University of Maryland study may change traditional thinking about offering kidney transplants to dialysis patients whose hearts do not pump effectively
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say that contrary to conventional thinking, a kidney transplant can significantly improve the heart function of people on dialysis with a serious form of heart failure. In a study published in the April 5, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the res
Obtaining a genetic picture of how a tumor will react to the many treatment techniques available could help doctors prescribe therapies customized for individual cancer patients’ needs, suggests a Purdue University research team.
A group of scientists including Jian-Jian “J.J.” Li has found a trio of proteins often present in cancer cells that protect the tumor from destruction by radiotherapy. Because no single protein in the group is responsible for keeping the cancer aliv
Engineers at Purdue University have developed a technique that could result in more accurate “ultra-wideband” radio signals for ground-penetrating radar, radio communications and imaging systems designed to see through walls.
The researchers first create laser pulses with specific “shapes,” which precisely characterize the changing intensity of light from the beginning to end of each pulse. The pulses are then converted into electrical signals for various applications.
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Thanks to observations from the ground and satellites in space, scientists know that the North and South Poles light up at night with Auroras because a “solar wind” of electrified gas continually flows outward from the sun at high speed in all directions, including toward the Earth. Recently, however, NASA and university scientists looking at the Earth’s northern and southern auroras were surprised to find they aren’t mirror images of each other, as was once thought.
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Despite the divergent evolutionary paths of dolphins and primates — and their vastly different brains — both have developed similar high-level cognitive abilities, says Emory University neuroscientist and behavioral biologist Lori Marino. She presented her latest findings on the evolution of and differences in brain structure between cetaceans (ocean mammals like whales and dolphins) and primates April 5 during the 14th annual Experimental Biology 2005 meeting in San Diego.
Marino&#
Scientists at the Yale School of Medicine identified a molecule in osteoclasts, IRAK-M, that is a key regulator of the loss of bone mass.
Osteoclasts are cells that play a major role in the development and remodeling of bone. They originate from the fusion of macrophages and are important mediators of the loss of bone mass that leads to osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a serious problem worldwide: it is characterized by loss of bone density leading to fractures in response t
Three University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston faculty members are co-authors of an article in the April 6 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. The article reports study results suggesting older, cheaper diuretics remain the drug of choice for both black and non-black patients in treating high blood pressure and reducing risk of heart disease.
The analysis by race of the “Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial”
Melanoma is a particularly deadly form of skin cancer very resistant to treatment. Researchers at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute and the University of South Florida are testing a promising new therapy that prompts the immune system to aid in the fight against melanoma tumors.
“This is a milestone clinical trial because it is the first time that electroporation is being used to deliver plasmid DNA in a gene therapy study in humans,” said Richard Heller, PhD, USF p
Non-Invasive and Safe, a New USC System Images and Differentiates Soft Tissue With Unprecedented Detail and Precision
Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering have successfully demonstrated a novel “High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography” (HUTT) system fthat offers 3D images of soft tissue that are superior to those produced by existing commercial X-ray, ultrasound or MRI units.
Vasilis Marmarelis, a professor of biomedi
The NASA-led Swift mission has measured the distance to two gamma-ray bursts — back to back, from opposite parts of the sky — and both were from over nine billion light years away, unleashed billions of years before the Sun and Earth formed.
These achievements are the mission’s first direct distance, or redshift, measurements, its latest milestone since the Swift satellite’s launch in November 2004. The distances were attained with Swift’s Ultraviolet/OpticalTelesco
The multiple “litter” births of mice, versus the normal singleton pregnancy of humans, is due to defective processing in mice of a common mammalian protein called bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP-15), according to new study by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine researchers.
Published online the week of April 4, 2005 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and appearing in the journal’s April 12, 2005 print edition, the study provides one
Link suggests news ways of thinking about tumor growth and inflammation
Johns Hopkins researchers have found that two genes already known to control cell movement are also needed for proper cell division. They report their findings in the April issue of Developmental Cell.
The researchers discovered that the two genes are required for a dividing cell’s halves to separate, raising the possibility that interfering with them could be helpful in stopping the uncontrolled
Psychiatrists are doing a “modest” job of monitoring for weight gain, diabetes and other metabolic problems that may result from use of the newer antipsychotics for schizophrenia, researchers say.
Nearly all of the 258 members of the American Psychiatric Association in Georgia, Ohio and Iowa responding to a survey said they considered metabolic side effects serious or very serious, say researchers from the Medical College of Georgia, University of Iowa and Northcoast Behavioral
Carbon exists in many forms in the air, soil, and water, and is an integral part of most living organisms. In a recent study, Stuart Findlay (Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York) discovered changes in the amount of carbon in the Hudson River. Exactly why the amounts changed, and what’s causing these changes, remains a mystery.
In “Increased carbon transport in the Hudson River: unexpected consequence of nitrogen deposition?” published in the April issue of Fronti
New mothers who are mildly iron deficient — a common result of childbirth among women who don’t take their vitamins — are less emotionally available or in tune with their babies, a Penn State study has shown.
Dr. Laura Murray-Kolb, a National Institute of Mental Health post-doctoral fellow in child development at Penn State who led the study says, “Earlier research had shown that anemic women may experience post-partum depression and that women with moderate iron deficiency h
Two University of Kentucky researchers continue their work with a vaccine to prevent lung cancer recurrences in patients following primary treatment of the disease.
Vaccines are being developed with the hope of reducing the unacceptably high rates of recurrence and disease progression seen in the treated lung cancer population. The cancer vaccine program is now enrolling a second cohort of subjects to study the effects of the vaccine in lung cancer patients. The vaccine is deliver
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