Medical Research News

RSS

New high-throughput screening technique makes probing puzzling proteins possible

Understanding the tens of thousands of proteins that compose the human proteome has emerged as a key challenge of this century, and research efforts to date have already enabled major advances in drug discovery and understanding basic biology.

29 Mar 2009

Researchers discover and manipulate molecular interplay that moves cancer cells

Based on research that reveals new insight into mechanisms that allow invasive tumor cells to move, researchers at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida have a new understanding about how to stop cancer from spreading.

29 Mar 2009

Improved predictive value of biomarkers in HF makes earlier diagnosis and better management possible

With an ever ageing population and more people surviving a heart attack, heart failure is now the world's most prevalent chronic cardiovascular disease.

29 Mar 2009

Improved predictive value of biomarkers in heart failure now makes earlier diagnosis and better management possible

With an ever ageing population and more people surviving a heart attack, heart failure is now the world's most prevalent chronic cardiovascular disease.

29 Mar 2009

High dosage brachytherapy obtains excellent results in head and neck tumors

High-dosage perioperative brachytherapy (applied within the surgical process) obtains excellent results in the treatment of head and neck tumours, at the same time as reducing the period of radiation.

29 Mar 2009

Discovery of new cancer gene

Researchers have identified a new cancer gene - one that is common to many cancers and affects the most basic regulation of our genes.

29 Mar 2009

Enzyme and vitamin define the yin and yang of asthma

The allergen breathed in by a person with asthma triggers a proteinase or enzyme called MMP7 that activates a cascade of events to prompt an allergic reaction, said a consortium of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in a report that appears online in the journal Nature Immunology.

29 Mar 2009

Discovery of tuberculosis bacterium enzyme paves way for new TB drugs

A team of University of Maryland scientists has paved the way for the development of new drug therapies to combat active and asymptomatic (latent) tuberculosis infections by characterizing the unique structure and mechanism of an enzyme in M. tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes the disease.

29 Mar 2009

How fat is stored may explain lower rate of liver disease in African-Americans

Where different ethnic groups store fat in their bodies may account for differences in the likelihood they'll develop insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

29 Mar 2009

Action video games improve real-world vision

Video games that involve high levels of action, such as first-person-shooter games, increase a player's real-world vision, according to research in today's Nature Neuroscience.

29 Mar 2009

'Gene hunters' find two new breast cancer genes

Cancer Research UK scientists have found two new regions of the genome that alter a woman's risk of breast cancer, according to a study in Nature Genetics.

29 Mar 2009

Difference in fat storage may explain lower rate of liver disease in African-Americans

29 Mar 2009

Discovery of protein that reactivates latent herpes simplex virus

Research in Public Library of Science (PLoS) Pathogens appears to solve a long standing medical mystery by identifying a viral protein, VP16, as the molecular key that prompts herpes simplex virus (HSV) to exit latency and cause recurrent disease.

29 Mar 2009

High prevalence of infection with three recently discovered human polyomaviruses

A majority of the human population has been exposed to newly discovered KI (KIV), WU (WUV), and Merkel cell (MCV) human polyomaviruses, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado.

29 Mar 2009

How our brain performs facial recognition

Our brain extracts important information for face recognition principally from the eyes, and secondly from the mouth and nose, according to a new study from a researcher at the University of Barcelona.

29 Mar 2009

Drinking very hot tea increases risk of cancer of the oesophagus

People are advised to wait a few minutes before drinking a cup of freshly-boiled tea today as a new study, published on bmj.com, finds that drinking very hot tea (70°C or more) can increase the risk of cancer of the oesophagus, the muscular tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach.

29 Mar 2009

Vindictiveness doesn't pay

Vindictiveness doesn't pay. This has been demonstrated by a current study at Bonn and Maastricht Universities.

29 Mar 2009

Scientists create vector, exotic genes from induced stem cells

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers reports that it has created induced human pluripotent stem (iPS) cells completely free of viral vectors and exotic genes.

29 Mar 2009

Researchers reveal mechanism that regulates cancer-causing gene

Two University of Rhode Island scientists have revealed how a cancer causing protein is regulated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) -- a type of stress signal.

29 Mar 2009

New discovery could lead to new methods to block the transmission of HIV

A team of researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the UC Davis Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology have for the first time captured on video the transfer of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from infected to uninfected T cells through structures called virological synapses.

29 Mar 2009