Tech

Men who went on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs when they began androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer had a longer time in which their disease was under control than did men who didn't take statins, a clinical trial led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators shows.

Imagine taking strands of DNA - the material in our cells that determines how we look and function - and using it to build tiny structures that can deliver drugs to targets within the body or take electronic miniaturization to a whole new level.

An X-ray study carried out at DESY allows to improve the quality of chocolate. The study offers new insights into the formation of fat bloom, an unwelcome white layer that occasionally forms on chocolate. "Although fat blooming is perfectly harmless, it causes millions in damage to the food industry as a result of rejects and customer complaints," explains the main author of the study, Svenja Reinke, from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH).

Scientists at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and China have described the surprising discovery and function of a new DNA modification in insects, worms, and algae.

Common DNA modifications occur through methylation, a chemical process that can dramatically change gene expression, which regulates the eventual production of proteins that carry out the functions of an organism. It's all part of a growing new subfield of epigenetics being pioneered by the University of Chicago's Chuan He and his collaborators.

Researchers have found a way to make jet fuel from a common black fungus found in decaying leaves, soil and rotting fruit. The researchers hope the process leads to economically viable production of aviation biofuels in the next five years. They used Aspergillus carbonarius to create hydrocarbons, the chief component of petroleum, similar to those in aviation fuels.

There is conflicting evidence about whether digoxin, a drug that has been used worldwide for centuries to treat heart disease, might contribute to an increase in deaths in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) or congestive heart failure (CHF). Now, the largest review of all the evidence to date shows that it is associated with an increased risk of death in these patients, particularly in those being treated for AF.

Researchers at the Babraham Institute and the Francis Crick Institute have developed and used a new technique to join the dots in the genomic puzzle. Just as a dot to dot puzzle needs to be completed to visualise the full picture, the researchers' analysis connected regulatory elements called promoters and enhancers and showed their physical interactions over long distances within the mouse and human genomes. The ability to map promoter-enhancer interactions in the human genome has huge potential in understanding the genetic basis of disease.

A group of Cambridge computer scientists have set a new gold standard for openness and reproducibility in research by sharing the more than 200GB of data and 20,000 lines of code behind their latest results - an unprecedented degree of openness in a peer-reviewed publication. The researchers hope that this new gold standard will be adopted by other fields, increasing the reliability of research results, especially for work which is publicly funded.

A University of Cincinnati (UC)-led research team has found that generic formulations of tacrolimus, a drug used post-transplant to lower the risk of organ rejection, are just as good as the name-brand version. The findings were presented Sunday, May 3, by lead investigator Rita Alloway, PharmD, UC research professor of medicine and director of transplant clinical research within the UC Department of Internal Medicine, and her study collaborators at the 2015 American Transplant Congress annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Obesity is everywhere so it's not really a surprise that targeted obesity would become a cosmetic competitive advantage, or that cosmetic surgeons would develop best practices to satisfy that demand.

Bats are masters of flight in the night sky, capable of steep nosedives and sharp turns that put our best aircrafts to shame. Although the role of echolocation in bats' impressive midair maneuvering has been extensively studied, the contribution of touch has been largely overlooked. A study published April 30 in Cell Reports shows, for the first time, that a unique array of sensory receptors in the wing provides feedback to a bat during flight.

Consumers can reduce the risk of Campylobacter food poisoning by up to 99.2% by using disinfectant wipes in the kitchen after preparing poultry, according to research in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

Recent evidence demonstrating the feasibility of using novel CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology to make targeted changes in the DNA of human embryos is forcing researchers, clinicians, and ethicists to revisit the highly controversial issue of altering the inherited human genome. A provocative Editorial exploring the current technical limitations, safety concerns, and moral acceptability of therapeutic germline gene editing is published in Human Gene Therapy.

When the common chemotherapy drugs cisplatin or oxaliplatin hit cancer cells, they damage DNA so that the cells can't replicate. But the cells have ways to repair the DNA. The cancer drugs aren't as effective as patients need. Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a method for finding where this DNA repair happens throughout all of human DNA.

Genome editing using CRISPR/Cas system has enabled direct modification of the mouse genome in fertilized mouse eggs, leading to rapid, convenient, and efficient one-step production of knockout mice without embryonic stem cells. In contrast to the ease of targeted gene deletion, the complementary application, called targeted gene cassette insertion or knock-in, in fertilized mouse eggs by CRISPR/Cas mediated genome editing still remains a tough challenge.