The species belong to the genus Neozoanthus, which was previously known only from a single species in the Indian Ocean.

The wing of a fruit fly may hold the key to unraveling the genetic and molecular events that transform a normal cell into a cancerous one. The study, conducted on Drosophila melanogaster by scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and led by ICREA researcher Marco Milán, has reproduced each of the steps known to take place when a healthy cell turns cancerous. The researchers have thus provided an inexpensive and effective model that will allow the scientific community to scrutinize the genes and molecules involved in each step.