An innovative combination of two medical procedures-gene therapy and radiation therapy–can increase cancer cure rates by significant amounts compared to the cure rates offered by conventional radiation therapy alone, a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) team has concluded. The researchers presented their results last month in Montreal at the annual conference of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.
Known as genetic radiotherapy, the combined treatment can potentially inc
Why are most men taller than women? This age-old height difference persists to this day, according to research to be published in Proceedings B, a Royal Society journal, because taller than average men and shorter than average women were found to be more successful in attracting a mate and having children.
Dr Daniel Nettle of the Open University used data from 10,000 men and women born in Britain in one week in March 1958 and his study concluded that the taller the men were, the less likely
Investment from the White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund (WRTSF) – the venture capital fund owned by the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York (UK) – has funded the completion of a series of significant technical milestones in the development of a new family of `immunologically-rational` adjuvants for vaccines, which are materially very different from the existing adjuvants based on aluminium salts and bacterial cell wall components.
Sheffield-based life science company Adjuvantix Ltd is
Commercial fishing practices can reduce genetic diversity in fish populations, possibly threatening their productivity and adaptability to environmental change, new research has found.
An Australian zoologist now at the University of Melbourne, along with colleagues from the United Kingdom and New Zealand, was the first to record a decline in the genetic diversity of a commercially exploited marine species.
Their findings, published in the latest volume of the “Proceedings of the
Your outlook on life not only may help you live longer, but it appears to have an impact on your quality of life. Mayo Clinic researchers say that optimists report a higher level of physical and mental functioning than their pessimist counterparts.
“The wellness of being is not just physical, but attitudinal,” said Toshihiko Maruta, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic Department of Psychiatry and Psychology in Rochester and the principal author of the study, which appears in the August issue of Mayo C
That bar code on your cereal box holds information read by a laser scanner. It’s not much information, but it’s enough to let the supermarket take your money, keep track of inventory, follow trends in customer preference, and restock its shelves. Scanners and bar codes speed up checkout, but they’ve got a few limitations. The scanning laser needs a direct line of sight to the bar code, and the bar code itself needs to be reasonably clean and undamaged – one reason your cashier might ha
Highway columns of glass or carbon fibre help structures meet and exceed building code requirements
Just how trustworthy are disintegrating columns that bulge and expose bent, rusting steel on elevated highways? “They are sitting ducks that, in an earthquake, could crumble,” says Professor Shamim Sheikh of U of T’s Department of Civil Engineering. His team has devised a strong, cost-effective method of structural reinforcement that is already proving its worth on highways and ot
Tamarix invading the southwest
Like modern day Sherlock Holmeses, plant biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have donned their deerstalkers to get to the bottom of some botanical mysteries.
Barbara A. Schaal, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology and her graduate students use DNA sequences to reveal information on historical events. Schaal has traced the origins of cassava using molecular techniques, and now is using systematics and phylogeography to docum
Taking a closer look at matter’s blueprints with a study of the spin-structure functions of the proton and the neutron, collectively known as nucleons
Building a bridge over land or water requires careful engineering. There is the weight of passing cars and trucks to consider. Will high winds or turbulent weather threaten the structure? How deep should the concrete foundations be poured? How best to affix the steel supports? What is the ideal mix of materials for strength, durabi
Communicating with light polarization
A new and novel way of communicating over fiber optics is being developed by physicists supported by the Office of Naval Research. Rather than using the amplitude and frequency of electromagnetic waves, they’re using the polarization of the wave to carry the signal. Such a method offers a novel and elegant method of secure communication over fiber optic lines.
Electromagnetic waves, like light and radio waves, have amplitude (wave heigh
In recent years, laboratory discoveries have led to the development of new drugs designed to target and attack cancer cells, leaving healthy ones intact. One key weapon in this arsenal of new therapies is called Herceptin, a drug that is currently used to treat breast cancer and works by targeting a specific protein that controls cell growth called HER-2/neu. But despite the drug’s effectiveness, tumors shrink in only the small percentage of breast cancer patients whose cancer cells express an o
Clinical trials of a new anticancer drug combination carried out by researchers at Newcastle University show that it has potential to almost double the life expectancy of sufferers of Mesothelioma – a form of lung cancer which affects around 1,700 people in the UK every year – according to a report published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Mesothelioma is a cancer of the pleura – the membranes that lines the inside of the chest and the outside of the lungs. It differs from other types
Using photon emissions from individual molecules of silver, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created what may be the world’s smallest electroluminescent light source.
Believed to be the first demonstration of electroluminescence from individual molecules, the work could lead to new types of nanometer-scale optical interconnects, high-resolution optical microscopy, nanometer-scale lithography and other applications that require very small light sources. And becaus
Two articles in the latest issue of Critical Care reveal how intensive care therapy may be beneficial in the short but not in the long term. Being treated in intensive care units may help critically ill patients survive but the quality of life – if they survive – is often severely impaired. It is unclear whether this impairment is a complication of the illness or a complication of therapy.
Many intensive care doctors believe the battle has been won once a patient leaves the intensive care u
Researchers from the University of Chicago have identified a gene defect that causes the development of leukemia in children with Down syndrome. The discovery, scheduled for Advance Online Publication on Nature Genetics’s website on 12 August, could speed diagnosis and provide a new target for therapy.
Children with Down syndrome are 10 to 20 times as likely as unaffected children to develop leukemia. They most commonly develop a type known as acute megakaryoblastic leukemia (AMKL), wh
Study links body fat, cancer risk
Hispanic women have been known to run a lower risk of developing breast cancer than most other women, but their breast cancer rates are climbing—and increasing obesity is one factor that might be to blame.
The weight that Hispanic women gain during adulthood and their body fat may put them at greater risk for breast cancer both before and after menopause, according to researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the University of New
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