Tech

Flu vaccines can be something of a shot in the dark. Not only must they be given yearly, there's no guarantee the strains against which they protect will be the ones circulating once the season arrives.

New research by Rockefeller University scientists and their colleagues suggests it may be possible to harness a previously unknown mechanism within the immune system to create more effective and efficient vaccines against this ever-mutating virus.

A therapy that replaces the faulty gene responsible for cystic fibrosis in patients' lungs has produced encouraging results in a major UK trial.

One hundred and thirty six patients aged 12 and over received monthly doses of either the therapy or the placebo for one year.

The clinical trial reached its primary endpoint with patients who received therapy having a significant, if modest benefit in lung function compared with those receiving a placebo.

A team of bioengineers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), led by Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, and Nasim Annabi, PhD, of the Biomedical Engineering Division, has developed a new protein-based gel that, when exposed to light, mimics many of the properties of elastic tissue, such as skin and blood vessels. In a paper published in Advanced Functional Materials, the research team reports on the new material's key properties, many of which can be finely tuned, and on the results of using the material in preclinical models of wound healing.

A new method for calculating the exact time of death, even after as much as 10 days, has been developed by a group of researchers at the University of Salzburg.

Currently, there are no reliable ways to determine the time since death after approximately 36 hours. Initial results suggest that this method can be applied in forensics to estimate the time elapsed since death in humans.

Pharma Two B Ltd. has announced the successful results of the company's Phase IIb pivotal study of P2B001 for the treatment of early stage Parkinson's Disease (PD).

Only 43 percent of people surveyed understood the definition of sun factor protection (SPF) and only seven percent knew what to look for on a label if they wanted a sunscreen that offers protection against early skin aging.

Details of the study were published Wednesday, June 17, in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

Augmented-reality head-up displays (AR-HUDs) that present digital images on windshields to alert drivers to everything from possible collisions to smart phone activity, are meant to make driving safer. But University of Toronto researchers say they are a threat to safety.

A new test can accurately predict within minutes if an individual has Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), according to new research published in The Lancet. The study is the first to show that a point-of-care EVD test (ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test; Corgenix) is faster than and as sensitive as a conventional laboratory-based molecular method used for clinical testing during the recent outbreak in Sierra Leone.

A "nuisance" is probably one of the nicest things people call mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes have been called the deadliest animal on the planet, because of the diseases they spread. So why would researchers want to develop an artificial buffet for them? The answer is simple. That "buffet" may lead to fewer mosquitoes. Stephen Dobson, a University of Kentucky professor of medical and veterinary entomology, believes his mosquito food can do just that. Others believe there's promise too.

Are renewables pushing up the cost of electricity? That’s the claim made by Alan Moran in an opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review this week.

Use of reinforced ring is small but noteworthy advance for those with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, according to reports in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery

A rigorous analysis of more than 20,000 medical records concludes that erectile dysfunction drugs, such as Viagra, are not a cause of melanoma, an often deadly form of skin cancer, despite the higher risk for the disease among users of these drugs. A detailed report on the research findings is to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association online June 23.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have successfully stopped cocaine and alcohol addiction in experiments using a drug already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat high blood pressure. If the treatment is proven effective in humans, it would be the first of its kind -- one that could help prevent relapses by erasing the unconscious memories that underlie addiction.

The research is published this week in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Chemists and biologists at UC San Diego have succeeded in designing and synthesizing an artificial cell membrane capable of sustaining continual growth, just like a living cell.

Their achievement, detailed in a paper published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will allow scientists to more accurately replicate the behavior of living cell membranes, which until now have been modeled only by synthetic cell membranes without the ability to add new phospholipids.

Children are more likely to have a repeat, delayed anaphylactic reaction from the same allergic cause, depending on the severity of the initial reaction. The first pediatric study to look at the predictors for this phenomenon was published today in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.