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Researchers gain new insights into potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease

It is estimated that about 35 million people worldwide currently suffer from dementia and it is expected that the number will increase to 135 million by the year 2050. The disease is already one of the most common health problems in the elderly, which is why experts predict that the numbers of people affected will increase over time.

8 Dec 2014

Subsets of cells drive spread of multiple myeloma

Although it is among the most highly metastatic of all cancers, multiple myeloma is driven to spread by only a subset of the myeloma cells within a patient's body, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found in a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

8 Dec 2014

Baylor-led researchers identify gene linked to familial glioma

An international consortium of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine has identified for the first time a gene associated with familial glioma (brain tumors that appear in two or more members of the same family) providing new support that certain people may be genetically predisposed to the disease.

8 Dec 2014

Emerging strategies to boost healthy RBCs may reduce burden of anemia linked to blood disorders

Emerging treatment approaches may reduce the burden of anemia associated with blood disorders by enhancing production of healthy red blood cells, according to data presented today at the 56th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.

7 Dec 2014

New quantum mechanical computational method attains rapid simulation of complex molecular systems

Professor Stephan Irle and Yoshio Nishimoto at the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) of Nagoya University and Dr. Dmitri Fedorov of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST, Tsukuba) have developed a novel ultrafast quantum chemical method enabling rapid simulations of molecules containing more than a million atoms without detrimental loss in accuracy.

7 Dec 2014

OIST Graduate University joins The Brain/MINDS Project in Japan

Governments the world over are now focusing their efforts in research towards mapping the brain to understand its secrets. America has The BRAIN Initiative and Europe, The Human Brain Project. Japan's counterpart is called The Brain/MINDS Project which aims to map the brain at various scales of detail and function over the next ten years. The maps that result from this research would subsequently be used for the development of neurotechnologies and for disease studies. The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University has become one of 17 institutions in Japan to be awarded a grant by the government to conduct this research.

7 Dec 2014

Researchers identify new targets for future CLL therapies

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is among the most frequent leukemias affecting adults in Western countries. It usually occurs in older patients, does not cause any symptoms for a long time and is often only discovered by accident. Despite treatment, relapses frequently occur. The immunologists Dr. Kristina Heinig and Dr. Uta Höpken (Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, MDC, Berlin-Buch) and the hematologist Dr. Armin Rehm (MDC and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin) have now discovered why this is so.

7 Dec 2014

Study reveals how elite Kenyan athletes succeed in long-distance races

The Journal of Applied Physiology has published an article by Jordan Santos-Concejero of the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences of the University of the Basque Country, and entitled `Maintained cerebral oxygenation during maximal self-paced exercise in elite Kenyan runners'. This is a pioneering study in the world of the physiology of exercise, given that it describes for the first time that elite Kenyan athletes have greater brain oxygenation during periods of maximum physical effort, and which contributes to their success in long-distance races.

7 Dec 2014

Study shows link between cardiac abnormalities, sudden unexpected death in epilepsy

Groundbreaking findings describing the link between cardiac abnormalities and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) will be presented at the American Epilepsy Society's Annual Meeting in December.

7 Dec 2014

New study explores reliability of optogenetics as method of intervention of temporal lobe seizures

Optogenetics is one of the hottest tools in biomedical research today, a method that uses gene therapy to deliver light-sensitive proteins into specific cells. This new tool allows researchers to interact with a single cell or a network of cells with exquisite precision. Whereas imaging and other technologies allow researchers to watch the brain in action, optogenetics enables them to influence those actions.

7 Dec 2014

Study provides insights into genetic underpinnings of childhood epilepsies

Technological advances in genetic analysis have uncovered changes in single genes that account for a surprising number of infantile and early-childhood epilepsies. Though some of the affected genes have been identified, the physical manifestations of these alterations remain largely uncharacterized.

7 Dec 2014

Findings may guide doctors to choose better therapies for patients with myeloma

The "molecular mail" sent by multiple myeloma cells provides clues to how well patients with the disease are likely to respond to treatment, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

7 Dec 2014

Scientists devise powerful algorithm to improve effectiveness of research technology harnessing RNAi

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have devised a powerful algorithm that improves the effectiveness of an important research technology harnessing RNA interference, or RNAi.

7 Dec 2014

Study: Key protein may help prevent tumor growth, promote wound healing

A key protein may represent a new way to use the immune system to speed healing and counter inflammatory, infectious and autoimmune diseases, according to study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the December issue of Cell Reports.

7 Dec 2014

Researchers reveal that genetic mutations may cause more cases of ALS

Genetic mutations may cause more cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than scientists previously had realized, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The scientists also showed that the number of mutated genes influences the age when the fatal paralyzing disorder first appears.

7 Dec 2014

Drugs we release into the environment significantly affect plant growth, study reveals

The drugs we release into the environment are likely to have a significant impact on plant growth, a new study has revealed.

6 Dec 2014

Scientists suspect role of mini-chromosomes in cancers, diseases caused by gene mutations

Cancers are due to genetic aberrations in certain cells that gain the ability to divide indefinitely. This proliferation of sick cells generates tumors, which gradually invade healthy tissue. Therefore, current therapies essentially seek to destroy cancer cells to stop their proliferation. Through high-throughput genetic sequencing of glioblastoma cells, one of the most deadly brain tumors, a team of geneticists from the University of Geneva's (UNIGE) Faculty of Medicine discovered that some of these mutations are caused by supplemental extrachromosomal DNA fragments, called double minutes, which enable cancer cells to better adapt to their environment and therefore better resist to treatments meant to destroy them.

6 Dec 2014

Comb-shaped polymers efficiently protect proteins in vivo

An enzyme that usually triggers strong allergic reactions now circulates in the veins of a group of mice without alerting the immune system. As INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre Professor Marc A. Gauthier explains in an article published in the journal Nature Communications, a polymer was used to camouflage the enzyme before it was injected into the rodents. This was achieved by coating the enzyme to avoid an immune response in a manner that does not compromise its activity.

6 Dec 2014

Study suggests Golgi as potential drug target for Alzheimer's treatment

Alzheimer's disease (AD) progresses inside the brain in a rising storm of cellular chaos as deposits of the toxic protein, amyloid-beta (Aβ), overwhelm neurons. An apparent side effect of accumulating Aβ in neurons is the fragmentation of the Golgi apparatus, the part of the cell involved in packaging and sorting protein cargo including the precursor of Aβ. But is the destruction the Golgi a kind of collateral damage from the Aβ storm or is the loss of Golgi function itself part of the driving force behind Alzheimer's? This was the question for Yanzhuang Wang, Gunjan Joshi, and colleagues at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as they set out to uncover the mechanism damaging the Golgi, using a transgenic mouse and tissue culture models of AD to look at what was going on.

6 Dec 2014

Genetics may play major role in Lou Gehrig's disease, study reveals

Genetics may play a larger role in causing Lou Gehrig's disease than previously believed, potentially accounting for more than one-third of all cases, according to one of the most comprehensive genetic studies to date of patients who suffer from the condition also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

6 Dec 2014